Displaying a running total grade in Brightspace
About this article
This article includes instructions for configuring a Brightspace grade book to display an automatically updated or running total in the Calculated Final Grade column. It is intended for instructors.
Overview
Many instructors use their Brightspace grade books to provide their students with access to their scores on individual quizzes, exams, and assignments. It can also be helpful to provide cumulative feedback as your course progresses by configuring the existing Calculated Final Grade column to display an automatically-updated running total across all graded items.
Creating a running total
Step 1: Configure your grade book settings
Use the following steps to set your Calculated Final Grade column to display a running total, dropping all ungraded items:
- From your Brightspace course homepage, select the Assessments menu and then select Grades to open your grade book
- Select the Settings icon in the upper right corner of your grade book
- Select the Calculations tab
- Under Release, check Calculated Final Grade (you cannot configure the Adjusted Final Grade column to display a running total), under Ungraded Items, select Drop ungraded items, and under Auto Update, check the Automatically keep final grades updated checkbox (Fig 1)
- Select Save
Step 2: Adjust what's displayed in the grade book
The value now listed in the Calculated Final Grade column defaults to the display options you selected in your general grade book settings. You can override these default settings if you wish. For example, your default settings may suppress the display of a letter grade, but you might want students to see their running letter grade along with their running point total in the Calculated Final Grade column only.
Step 3: Release the running total
When you configure your Calculated Final Grade column to display a running total, you will be able to see the values, but your students will not. By default, the final grade values are not released to students. This is indicated by the eyeball with a line through it icon (Fig 2) next to each value in the column. You must release these final grades before students will be able to see them. Once the final grades are released, this will be indicated by an eyeball without a line through it icon (Fig 3).