Setting up Gradebook category

We recommend creating a gradebook category for any assignment that is comprised of several, related assessment items, especially if you are considering dropping lower grades or adjusting the point distribution.  For example, a category could be created for a group project that includes a project proposal, final written submission, and peer review.  The category will be assigned a weight (e.g.: 30% of the final mark).  The related assessment items are added to the category.

This tutorial explains how to set up the following types of assessment items:

• Before you Start
• Create a Category in Gradebook
• Category Distribution Options

1. Before you start

Please ensure that you have completed the following tutorial: D2L Gradebook Setup Wizard: Recommended Settings, click Assessments.  Select Grades from the dropdown menu.  Under the Manage Grades tab, click New, and select Category.

2. In the navigation bar, click Assessments. 

Select Grades from the dropdown menu.  Under the Manage Grades tab, click New, and select Category.

3. Enter the category name, and the weight of the category (e.g.: 30% of the final grade). 

Create assessment items and assign them to the category.  See below for a detailed description of Distribution options.

Create assessment items and assign those items to the category.

Distribution Options

Manually assign weight to items in the category

Setting assessment item weights enables you to control the weighting of the individual items in the weighted category.

Distribute weights by points across all items in the category

Uses the points of assessment items to determine the relative weighting of each item out of 100%

Distribute weight evenly across all items

Gives all assessment items equal weight in the category regardless of the number of points assigned to the individual assessment item.

When distributing weight evenly across all assessment items, there is an additional option to drop the lowest scores.  For example, if there are 7 quizzes, it is possible to drop the two lowest scores by entering 2 in the “Number of lowest non-bonus items to drop for each user”:

4. Save and Close. 

To make changes to the category settings, click the Category dropdown menu, and select Edit Grade Item.