A. Using the NavBar to Locate the Grades Tool
Revision note: this was last revised January 13, 2023 for a live tutorial with Pima's Teaching & Learning Center. To learn more about the Grades tool, visit the PimaOnline Faculty Guide and use the global search button in the upper right corner to search the term "Grades." Alternately, reach out directly to the Faculty Services & Resource Centers and schedule a one-to-one meeting.
For a better viewing experience, we recommend creating a D2L gradebook using a computer rather than a phone or tablet.
Use as you View: To best utilize this knowledge base article we've created here at Pima, we recommend viewing this tutorial (or any related video) on a second screen, and creating your own gradebook a first screen at the same time. Alternately, you can either switch between tabs using a computer shortcut (e.g. Alt-Tab on a PC, or Command-Tab on a Mac), or you if you are using a very large desktop monitor, you could set your work on one side and this article/video on the other.
- From your desktop computer, open the course you are teaching in D2L Brightspace.
- At the top of your course homepage, find Pima's drop-down menu (i.e. D2L's NavBar). On a computer, this displays horizontally. On a hand-held device, this may display as an icon with three horizontal lines in the upper left corner of your device (i.e. a "hamburger" icon).
If you have used D2L Brightspace to teach outside of Pima, you may notice that Pima uses a unique, custom NavBar. For example, as of January of 2023, our NavBar items include: Content, Calendar, Assessments, Course Resources and Help. We keep this the same for all classes in order to ensure a consistent student experience. Most other aspects of D2L will be entirely consistent with other colleges and universities.
- If your course has no predesigned gradebook items, by clicking on "Grades," you will arrive at the "Grades Setup Wizard" sub-tab.
If you are teaching from a course that is predesigned (i.e. it has been cloned from what has been called a course "master"), you may instead end up at the "Enter Grades" or "Manage Grades" subtab. If so, scroll further down to learn how to use the "Manage Grades" sub-tab to create new grade categories and items.
B. Running D2L's "Grades Setup Wizard"
If your course has no predesigned gradebook items, by selecting "Grades," you will have arrived at the "Grades Setup Wizard" which is one of four sub-tabs for the Grades tool. If your course already has gradebook items, you may arrive at the "Manage Grades" subtab. If so, scroll further below to learn how to use that tab to create grade items and categories.
- Scroll down to the bottom of the page, and select the blue "Start" button to begin.
The "Grades Setup Wizard" opening page provides a preview of all default settings at Pima Community College. As the wizard progress, you can change most of these settings as needed.
- After starting D2L's wizard, Step 1 will be to Choose your Grading System. At this point, notice that "Points" is the preselected, default. Here, simply change the preselected default setting to "Weighted."
By default, Pima's gradebook type is set to "Points". If you prefer to use a percents-based gradebook (which is called a "Weighted" gradebook in D2L), please refer to the instructions on the "Creating a Gradebook with a Points-Based Configuration" screensteps.
Note that we do not recommend using the "Formula" option as it can be complex for both students and instructors.
- Scroll down to the bottom of the page, and select the blue "Continue" button.
If you encounter any difficulties at this stage, you can access the "help" button located in the upper right corner (indicated by a gray question mark after "Weighted" or "Points"). This button provides an overview of the latest guidance on how to use this tool.
a. For D2L's remaining steps, we recommend the easy, fast default. Simply select the blue "Continue" button at the bottom of each remaining page until you have reached the final page of the wizard. On that page, you will instead select the blue "Finish" button at the bottom of the page.
Advanced Notes on all remaining Setup Wizard "steps":
- Step 2 of 7: Final Grade Released. At Pima, Step 2 defaults to: 1) release the "Calculated Final Grade" and 2) "automatically release the final grade." The "Calculated Final Grade" is D2L's terms for each student's current overall grade.
- Step 3 of 7: Grade Calculations. At Pima, Step 3 defaults to "Drop ungraded items" rather than "treat ungraded items as 0." We also check the box which automatically keeps the final grade updated. This setting ensures that the current grade is more likely to be up to date, reflecting any zeros the instructor has submitted for work that was not submitted.
