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    Grading with Blackboard

    Last modified: March 12, 2024

    Streamline your workflow with Blackboard's grading and feedback tools.

    You are viewing instructions for Ultra view in Blackboard

    If you have not elected to use Ultra, go to the Original course view page.

    Step-by-step guide to grading

    In Ultra, you can get to a course's Gradebook by selecting the relevant tab in the top navigation list, or you can find everything you need to grade by using your "base navigation" page under "grades". 

    When you create your course, the overall grade is not set up. It is important that you set up the Overall Grade sto that students can see how they are doing in your course. You will see a message about the Overall Grade on the right side or the bottom of the page until it is set up. Once you select it, you can set categories and weights by using the calculation types.

    Once you are ready to grade, Blackboard has several views within the gradebook. The first time you use the gradebook, it will be in list view. From here, you can choose to view the gradebook by gradable items or student. 

    Screenshot of Blackboard's Gradebook interface with highlighted features: grid/List view options, Filter option, and toggles for viewing by gradable items or students.

    You'll want to familiarize yourself with the grid view as well (you can swap to it with the icon that looks like a grid in the upper left area) as well as try out some of the filters and the search option. 

    A screenshot of the gradbook in grid view, with student names in rows, and gradable items as columns.

    Gradable items tab: The Gradable Items tab displays all gradable items in your course. You can view due dates, grading status, and item categories. You can also post grades and adjust the overall grade calculation for the course.

    • Items with missing submissions past the due date display in red.
    • Use the move button to drag and drop items in a new order.
    • Select an item’s name to go to its Submissions or Grades & Participation page.
    • Select X to grade to go directly to the assessment’s Submissions page and start grading.

    Students tab: The Students tab lists the names of all your students with their dates of last access and their overall grades. You can only see overall grades if you’ve set up the overall grade for the course. Students with grading accommodations have a purple flag with their name.

    You can switch to the Students tab to view an overall picture of each student’s engagement. What the grading status text means: 

    • Nothing to grade - student(s) have not yet made any submissions.
    • All graded - all attempt submitted to date have been graded.
    • Complete- all attempts submitted to date have been grade and posted.
    • X to Grade refers to the number of ungraded attempts available.
    You can also add a rubric to your assignments; a rubric is a scoring tool you can use to evaluate graded work. When you create a rubric, you divide the assigned work into parts. 

    Video: Create rubrics shows how to create a rubric for assessing and grading student work.

    Lastly, you can access the management functions from the gear icon that will open a settings menu. You can adjust settings like "automatic zeros".

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