If you have not re-visited your myCourses gradebook recently you may be missing out on some features to help you more easily manage your class and save time.  This article walks through some new and old features that may be helpful to you

• Sync with WebCat including custom final grades

Don’t spend time manually entering grades into WebCat. You can automatically pass the myCourses final grade to WebCat and now you can add a new column to manually override the final grade for individual students.

• Document Student Feedback

You can provide feedback to students by posting a grade or a comment directly in the gradebook column.  Assessments can be graded using the Speedgrader for inline commenting or using a rubric.  Discussion posts appears with a view of all discussion contributions. Students can view your feedback that you provided on their document.

• Message Students Who

Concerned about students who are struggling with an assignment or want to recognize students who did a great job on your first exam?  This feature allows you to quickly send messages for a specific assignment/quiz to students who:

• Have not submitted yet
• Have not been grade
• Scored less than a point value
• Scored more than a point value

• Custom Calculations and Grade Schemas

There are several features that allow you to customize your use of the gradebook and eliminate the need for manual calculations.   Examples include setting up assignment groups and weights, giving your course or individual assignments their own custom grade schemas, setting up drop rules for assignments that don’t count towards the final grade.   Check out this article about how to weight your grades.  You can also always export your gradebook for offline calculations and import the changes back to the myCourses gradebook.

• Configure Grade Posting Policies

Set your own rules on when students see grades and feedback; default setting can be to show grades as soon as you enter or wait until you manually release them. Grade Posting Policies replaces the previous Mute option and can be set for the entire gradebook or for individual columns.

• Configure Late and Missing Policies

Automatically adjust point values based on missing or late status of an assignment submission. 

If you want to learn more about how to make the most of your gradebook come to a myCourses walk-in session or submit a request for consultation.