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Managing grade visibility

Owned by Gerard Ross
Last updated: May 08, 2019
3 min read

Introduction

This guide explains how to manage the grades students see in Blackboard Learn.

Table of contents


Note: If you haven’t already done so, enable student access to grades by adding the My Grades tool to your module area

Note: Before you add any grades to the Grade Centre, make sure you check for auto-total columns or calculated columns which may make grades visible to students without you being aware (details below)

Making Grade Centre marking columns available

A student can access their grades via the My Grades link in the module or the My Blackboard menu. When you release marks to students, the student will only be able to see their own marks.  There is no facility to release marks to some students and not others.

To release marks to students:

  1. From the Grade Centre in the Control Panel, select Full Grade Centre.
  2. In the column you want to make available, select the grey arrow next to the column title - a drop-down menu will appear.  Select Edit Column Information from the drop-down menu.



  3. The Edit Column window will open. Each Grade Centre column has a setting called Show this Column to Students. Select the Yes radio button to release marks to the students. Select No to hide them.



    Note: The Column Not Visible icon  indicates whether students can or cannot see marks from a given assessment’s column.

  4. It is recommended that staff set Show this Column to Students to No for ALL columns initially and only release the marks or module total when they’re ready

Points to consider

  • Some grade centre columns automatically have visibility of marks turned on e.g. discussion board assessments, Blackboard assessments and wikis.
  • If you’re hiding columns, be sure to hide the Grade Centre’s automatic Total column. Students may be able to work out their marks by subtracting their known grade(s) from the Total column.
  • Turnitin assignments which have not been correctly set-up (see below) may also make grades visible in the Grade Centre before you want them to be.
  • There is an option in the column drop-down menu to Show/Hide to Users. You can use this as a shortcut to turn the visibility of columns on and off for students. It does the same thing as changing the Show This Column to Students setting.



Note: Please remember to check for columns hidden from your view. Click the Manage button in the Grade Centre then select Column Organisation. Unhide those columns that have been hidden from by selecting the checkbox next to the column name and pressing the Show selected columns button. Then select the Submit button.

Controlling visibility of Turnitin Grades

To control the visibility of marks through the Turnitin Grademark system you must set-up two items correctly in a Turnitin assignment:

  1. The correct Post Date
  2. Have the Reveal grades to student only on post date set to YES

Note: You must do this when the Turnitin assignment is first set-up and NOT when it is active or has live student submissions.

If you do not set Reveal grades to student only on post date to YES then students will see their grades via the Grade Centre as soon as you mark them, even though they’re not accessible via Turnitin until the Post date.

Note: This may also apply if the Post date is altered