- Step 4: Choose Default Grade Scheme. This automatically defaults at Pima to the current, common A-B-C-D-F grading percentages used at most universities (e.g. 90 percent or greater is an A). This scheme is adjusted by some departments to support alternate percentage ranges, labor-based grading, etc.).
- Step 5 of 7: This defaults to two decimal places.
- Step 6 of 7: This defaults to include student visibility for their: 1) points grade; 2) grade scheme symbol; and, 3) grade scheme color - which can make it easier for students to review color-coded areas that need improvement (i.e it incorporates conditional formatting based on grade item scores). For this item, the "Display Final Grade Calculation to Users" is not selected by default at Pima. As noted by D2L, "This setting determines whether users can see how their final grade was calculated in the student view of Grades."
- Step 7 of 7: Grades Setup Summary. This simply summarizes all settings of your gradebook. Users click Finish on this page to complete the setup.
Bravo! You've configured your gradebook.
a. You will now see new options displayed on the "Setup Wizard" tab, accompanied by a message from D2L that may say something like, "You are now ready to create grade items and categories." In the next section of this tutorial, we will dive in.
On Pima Community College's Approach to Consistent, Transparent Assessment within D2L Brightspace
Pima's default settings for the D2L Brightspace grades tool aims to:
- Support students in self-regulated learning by promoting live gradebooks.
- Provide a consistent navigational layout so that all students can easily find their latest grades and feedback.
- Provide students with transparent grading practices, including clear visibility of their current cumulative grade (i.e. what D2L calls the "Final Calculated Grade."
- Help students see that they are starting the class with 100% - rather than needing to work their way up from having zero up in the course.
Pedagogy Note on Instructor Flexibility:
Some instructors, in an effort to be flexible to student needs, send direct notes to students relating to the grades entered for non-submitted work. Such notes can explain to students how to submit late work - and that each grade, and the overall cumulative grade, will increase if late work is submitted by a particular date. Some instructors describe these zero's to students as merely "placeholder-grades" which are used to ensure the current overall grade reflects the work completed in the class.
Please keep in mind that other colleges you may teach at (like the University of Arizona) may have different default settings that do not enable students to automatically view their current cumulative grade. In such circumstances, the gradebook will display this item, called "Final Calculated Grade" with a closed-eye icon.
If you find closed-eye icons next to any students "Final Calculated Grade," an error has emerged in your gradebook visibility. To change all closed-eye icons to open-eyed icons for this class (i.e. what D2L refers to as "releasing" the grade item, you will need to follow a complex, two step process: 1) ensuring the "Final calculated grade" is selected in the Gradebook settings; and, 2) locating that Final Calculated Grade item within the Grades tool, clicking the drop-down caret beside that item, choosing "enter grades," and then selecting "Release All." This process is further described at the University of Arizona's Configure Your Gradebook page.
C. Reviewing Your Syllabus
a. Take a moment to review what your students will expect for this class by reviewing the Sylabus that you have uploaded to your D2L course shell.
b. Make note of all specific notes shared as it relates to how you are assessing learning in this class. If your syllabus includes a listing of all grade items by type (e.g. Quizzes, Assignments, Discussions, Projects), jot how many of each item and how much each is worth. This will help your gradebook creation be a quick, smooth process.
If your syllabus includes points instead of percentages, and you intend to use a "weighted" gradebook, make sure to explain how you approach grades to your students so that it is very clear.
D. Creating Gradebook Categories
a. Select "Create a New Grade Category" from the Setup Wizard page.
If you've already created a category item, you can create all future categories or items from the "Manage Grades" sub-tab.
a. Include a Name for that category (e.g. Discussions or Quizzes). In the example below, we have named the category "Discussions."
b. Include a Short Name (i.e. and abbreviation to make it easier to view your gradebook). This is optional. In this example, we have named it "Ds".
To populate your gradebook, we recommend beginning with grade "Categories" to help "chunk" your gradebook into sections. These categories might be activity types (e.g. quizzes, discussions, assignments, projects, reflections) or other sequential categories (e.g. Unit 1, Unit 2). Each "Category" can serve as a folder to house all other grade items - and we do recommend all grade items being housed within a category / folder. For a review, visit Create Your Gradebook at the University of Arizona.
a. For basic points-based gradebooks, we recommend scrolling past all default settings and choosing one of the "Save" options.
b. Use "Save and New" to create each new category.
c. Use "Save and Close" when you are creating your final category.
