Using Weighted Calculation as the Calculation Type for Overall Grade

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

Overall Grade Column Explanation

The Overall Grade column must be set up in the Gradebook and is the points earned divided by total graded points available. On by default in all courses, this is a “running total” which means that grade columns not yet attempted are ignored when calculating the current overall grade for the course. 

The instructor may use the 'Set it up' option to configure the Overall Grade.  See Overall Grade Column - Explanation and Set Up. 

Using Weighted Calculation as the Overall Grade Column Calculation Type

Some instructors prefer to use category weights to calculate the overall grade. Instructors are unable to assign weight to an empty grade category. This restriction requires each category to have at least one assessment. This is not always practical, especially at the beginning of an academic term. However, instructors can configure a weighted overall grade that includes empty grade categories, giving greater flexibility for configuring the calculation.

The setup wizard guides the instructor to select Points, Weighted, or Advanced as the preferred calculation type. The wizard provides examples of each calculation type:

Enter the percentage desired for each category to have.  All category weights must equal 100%.

Instructors can also:

• Add calculation rule to assessments within a category to handle the following:
  • dropping scores
  • using only the lowest or highest score in the total calculation of the category
• Exclude a category from the overall grade calculation. This removes the category's points from the total points available in the course.
• Expand categories to reveal the individual items within the category and point values.
• Unlink an item from its category. This is useful if you want to exclude an item from a category calculation rule.
• Exclude an item within a category from the overall grade calculation. This removes the item points from the total number of points available in the course

Expand categories, unlink or exclude items within a category

Image 1. Before Overall Grade Calculation Improvements

Image 2. After Overall Grade Calculation Improvements

Weighted Overall Grade Calculation Video

The following narrated video shows how to configure a weighted overall grade that includes empty grade categories.