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Grade Center
and Rubrics
Learn how to navigate Brightspace's grade book and provide rubrics and feedback to your students to measure student success.
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As you go through these tutorials, please have Brightspace open and your syllabus accessible.
Why Use Brightspace to Grade?
If you're accustomed to grading with pen and paper, moving your grades online may seem like a big leap. After all, you have a system that works for you. Why take the time to learn how to make all grades electronic?
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This video explains the benefits of moving grades to Brightspace, as well as the many reasons why Eastern University is quickly moving toward universal online grading.
Setting Up Grade Center
Locating Your Sandbox Course
It can be intimidating to add a new tool to an active course, so CTLT has set up a practice shell for you in Brightspace known as your Sandbox Course. Here, you can test out new skills without affecting your active course content.
This video walks you through how to access that course.
Grade Center Overview
In this video from Brightspace, you will be able to get the big-picture information about Brightspace's Grade Center.
We will go through this in more detail, covering the specifics of what you need to know to make your Grade Book organized according to your syllabus.
The Brightspace Setup Wizard
This video will walk you through the process of setting up Grade Center. Before viewing the video, it is a good idea to open a new tab in your browser (by going to File —> New Tab) and logging into your Sandbox course so that you can try out the steps in this process.
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For this and future praxis videos, you may want to pause the video after each step in order to try out the process, or you may want to watch the video in its entirety and then try the process on your own afterward, revisiting portions of the video for troubleshooting purposes.
Grade Categories
Grade Categories Overview
In this video from Brightspace, you will be able to get the big-picture information about setting up grade categories.
Setting Up Grade Categories
This video will walk you through the process of setting up categories within Grade Center.
You will want to have access to your Sandbox course so that you can try out the steps on your own, as well as your syllabus so you can practice making your grade categories reflect it.
Gradebook Items
Grade Items Overview
In this video from Brightspace, you will be able to get the big-picture information about setting up grade items.
Associating Grade Items
This video will walk you through the process of associating activities in your course with grade items within Grade Center.
You will want to have access to your Sandbox course so that you can try out the steps on your own.
All About Rubrics
Rubrics break down guidelines for students into specific criteria, so they can know how the quality of their work will affect their grade. In Brightspace, you can use rubrics to grade assignments and discussions, as well as leave feedback for students based on a specific criterion.
How to Access Your Rubrics
You can find the rubrics for a certain course in Brightspace by going into that course's Brightspace site and clicking on the Course Admin tab.
Scroll down and click on Rubrics. If you have your Course Admin page sorted by category, you will find Rubrics under the Assessment category.
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There, you will be able to see all of the rubrics that have been created for that course. If you would like to make a new rubric, click the blue New Rubric button at the top of the screen.
Watch this training video to learn what to do and what not to do when creating rubrics, the basic forms a rubric can take in Brightspace, as well as best practices for creating rubrics that both give students a clear understanding of assignment guidelines and expectations and that make the process of grading and giving feedback quicker and easier for you as the instructor.