Introduction
Every course is unique, and so are the grading preferences of instructors like yourself. The gradebook in AsULearn is designed to be extremely flexible, and can calculate course grades in many different ways. This allows it to meet the needs of every instructor, regardless of how they choose to calculate course grades.
Think of AsULearn as your digital teaching assistant. You provide it with instructions about how to calculate your course grades, and it will follow those instructions precisely.
The early challenge many faculty face when getting started with the gradebook is learning to translate their grading systems into AsULearn. This article will provide a brief overview of the three most commonly used methods for calculating course grades, help you determine which will work best for your course, and direct you to additional resources to learn more.
Translating your grading system into AsULearn
You'll see the term "aggregation" when setting up your gradebook in AsULearn. "Aggregation" simply means "How I want AsULearn to calculate grades". Though multiple options exist, the three most commonly used aggregation types are called:
You don't need to worry about how each one works yet. The most important question right now is: "How do I translate my grading system from my syllabus into AsULearn?" You can easily identify which aggregation type(s) to use by answering one or two questions:
1. Are my grades calculated with points or percentages?
If your grading system is similar to this, then you are using percentages:
- 40%: Quizzes
- 40%: Assignments
- 20%: Forums
If you are using percentages, you are weighting your grades. You should use Weighted Mean of Grades in your gradebook. Learn more in Gradebook: Weighted Mean of Grades (Percentages) .
2. If my course is using points instead of percentages, what should the course total be?
If you want your course total to always display the number of points students could have earned, use Natural. Using this method, every grade your students earn will be displayed as the number of points they earned out of the number of points they could have earned. In other words, if there are collectively 400 points in your course, and you've only entered grades for 200 points, the students' course totals will be their earned points out of 200 until more grades are entered. Learn more in Gradebook: Natural .
If you want your course total to always be scaled to 100 points, use Simple Weighted Mean of Grades. Using this method, every grade your students earn will be calculated will be collectively out of 100 points, even if the point values of individual grades add up to more (or less) than 100 points. Learn more in Gradebook: Simple Weighted Mean of Grades .
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