Edit the Letter Grade Scale

The Grade Center's Grading Schema (also known as a "grading scale"), lets you show students a letter grade that's calculated from a point value, instead of just showing students the point value. So, you'll still enter a score (10 out of 10 points), but you can set the column so your students will see an "A" rather than a score or a percentage.

If you're interested in showing students these calculated letter grades, you enable them on the column information page (either when you're creating the column or by editing the column information). Just choose LETTER as the primary display (displayed to students) or secondary display (visible only in the instructor's Grade Center).

Primary Display Letter on column page

If you're going to do this, you'll want to edit that to fit the standards at Detroit Mercy (otherwise students won't see the appropriate grade). To edit a grade schema, go to your course's Grade Center, point to Manage and choose Grading Schemas.

Manage menu opened, grading schemas highlighted

If you'd like, you can start from scratch, but it's probably easiest to edit the existing, default "Letter" schema. Click the option button for the "Letter" schema and choose "EDIT" to get started.

Letter Grade options menu, edit highlighted

The schema editing table has two columns. On the left, percentages and letters -- if you enter a score for a student that is between the two percentages, this is the letter grade that will be displayed.

Schema mapping table

"Grades Manually Entered as" shows how Blackboard interprets letter grades into points. Using the example above, if you enter the text "A" as the student's grade in a column, the grade center interprets that as 95% of the total possible points for that column, or 9.5 points out of 10 (no 10-point grades can be given for the assignment because the highest possible score is 98.5% or 9.85 points).

If you need to delete a row, click the DELETE ROW text on the right. Click the arrow on the INSERT ROWS column to add a row at that point in the table, if necessary.

Once you have made the necessary changes, click SUBMIT to save your edited schema.

The Grade Center's Grading Schema (also known as a "grading scale"), lets you show students a letter grade that's calculated from a point value, instead of just showing students the point value. So, you'll still enter a score (10 out of 10 points), but you can set the column so your students will see an "A" rather than a score or a percentage.

If you're interested in showing students these calculated letter grades, you will need to correct the letter grade schema so that it accurately reflects the grading scale in your class. 

To do this, go to the Gradebook section of your course. Click the Gear button in the upper right to access the Gradebook Settings panel.

gradebook settings button in context, highlighted

At the top of the Gradebook Settings panel you'll find Grade Schemas. The Current Grading Schema appears as a link. Click that link.

Current Grading Schema link highlighted

The Grade Value (A+, A, A-, B+, B, etc) appears in an editable box on the left. The score range for that value appears on the right. When your pointer is over a row, the delete row button (a trash can icon) will appear.

Grading Schema options table

Once you have corrected the default schema, click SAVE at the bottom of the panel to preserve your work.