Automation of Groups

BB9 has significantly improved the ease of creating groups. The tool allows you to create a set of groups all at once. You can choose to have the members randomly placed, manually placed of self-placed into the groups. You can either set the total number of groups or the number of students you would like in each group, and BB9 does the rest for you! From this page, you can also select the tools available to the group.

Grade Schema?

We need to figure out:

1. Why there are multiple grade schema in course grade centers besides the default grade schema set by at the system admin level;
2. how to delete the unnecessary/duplicate grade schemas; and
3. whether there's a way to prevent instructors from building and applying their own schema at the course level. (On this point I did investigate privileges for the instructor role, but didn't find privilege rules around the Grade Center.)
   

Statistics of Grade Center columns

Good news: It's now possible to turn off statistics (average and median) in grade center columns. Instructors have often asked for this ability, citing student confusion and questions.

Bad news: Stats are still visible to students by default, and the setting is specific to each gradebook column. To hide stats, the instructor must change the setting on each individual gradebook column.

To hide stats, click the double-arrow button for any gradebook column that contains scores (e.g. not a calculation column) and select Edit Column Information. In the Options section, change "Show Statistics" from Yes to No. Then click Submit to save the change.

Viewing Student Grades

One way to view student grades in list form is to create a report.

To do this: go to Grade Center>Reports>Create Report.

Once to the report page, you have several options. You can create a report for one student, a group of students or the whole class. You can also choose different data to display in the report such as what to name the report, which users to include in the report, what user information (such as first and last name, course id, email, etc) to display, a description of the assignment and statistics for that assignment such as mean and median scores. Your report can also be specific to certain categories such as assignments, tests and quizzes, discussions and surveys.

Course IDs next to Course Titles

Whooooeeeee! I set up the Courses list on the Bb9 home page (My School tab) so that instructors (and students) see course IDs as well as course titles. YAHOO! This is a big "little" thing to help instructors tell the difference between their million course shells.

Practice lab Thurs 7/15

Hi folks,
I'll meet you at the Alumni training room a few minutes before 12:30 today. Things we'll look at today:

• One more focused look at the Grade Center
• Differences in Course Files and Content Collection features now that the system accurately reflects our license (e.g. no more Content System)
• Notifications / Course Home thing

Thanks. --Amy