500-Level Course Assignment Set Up for Graduate Students

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

500-Level Courses:  Graduate Component Needed to Earn Graduate-Level Credit

500-level courses are often built as a 'swing' course meaning both undergraduate and graduate students can enroll in the course. Grad students in a swing course should have additional course requirements to complete that allow them to earn graduate-level credit in the course.  See 500-Level Courses - Grad vs UG to learn more about what constitutes grad-level coursework or consult with a Teaching and Learning Consultant from The Office of Curriculum and Instructional Support for help in creating a suitable graduate-level graded activity in your course.

To ensure accurate setup of the Gradebook for both populations of students, instructors must first determine the academic level for each student and assign them to their respective group in the Bb course shell:

1) Identify which students in the course are undergrads and which are graduate students. An instructor can obtain this information by pulling a Class List. 

2) Create two Group Sets in the course, each containing a single group, one for undergraduate students, one for graduate students.  The UG group can be left hidden from student view -- students do not need to see this group or know that it exists -- it is needed for course management purposes only.  The Graduate group should be set to visible to students.  Once the groups are created, add your students to their respective group according to the Class List.

Graded Activity Types

There are (2) Scenarios for the design of a grad-level activity:

One Assignment, All Students:  All students will complete the assignment, however the points earned on the assignment differ between undergrad and graduate students.

Grad-Level Activity Only:  A graded activity only graduate students complete.

Set Up of Graded Activity by Type

 1. One Assignment, All Students

The course has one assignment all students will complete.  Points earned on the assignment could differ between UG and Grad students.  Graduate students could earn more points for additional work completed on the activity, OR the points earned could be the same, just distributed differently among graded components.  It does not matter if there are differing point values or rubrics used for each level.

Set Up Steps:

1. Using Copy Content, duplicate the assignment, and adjust the instructions to reflect the additional grad-level components and/or higher point value (if different).  Attach a rubric to each assignment (the original one for undergraduate students, the duplicated one for graduate students) the reflects grading for each level.
2. For each assignment submission link, clearly denote in the assignment title which group the activity is associated with.  Students will only see the submission link for the assessment they are associated with, but it will clearly identify the assignment in the Gradebook to you, the instructor (e.g. Research Project – Undergrad; Research Project – Grad).
3. Go to the Gradebook, List View, click on the title of each assessment (UG and Grad) and exempt each student who is not at the appropriate level for the assignment. 

2. Grad-Level Activity Only

Should the course contain an assessment to be completed by graduate students only, follow these set up steps.

1. Create the assignment, clearly identifying the assignment for graduate students only.  Attach the Graduate Group Set only to the assignment.
   NOTE:  Undergraduate students in the course cannot see or access the assignment since they are not a member of the group to whom the assignment has been assigned. 
2. From the Gradebook exempt all undergraduate students from the graduate-level activity.  This ensures the Gradebook is accurate for each population of students.