Unlike the points-based gradebook, Category folders within the weighted gradebook need to be assigned a weight percentage. For example, if you include discussions in your course, what percent of the overall grade will your projects be worth? If that's 25 percent, write "25" in the weight column.
a. With weighted gradebooks, if you anticipate all activities within a category might have the same value, we recommend checking the "Distribute weight by points across all items" box.
If you aim to allow students to drop one or more of the lowest grade items within a category (e.g. their lowest quiz scores), make sure to use these boxes to reflect the practice - and most importantly, make sure to communicate to your students this approach so the gradebook doesn't bring them confusion.
b. Then scroll down and select the blue "Save and Close" button.
Please note that if you've only created one category, you will need a D2L note that looks like an error message. In short, you need to add all remaining categories and their percent weight in order for this message to disappear.
Note: if you are not choosing to distribute weights by points across each category, D2L may also include a message saying that your individual categories do not yet equal to 100. That will be resolved once you manually add items into that category that equal to 100 percent.
a. Before adding new "D2L Grade Items", take a moment to ensure your D2L Categories reflect that multiple methods of assessment you are using in this class. In the example below, we include discussions, quizzes, project-based learning and assignments.
b. As desired, to reorder your categories (e.g. alphabetically), select the gray "More Actions" button and choose "Reorder." Then adjust the "sort order" as needed.
Pedagogy Note: We strongly recommend a broad variety of assessment types rather than only including a few high-stakes assessments. If you have large papers or projects, consider breaking those into smaller, low-stakes assessments in your gradebook.
Creating Grade Items
As you may have noticed, the final work you are doing now is no longer within the "Setup WIzard." In the future, you can do all remaining gradebook creation work through the "Manage Grades" tab.
b. This is the recommended default practice for all items within basic, weighted grade books.
You may want to include a "Final Grade" column in which you will later write their letter grades (e.g. A, B, C, D, F or Incomplete).
Include a short name if desired, and make sure to place it into one of the categories you created. In this example, we have named it "Week 1 Discussion," with the short name "W1D" and placed it within the Discussion category.
a. For weighted gradebooks, this will include the category name and the percentage value of that category
In this example, we have updated the default value of 10 points to be 50 points. This model envisions 5 discussions worth 50 points each or 25 percent of the grade.
Most importantly, as this is a weighted gradebook, keep in mind that this tool will calculate the "weight" value of the category" for you. It is grayed out until you complete the entry and select save.
For basic gradebooks, we recommend keeping most other default settings as they are and not entering information into the description section.
If you might offer bonus points within an assignment so that students can achieve beyond the total points for that item, we recommend checking the "Can Exceed" box.
Is it the right point value? Is it within the right category? In this example, it is in the Discussion category and valued at 50 points. As the item is not formally linked to a D2L "Discussion" that takes place within D2L's Discussion tool, there is nothing listed under the "Association" column. It's weight will adjust as more items are added to the category.
Confirm that the total value reflects what students expect from the syllabus.
a. Once you have configured your gradebook and added all grade items and grade categories, you may not need to visit the "Manage Grades" tab again. Instead, you most likely will instead be selecting Grades in order to view or update live grades.
b. Select the Settings gear in the upper right corner. The "Personal Display Options" window will appear.
c. Scroll down to the bottom of this "Personal Display Options" sub-tab. Then, under Start Page, change the Default Grades Area from "Manage Grades" to "Enter Grades" and select the blue "Save" button.
Congratulate Yourself!
You have now created a basic D2L gradebook.
Also, in the future, when you visit the Grades tool, it will take you directly to the "Enter Grades" subtab. Well done!
This content is also embedded at our PimaOnline Faculty Guide at https://onlinefaculty.pima.edu/d2l/grades/weighted
You are done. Great job!
Ishrat Mahzabeen
Excellent step-by-step instructions on how to create a D2L gradebook!