Grading is an opportunity to provide students with the targeted feedback they need on how well they are meeting course objectives so that they can assess their own strengths and weaknesses and take agency in the learning process. Frequent, timely, and consistent feedback that is directly and transparently linked to learning objectives provides students with the information they need to adjust their study practices and their conceptual frameworks. Whether feedback is given in the form of numeric grade, a rubric, or verbally through text, audio or video comments, it is crucial to the learning process.

This unit will guide you through the essentials of grading in Brightspace, ensuring a fair and transparent assessment process for all students.

Glossary

Quick Tips

How to

Grade from Quick Eval

The Quick Eval widget allows for quick access in one centralized location to everything that is ready to grade for a single course or across courses and activities.

Access the Quick Eval tool

Option A: Quick Eval Widget

  • Locate the Quick Eval Widget on the course home page or your Brightspace dashboard (locations may vary).
  • Click on View All Activities to enter.
  • From within Quick Eval, click on Multi-Course Quick Eval to see all submissions across the course you are teaching.

Option B: From the Navbar

  • From the college homepage, instructors have a direct link to Quick Eval on the navbar.
  • From within a course, click on Tools in the top navbar to see Quick Eval in the drop-down menu.

Option C: From the Course Admin Panel

  • Click on Tools in the top navbar.
  • Select Course Admin.
  • Click on the Name tab to sort alphabetically.
  • Select Quick Eval from the list.

Note: If you are filtering Brightspace tools by category, the Quick Eval tool is located under Assessment.

View Quick Eval by submission

The submissions view presents an exhaustive list of everything that needs to be graded including submissions made to Assignments, Quizzes, and Discussions. You can sort submissions by first or last name, Activity Name, Course Name, or Submission date. This view is useful for looking up a specific student’s work.

  • Click on the Submissions button at the top.
View Quick Eval by activity

This view provides a list of courses with their corresponding graded activities. Activities provides a pre-sorted list of all required assessments for an assignment, discussion, or quiz. It displays learners’ submissions and the instructor progress on evaluations and publishing feedback to learners. This view makes it easy to complete grading for one activity before moving on to the next.

  • Click on the Activities button at the top.

Grade from Assessment Tools

You can grade individual assessments (like assignments, quizzes, discussions, etc.) by accessing each tool from the top navbar or from Course Admin panel.

Grade Discussions
  • Click on the Discussions link on the top navbar.
  • Click on the Discussions List tab.
  • Locate the Discussion Topic you wish to grade.
  • Click on the arrow next to the Discussion Topic title.
  • Select Assess topic from the dropdown menu.
  • Click on the Topic Score.
  • In the grading panel on the right of the screen, if there is a rubric attached, click on its title to expand it.
  • Rubric criteria are displayed as scales. Click into a cell on the scale to see the proficiency level definition.
  • Click on Add Feedback under the scale to expand the comment box for the criterion.
  • Provide a proficiency level for each criterion and optionally provide targeted feedback for each. The rubric total score will automatically transfer to the Overall Grade box.
  • If not grading with a rubric, type the grade in the Overall Grade box. You may also override the automatically calculated rubric grade.
  • Add your comments to the Overall Feedback field. You can upload files, link to other course items, or use the audio or video feedback options.
  • Either click Publish to release the feedback immediately or click Save Draft to save feedback and release it later, for example after you’ve drafted grades for all student posts to this topic.

Grade Assignments
  • Click on the Activities link on the top navbar and then click on Assignments.
  • Locate the assignment that you wish to grade in the list.
  • Click on the chevron next to the assignment name. 
  • Select View Submissions.
  • Click on the student submission file.
  • The submission grading view displays the document along with markup options in the top menu.
  • If you are using a rubric, click the name of the rubric to expand it.
  • Select the proficiency levels for each criterion by clicking a cell in the scale.
  • Add feedback for each criterion as appropriate.
  • If using a rubric, the total rubric grade will automatically appear in the Overall Grade box, where you can override as necessary.
  • If not using a rubric, enter the grade in the box under the Overall Grade section.
  • Type in feedback in the box under Overall Feedback.
  • You can also attach files to your feedback and record audio or visual feedback in the section below.
  • Click on Publish to release the grade immediately, or click on Save Draft to publish the grade later (for example, if you wish to release all student grades for the assignment at the same time).
Grade Quizzes
  • Click on the Activities link on the top navbar and then click on Quizzes.
  • Locate the quiz that you wish to grade in the list.
  • Click on the chevron next to the quiz name.
  • Select the Grade option.

Grade from the Grade Book

The grade book interface displays a comprehensive list of students alongside their respective assignments, quizzes, and other gradable items. This is the place where instructors can view, enter, and edit individual student grades and overall class performance in addition to calculating the final grade and allowing extra credit, among other things.

Access the Grade Book

Option A

  • Click on the Grades link from the top navbar.

Option B

  • Click on the Tools link from the top navbar.
  • Select Course Admin from the dropdown menu.
  • Select the Name tab to sort alphabetically.
  • Click on Grades. 

Note: If you choose to filter Brightspace tools using the Category tab, you will find the grades tool located within the ‘Assessment’ category.

Access student submissions
  • From the Grade Book, select the Enter Grades tab.

The ‘document in inbox’ icon indicates that a student submitted an assignment into Brightspace, and the submission is pending instructor’s grade.

The speech bubble icon indicates that a student posted in a discussion topic. Click on the icon to open student submission.

The question mark icon indicates that a student submitted a quiz into Brightspace. Click on the icon to open student submission.

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