Grade Center - Weighting Grades by Category in Blackboard

By default, Blackboard comes with a number of common categories. You may use any or none of these. To create custom categories, follow these steps.

1. In the course Control Panel (beneath the course navigation links on the left), click “Grade Center” to expand the grade center menu.
2. Click “Full Grade Center.”

3. In full grade center view, hover your mouse over the “Manage” button and then choose “Categories.”

4. Click the “Create Category” button at the top of the page.
5. In the “Name” text box, type the name of the category.
6. Optionally, type a brief description of the category in the “Description” text box.
7. Click “Submit.”
8. Repeat steps 4-7 for each custom category.

Once you have your categories in Bb, you can set the weights for them. Here’s how:

1. In full grade center, find the column named “Weighted Total.”
2. Click the chevron on the right end of the column header, then choose “Edit Column Information” in the drop-down list.

3. Once the page loads, scroll down to section 3 of the page, “Select Columns.” You should see something like the following:

4. In the bottom left box, you will see Bb’s default categories and your custom categories. Hold down your command key (Mac) or control key (Windows) and click each of your categories. This will select and highlight them.
5. Then, click the arrow button to the right of where you just selected your categories to move them into the “Selected Columns” box on the right.

6. Once you have moved your categories into the “Selected Columns” box, you can set the weight (in percentage) for each category. They need to add up to 100% total.

7. Click “Submit.”
7. You have set up weighted grading. NOTE: for each new assignment column you add to the course, you need to make sure it is added to the appropriate category for weighting to applied.