Brightspace Content is Getting Upgraded
Beginning with the Fall 2027 semester, Brightspace courses will begin using the New Content Experience by default. Additionally, Instructors now have the ability to enable or disable the New Content Experience in their own courses ahead of the change in Fall 2027. For more information about this transition, see our New Content Experience Transition page.
It鈥檚 a good idea to use Brightspace鈥檚 gradebook to help organize your grades. If set up correctly, it will calculate your grades for you. It鈥檚 also a secure聽way to provide grade information to your students.
The first step to setting up your gradebook, is to go through the seven steps in the gradebook鈥檚聽Setup Wizard. This guide will explain each step.
Once your settings are in place, you will want to visit the guide for聽Creating Gradebook Categories and Items.
For personalized help with setting up your gradebook, visit聽Brightspace Support at the Office of Learning Innovation (OLI).
Updated Fall 2024
Access the Setup Wizard
To access the Gradebook鈥檚 Setup Wizard, click on聽Course Admin, and then click聽Grades.聽Select the聽聽Setup Wizard聽tab.
You will see default settings displayed. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click聽Start.
Step One: Choose Grading System
Most instructors will use a聽Weighted听辞谤听Points聽system. Look closely at the examples to see which type of grading system matches your syllabus. Make your selection and click聽Continue.
If you聽need to create a custom formula for your grading system, please contact Brightspace Support directly for assistance.
Step Two: Final Grade Released
In most cases, an instructor will choose聽Calculated Final Grade. This selection will automatically calculate the final grade based on聽what鈥檚 in the gradebook.
础苍听Adjusted Final Grade聽is聽a final grade that you聽must manually enter聽to override the calculated final grade. Be advised that while this may work well for small courses, it will be a large task for a large course.
Step Three: Grade Calculations
On this step, you must decide how ungraded items are treated with regards to the final grade calculation.
Ungraded items can be dropped, always graded as zero, or graded as zero after a due date has passed.
You can also determine whether you鈥檇 like the final grade to automatically update every time a new grade is added to the gradebook.
Step Four: Choose Default Grade Scheme
颁丑辞辞蝉别听Percentage聽for your default grade scheme. Click聽continue聽to Step Five.
Step Five: Managing View Display Options
Choose the number of decimal places you鈥檇 like to view. This is for聽your聽gradebook view, and not what the students would see. Typically this would be left at 2 decimal places.
Step Six: Student View Display Options
These options affect what the student will see when viewing their grades.
- Points Grade聽鈥� Students will see the point value of their score.聽Ex. 83/100
- Weighted Grade聽鈥� Students will see their score as a percentage.聽Ex. 83%
- Grade Scheme Symbol聽鈥� Students will see a symbol (letter grade)聽Ex. B-听(Note: You must have set up a grade scheme in order for this to work. Contact Brightspace Support for help setting up a letter grade scheme)
- Grade Scheme Color聽鈥� The student鈥檚 grade view will have a shaded background color that varies according to grade.聽Ex. An A has a green background, an F has a red background.
- Decimals displayed聽鈥� You may or may not want students to view the decimals used when calculating their grade.
- Characters Displayed聽鈥� It is a good idea to leave this at 50
- Final Grade Calculation聽鈥� Check this box for students to view their final grade calculation throughout the semester
Step Seven: Grades Setup Summary
Review the summary of your selections and click聽Finish. You can re-visit the Setup Wizard at any time to modify your changes.
Once your settings are in place, you will want to visit the guide for聽Creating Gradebook Categories and Items.