Reviewing and Changing Weights
This section explains how to review and make changes to your weighting setup.
Reviewing Weights
If you want to go back and review your weighting choices, navigate to the Final Grade Weighting screen.
This screen shows the following information:
The weighting method that you’re currently using.
Some or all of your current weights. If you weight using units or by types, the weight for each group is shown here, and you can also click the name of any group to see how items within that group are weighted. Otherwise, all items and their weights are listed on the Final Grade Weighting screen.
Changing Weights
At times you may want to make any of the following changes:
Changing the way that a specific unit, type, assignment, or evaluation is weighted.
Changing the weighting method used by the course.
Go to the appropriate screen.
Do one of the following:
If the item you want to change is manually weighted, the system displays its current weight in a modifiable text box. Make any changes necessary. In response, the system adds a Save Changes button to the screen. Select this button to implement your changes.
If the item you want to change is manually weighted, the system displays its current weight in a modifiable text box. Make any changes necessary. In response, the system adds a Save Changes button to the screen. Select this button to implement your changes.
If you want to change the way that weights are handled within a particular unit, type, or within the evaluations category, see Customize Weighting Within a Group.
If you are using the Custom Method, and you want to fine-tune any aspect of it, refer to Configure the Custom Method.
If at any time you want to change the weighting method used by a course, navigate to the Final Grade Weighting screen and click the Change weighting method link. For further guidance, see Select a Weighting Method.
You may want to be cautious about changing the weighting method in the following situations:
If the term has already started, and students have been turning in work—tweaking the weighting could confuse students if they see changes in their grades.
If you’ve spent a lot of time configuring your weighting and are not sure you want to change—be aware that your original choices may not be saved if you decide you want to revert back to the old method. In that case, you might have to spend time reconfiguring your original weighting method.
Automatically Dropping Low Grades
With most weighting methods, you have to the option of configuring the system to automatically drop low grades. The options for doing this vary depending on which weighting method you are using:
With all weighting methods except the Manual Method, you can set up the system to automatically drop the lowest grade(s) from the full list of each student’s scores.
With the Unit Method, the Type Method, and some Custom Methods, you can also set up the system to automatically drop the lowest grade(s) from one or more units or types, or from a group of evaluations.
By default, the system is set up to count all grades.
Note
You can also manually review a student's list of scores and drop any score as appropriate. For details, see Drop or Reinstate a Score for an Assignment.
Use these steps to configure the system to drop the lowest grade(s) from the full list of each student’s scores. You can configure the system to drop anywhere from single lowest grade to the five lowest.
Note that you cannot do this is if you are using the Manual Method of weighting (because that weighting method does not consider these scores).
To automatically drop the lowest grade(s) from the full list of assignments and evaluations:
Navigate to the Final Grade Weighting screen.
Scroll to the bottom of the screen.
Under the Dropping Assignment label, select the checkbox.
Set the drop-down list to the number of scores you want dropped for each student.
Your choices are automatically saved.
With some weighting methods, you can configure the system to drop the lowest grade(s) within a certain unit, or of a certain type, or from within the full list of evaluations. This is an option if you are using the Unit Method, the Type Method, or if you are using a Custom Method that groups assignments by unit or by type.
To drop grades from a single unit or type:
Navigate to the Final Grade Weighting screen.
If you are using the Unit Method, the Type Method, or a Custom Method that weights units or types, this screen will list each group along with its weight.
Click the name of the appropriate group.
The system displays a screen that lists the items in this group.
Scroll to the bottom of the screen.
Under the Dropping Assignments label, select the checkbox.
Set the drop-down list to the number of scores you want dropped for each student.
Your choices are automatically saved.