View the full glossary of terms

The gradebook setup layout presents all of the course graded components, their relative weight in the course, and various calculation settings. It allows you to move grade items around, create categories, and even create grade items.

The image below displays the core components and their names. You can learn more about each component in the glossary of terms.

Parent Category = Course Total

The topmost category will always be your course name and title. All of your content will fall under this parent category and this is the category which calculates the final grade for the course. 

Grade Category = Course Outline Categories

The second tier of category will always be the grade categories that match your COTR approved Course Outline.

Note: You can have third and fourth tiers of grade categories beneath these first two that are entirely up to you, but the first two levels must always be 1) the Course Total category and 2) the Course Outline categories. 

Grade Item

The Grade Items are the individually graded course assessments. These are generally pre-filled when you create the assessment dropbox, forum, quiz, etc. in your Course Homepage. You can also manually add grade items via the Gradebook Setup.

Category Weight

The Category Weight represents two calculations:

1. The proportion of the Parent Category Total (or Final Grade) - the sum of the Category Weights should equal 100
2. The total of all the Grades received within the Category

Item Weight

The Grade Item Weight is the share of the Category Weight that a single grade item is worth. These are calculated as a Weighted Mean of Grades. There are several ways to enter these weights which are discussed in Chapter 3.

Max Grade

The Max Grade represents the actual max point score students can receive on any given assessment. This is only editable from within the assessment itself. For example, if your exam is graded out of 60 marks, the Max Grade will be 60.

This may be identical to the Grade Item Weight, or it may be different.

Weighted Mean of Grades

The total of any grade category, including the Parent Category and Course Total, are calculated using a Weighted Mean of Grades score.

\( \frac{sum of all weighted scores}{div sum of all weights} \)