The gradebook keeps track of all assignments and assessments you have entered through SIS, and the grades they have earned. You can make comments on the students' assignments and assessments. You can publish grades and comments so that students can see not only day to day scores, but their overall average. At the end of each term, SIS can calculate each student's grade and automatically enter it into the report card. (You have the ability to adjust grades.)
Setting up your Gradebook
You must first set up your gradebook to calculate grades according to the percentage weights you have set out in your syllabus.
When you first open your Gradebook, a menubar as above is displayed, with your roster of students listed below. The menubar allows you to navigate between classes and trimesters using the Change Class/Term pulldown menu on the right. You can also add assignments and run certain grade reports from this menu.
Display Options has three categories of adjustments that can be made: Sort Order, Display Options, and Access. (This is new as of 2017-8)
- In Sort Order you adjust how assignments and student names are organized as you look at them in your gradebook. You can arrange assignments by date (due or assigned) or by type.
- In Display Options you can, among other things, 1) change the date range to display, 2) have the column heading be the abbreviation (10-character max) OR the assignment title, or 3) show or hide students' averages. NOTE: You have the option to display the students' cumulative year grade. If you choose to do this, know that THIS GRADE IS NOT AN AVERAGE OF THE THREE TERMS. If at the end of the year you want each term weighted equally in the final grade, you should not choose to display this grade.
- In Access you designate who has access to your students' grades: the advisor, all advisors, and the student. Burke policy is to publish the gradebook to all three groups. Please talk to Nigel, Monica, or David if you have a question about this policy.
Edit Setup is where you set up SIS to calculate grades according to your syllabus. See step by step instructions below based on this illustration. The 2017-18 update looks only slightly different.
1. "Setup by:" You must set this before you add any assignments. You can't change it once you add assignments. Generally, for either a year-long course or a trimester course, click "Year" in the "Setup by:" area. The only time you might need "Marking Period" would be if you will grade differently from one term to the next. The screenshot above shows the year long setup. The Marking Period setup has the same input areas, but you will have to set up each trimester individually.
2. Ignore #2 in the screenshot above.
3. In "Calculation Method" use the drop down menu to indicate whether grades will be counted by percentage (all quizzes, for example, count the same no matter how many points) or by total points (a 100-point quiz will be worth twice as much as a 50-point quiz, for example), or total points with weight.
∏. Next to "Calculation Method" click on the box labeled "Select Assignment types." In the resulting screen check the boxes for the types of assignments that you will give to your students.
4. The Letter Grade Scale drop down menu has three options. ALWAYS leave it blank.
5. After step 3, the types of assignments that will count as part of your grade should be listed under "Assignment Types." Use the "Weight (%)" column to indicate how much each assignment type will count in your grading system. After you click "Save" at the top of the page, SIS will calculate the total percentage at the bottom of the column. (It should be 100%, of course).
In the example above, Quizzes are worth 85%, Homework is 15%, and Classwork would not be counted in the grade.
6. You can have SIS automatically drop a certain number of your students' lowest scores.
7. Use "Default Max Points" if you regularly assign a certain number of points to your assignment types. In the example above, the course usually has quizzes out of 100 points and home work assignments out of 5. Numbers placed here appear automatically in the Max Points box when you make your assignments. Note do not set the max to zero. That will probably cause errors in the calculations.
8. You can apply the same grading standards to other classes by checking the appropriate boxes at the bottom of the page.
Be sure to save when you are done. Now your gradebook is set up.
Updated: 8/23/2017
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