Creating a Total Points Column

If your course is in Original Course View, see the Original Course View tutorial collection.

When to Use?

This article will walk you through creating a Total Points column in the Gradebook, as well as adding Extra Credit to students’ total. The Total Points column must be created as a calculated column. Currently, the Overall Grade feature in Blackboard only calculates students’ weighted grades and not total points. Currently, Extra Credit cannot be added to weighted grades.

Procedure

Creating a Total Column

1. In the Gradebook, select the purple plus sign where you want to add the Total Points column and select Add Calculation.

3. At the top, name the new item “Total Points” and optionally, type a description. The Grade Schema should read Points.

4. From the functions list, choose Total.  Hover over the newly added Total tab and click the drop-down arrow. There are check boxes for every category and each individual assignment.

5. If you are using categories (adding each individual assignment, test, and manually graded item to a category) you can select the appropriate categories here, otherwise select each individual assignment you want to be calculated in a student’s total grade.

• Note: Selecting both a category and an individual item that is included in that category will result in a duplicate grade.

6. Click Save.

Adding Extra Credit to the Total Column

** You can create an Extra Credit column using the instructions found in the Creating a Manually Graded Column tutorial.

Once the extra credit column has been created, and students’ extra credit grades are posted, you will need to edit your Total Points column created above to include the newly created Extra Credit column.

1. In the List View of the Gradebook, click on the 3 dots (...) to the left of the Gradebook column name and select Edit. In the Grid View, click the Gradebook column name and select Edit.

2. In the Calculation Details, hover over the Total tab that shows all the columns included in the total function. Click the drop-down arrow and check the box associated with the extra credit column(s).

3. Click Save. The Total Points column will now include the extra credit column in its total calculation.