Gradebook Setup Assignments Tab Field Descriptions

Use the Assignments tab of the Gradebook Setup page to create and edit gradebook assignments. You must assign each assignment to a category.

Add a new assignment
Edit an individual assignment
Edit multiple assignments

Date Assigned

The date the assignment was made (Optional). 

Date Due

The date the assignment or assignment is due or taken (in the case of tests). Dates must be within the selected marking period. Depending on how your building has configured Gradebook, you may be required to enter dates on which session 1 of the course meets.

The Date Due is used to determine if scores should be included in averages. If the Date Due is after the current date, the scores and points for the assignment are not included in averages. If the Date Due is before the current date and no score is entered for the student, the assignment is considered missing.  On the Category tab, you can specify whether averages for categories should exclude a missing assignment or should use a score of 0 (zero) for a missing assignment.

Category

The category that this assignment is part of. Select from a drop-down list.

Title

The title of the assignment. The Title displays in the assignment header for the assignment on the Gradebook Scores page.

When an assignment is being edited, a button displays next to the topic's title. Click to add a more detailed description of the assignment. The Description displays in the Assignment Details drawer for the assignment on the Gradebook page. The description will also display in the Home Access Center if you publish the item.

Extra Credit

Indicates if the assignment is only used to allow students to earn extra credit. Three options are available:

Not Extra Credit - The regular calculations apply.

Add to Total Points - The extra points will be added to the numerator before averaging. Thus, if a student had 180 points out of 200 possible points and earns 5 extra credit points, the average becomes 185/200 or 92.5 percent.

Add to Average - The extra points will be added after the average is calculated. Thus if a student had 180 points out of 200 possible points, plus 5 extra credit points, the average without the extra credit would be 180/200 or 90 percent. With the 5 extra credit points, the average would be 95 percent.

Extra Credit Notes:

• • If your administrator has configured TAC to not allow extra credit assignments, this field always displays Not Extra Credit.
  • You cannot define a category to store only extra credit assignments if you use category weights to calculate averages.  You must have at least one regular assignment included in a category that includes extra credit assignments.
  • If an assignment allows a student to earn extra credit in addition to the possible score, select Not Extra Credit. For example, if a 10 point quiz has a 2 point extra credit question, then the assignment is not an extra credit assignment.  When you enter student scores, you can enter more points than the possible points for the assignment to indicate that extra credit points were earned.
  • Extra credit scores are only counted if not blank.
  • The possible points are not included in the denominator before averaging for a category or a mark.
  • Extra credit is never dropped as part of a Drop lowest score.
  • An extra credit assignment is ignored when calculating the value for a competency with the accumulator type of Maximum Score, Most Recent Score, or Manual.

R & C (Rubrics and Competencies)

The icon that displays indicates if there is a rubric or competency entered for the assignment.

Note: Your school district determines at the building level whether teachers may link rubrics and competencies to assignments. If your building does not allow linking to rubrics or competencies, this field does not display.

When you click one of the rubric indicators while editing the assignment, the Competencies and Rubrics page displays. For more information, refer to Competencies and Rubrics page.

To define a rubric, refer to the procedure Defining a Rubric.

To add or update competencies, refer to the procedure " To link competencies to an assignment" in the Linking Competencies to an Assignment topic.

Points

The total possible points for this assignment. This does not limit the points that can be entered as a score, so bonus points should not be included here. Because points are used in the formula for calculating averages, this should not be set to zero.

If the assignment is extra credit, the points here will not be included in possible total points.

Category averages are calculated based on points and weights. For example, if a student gets 7 points out of 10 on assignment 1 and 20 points out of 20 on assignment 2 and neither assignment is weighted, the students average would be calculated as 7 + 20 / 10 + 20 = 27/30 which is 90%.

Note: To calculate averages based on percentages for assignments, you must enter possible points and scores as percentages.  For example, to indicate that a student got 75% for an assignment, you would define the assignment with possible points of 100 and a score of 75.  

If a rubric is entered for the assignment, the points will be calculated based on the points for the highest performance level and you will not be able to edit the points on the Define Assignments page.

Note: Your administrator can configure the Points field's default value for new assignments. If you are not permitted to override this value, the field is disabled and displays the default. If the assignment is scored as a rubric, the default Points value is applied to the rubric's Assignment Points field.

Weight

The relative weight of this assignment when calculating the average. When averages are determined, the weight is multiplied against both the earned points score and the total number of points possible.

The average for a category is calculated as the [sum of (each score X weight)] / [sum of (each total points X weight)]

Note: Your administrator configures the Weight field's default value for new assignments. If you are not permitted to override this value, the field is disabled and displays the default.

Highlight Failing Points

Select to use the Failing Score or Below Threshold indicator for this assignment. To use the Below Threshold indicator, you must also select the Highlight in Purple checkbox.

This field only displays if the Highlight assignment grades below a specified threshold checkbox is selected on the Settings page.

For more details, refer to Displaying Failing and Below Threshold Indicators.

Highlight Threshold Points

Enter the threshold value. A default Highlight Threshold Points value displays, if you entered a % Default value on the Settings page. This values is rounded to a whole number.

This field only displays if the Highlight assignment grades below a specified threshold checkbox is selected on the Settings page.

For more details, refer to Displaying Failing and Below Threshold Indicators.

Highlight in Purple

Select to display assignment scores using the Below Threshold indicator which is purple rather than the failing indicator.

This field only displays if the Highlight assignment grades below a specified threshold checkbox is selected on the Settings page.

For more details, refer to Displaying Failing and Below Threshold Indicators.

Attach

Click folder icon to display the Attachments pop-up. A row must be selected for editing before the Attachments pop-up can be opened. A folder

Cannot be Dropped

Check if this assignment should not be dropped even when it is one of the lowest scores for a category that is set up to drop a set number of lowest scores.

If you have the Drop Lowest set to 0 (zero) for all categories and mark averages, you do not need to check the box. No scores will be dropped unless you specify a drop lowest value greater than 0.

This field displays when you are defining assignments for a course. It does not display for a student competency group.

Publish Item

The icon in this cell both sets and displays the assignment's publish status for Home Access Center. When a row is open for editing, each click on the icon cycles it through three states: The three states are: not published, assignment published, and scores published. Details are given in the table below:

Icon	Publish Status	Description
	not published	Assignment cannot be viewed in HAC.
	assignment published	Assignment can be viewed in HAC, but no scores can be viewed.
	scores published	Both assignment and scores are visible in HAC.

Note: Your administrator assigns a default publish status for new assignments. If the administrator's configuration does not allow you to override the default setting, the publish status cannot be changed when creating an assignment nor can it be manually changed in the assignment's header on the Gradebook Entry page.