• A green checkmark indicating "External Grade" appears in one of my Grade Center columns and I cannot get it to go away. In fact, with the green checkmark, the option to delete the column is no longer available. What do I do?

  The External Grade is set up to be a bridge to a university's Student Information System through a special Blackboard module called Report Card. Since Loyola does not have the Report Card module as part of our Blackboard installation the External Grade option is not applicable to Blackboard users. However, there is no way to make this option “unavailable” to instructors. By default, the Total column in the Grade Center is designated as the External Grade. This designation is noted by the  icon beside the Total column heading. Only one column in your Grade Center can be set to the External Grade. If you accidentally designate a column other than the Total column as the External Grade you can easily fix it by doing the following.

  1. Click on the chevron icon next to the Total column heading.
  2. Select Set as External Grade.
  3. You should now see a green check mark  icon beside the Total column heading and the column you have previously designated as the External Grade should be absent this check mark icon.
• My Grade Center vertical and horizontal scroll bars have disappeared. What happened?

  If your Grade Center scroll bars have disappeared it’s because your Scrollbar size setting in your computer monitor display has been changed to 20 or greater.
  

  To fix this problem in Windows 7:

  1. From the Start Menu or from My Computer, click on the on the Control Panel.
     
     
     
     
     
  2. Click on Appearance and Personalization.
  3. Click on Personalization.
  4. Click on Window Color.
  5. Click on Advanced Appearance Settings.
  6. In the Item drop box choose Scrollbar.
  7. Set size to 16 or 17.
• My Grade Center view is showing me only one student at a time. How can I get the Grade Center to list more than one student?

  Adjust the screen resolution on your computer monitor to 1024 by 768 pixels.
  
  To set your screen resolution in Windows 7:

  1. Click on the Start button on your Desktop page.
  2. In the right hand side of the Start dialog box (brown background) choose Control Panel.
  3. In the Adjust your computer’s settings page navigate to Appearance and Personalization and click on Adjust screen resolution.
     
     
     
  4. Set your screen resolution to 1920 x1080 for a large monitor (24”) or 1280 x 1024 for a small monitor (18”).
  5. Click on Apply.
  6. Click on Yes when Windows asks if you want to keep your reconfigured settings.
     
     
     Mac Users:
     Select System Preferences from your Dock  or within Applications.
     
     
     
     Under Hardware, select Displays.
     
     
     
     Select the highest available resolution. In the case below, the resolution is set to 1280x800.
     
     
     
• I cannot get the last student in my course to appear in my Grade Center view. How can I make that last Grade Center row appear?

  Reverse the alpha order twice in the Last Name column and the last row will show – you can do this by clicking on the yellow arrow in the column header as shown below:

  

• I re-arranged my Grade Center columns in "Sort Columns By: Layout Position" but the changes are not retained. Every time I reopen Blackboard the columns have returned to some default pattern. How do I permanently re-arrange my Grade Center columns?

  The Sort Columns By options, e.g., Layout Position, are temporary re-arrangements. They reorganize the Grade Center columns for your current session of the Grade Center but once you leave the Grade Center it reverts back to the original column arrangement.

  In order to permanently reorder your Grade Center columns you must use the following procedures:

  1. In the Grade Center, click on Manage.
  2. Choose Column Organization from the drop down menu.
  3. Once in the Column Organization page you will see a “handle” to the left of each listed item in your Grade Center. You can move grade columns by left clicking on the handle and "dragging" the column to the desired location.
  4. Move your columns into the desired locations.
  5. Click on Submit.

  
  NOTE: If you forget to submit your changes in the Column Organization page and proceed to click on the Grade Center in the breadcrumb trail you will receive the message, “There is an uncommitted layout change. Save this change?” Click on the Yesbutton if you want the changes made.

  You will notice that the Column Organization page also gives you the ability to Show/Hide Grade Center columns, modify the category of a Grade Center column, and create Grading Periods.

• I cannot find a column in my Grade Center. I know I created the column but it seems to have disappeared. How can I find it?

  You have probably hidden the column from all views in the Grade Center. In order to check to see if the column is hidden do the following:

  1. In the Grade Center click on Manage.
  2. Choose Column Organization from the drop down menu.
  3. Look for the column (item) in the list of Grade Center items. If the column is hidden you will see (Hidden) appear directly to the right of the column name.
  4. To unhide the column please follow the instructions in the following documentation: Unhiding a Grade Center Column.

   

• I entered scores in my Grade Center column and then changed the display to a letter grade. I notice that the Letter Grade is not accurately reflecting the way in which I assign letter grades based on percentages. What is wrong?

  In order to have Blackboard convert scores/percentages to your letter grading scale you must either alter the default Letter grade schema via the Grade Center > Manage > Grading Schemas or create your own Letter Grade schema. Please refer to our online documentation Modifying the Letter Grade Schema  for instructions on how to modify your letter grading schema in Blackboard 9.1.

• Can I add extra credit items in my Grade Center?

  The most common way to incorporate extra credit is to add an additional column to your Grade Center to which you assign a point value of 0. Note that you cannot use this Extra Credit column in your Weighted Total scheme since the denominator is zero. If you are using a non-weighted scheme this is not an issue. You just include the column in your total calculations and only the students who receive points in the extra credit column will notice who a grade increase. The students who do not complete extra credit will not be penalized.

  If you weight your grades you can still employ the method above but the way in which you add extra credit must be through a Total calculated column. You can either modify your Total column via Select Columns so that it contains only the Weighted Total column and the extra credit column.  For instructions on how to add an extra credit column and have that item count in the Total column please refer to our online documentation Extra Credit and Faculty Tutorials .

• I created a column in my Grade Center and cannot enter grades into that column. What is wrong?

  You have probably created the column via the Create Calculated Column choice rather than the Create Column choice. Calculated Column values are based on the values of other already created columns. They are designed to compute individual scores based on the values of other columns, e.g., calculating the average of five columns, dropping the lowest score of a series of columns and then totaling the remaining columns.
  To check the type of column you have created:

  1. Click on the chevron icon    beside the title of the column.
  2. Click on Edit Column Information.
  3. If you have a Select Columns option available to you in panel number 3 you have created a Calculated Column.
  4. Go back to your Grade Center.
  5. Find the mistakenly created calculated column.
  6. Click on the chevron icon.
  7. Choose Remove Column.
• I am dropping the lowest score in a group of quizzes but for some students who have not completed one quiz, the incomplete quiz does not drop. How do I get that incomplete item to be included in the drop lowest score calculations?

  When you drop the lowest score in a category you must give a score of 0 points for all incomplete items in that category in order for Blackboard to recognize the score for that item. If you leave the item “ungraded” Blackboard does not consider the item as “scored” and will not include it in the array of scores for the items in question.

Back to Faculty Help Resources