Page Comparison

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• points-based calculations : in which the ratio of an item's max points versus the total points possible for all items scored is used to establish the item's 'weight' within the gradebook
• weight-based calculations : in which the product of two assigned weights at the category and item levels is used to establish the item's 'weight' within the gradebook

Points Based Calculations

There are two cases for points based calculations, but the distinctions between the two are very slight. Whenever the 'organization' of the gradebook is set to "No Categories" or "Categories", points-based calculations will be used, independent of whether the "grade type" is set to "poe ints" or "percentages". In setting up the gradebook, an instructor must provide a maximum number of points per item, or if one is not entered, a default value of 100 will be used.

So, in "No Categories" mode, we might create the following gradebook:

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In combination with these modes, there are a couple of additional parameters that influence how grades are calculated:

• #Project Extra Credit toggles whether extra credit calculations will be 'projected' or scaled against the overall gradebook or if they will be relative to only the items that have been already graded
• #Weight By Points allows an instructor to use points-based calculations to determine the relative weight of items within a weighted category, rather than requiring additional 'weights' to be set

Points Based Calculations

There are two cases for points based calculations, but the distinctions between the two are very slight. Whenever the 'organization' of the gradebook is set to "No Categories" or "Categories", points-based calculations will be used, independent of whether the "grade type" is set to "points" or "percentages". In setting up the gradebook, an instructor must provide a maximum number of points per item, or if one is not entered, a default value of 100 will be used.

So, in "No Categories" mode, we might create the following gradebook:

• My Default Gradebook
  • Item 1 (25 points)
  • Item 2 (25 points)
  • Item 3 (25 points)
  • Item 4 (25 points)
  • Extra Credit Item (10 points)

This gradebook would have a total possible non-extra-credit point value of 100, with 10 extra credit points possible.

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Of course when we include the ability of instructors to excuse an individual student from an individual item, we discover that P can vary on a student-by-student basis, as shown below:

Fig. 1

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In "Categories" mode, calculations are still point-based, and work along the same fundamental principle, though when it comes to extra credit there is a further complication. By organizing the points into categories, we end up with the idea of an item that contributes extra credit to that category specifically, where it doesn't make sense to determine the category contribution to the overall score unless at least one non-extra-credit item has been graded for that category.

• My Default Gradebook
  • Category 1
    • Item 1 (25 points)
    • Item 2 (25 points)
    • Item 3 (25 points)
    • Item 4 (25 points)
    • Extra Credit Item (10 points)

So under this case, we have the same basic calculation as above, but if we add a student who only completed the extra credit item, we get another non-intuitive case:

Fig. 2

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Weight Based Calculations

• My Default Gradebook
  • Category 1 (60% of course grade)
    • Item 1.1 (25 points) (25% of category, 15% of gradebook)
    • Item 1.2 (25 points) (25% of category, 15% of gradebook)
    • Item 1.3 (25 points) (25% of category, 15% of gradebook)
    • Item 1.4 (25 points) (25% of category, 15% of gradebook)
    • Extra Credit Item (10 points) (10% of category, 6% of gradebook)
  • Category 2 (40% of course grade)
    • Item 2.1 (15 points) (40% of category, 16% of gradebook)
    • Item 2.2 (15 points) (30% of category, 12% of gradebook)
    • Item 2.3 (15 points) (30% of category, 12% of gradebook)

Weight based calculations are used whenever a gradebook is in "Weighted Categories" mode. In this
case the instructor must lay out the desired weighting of each category and each item within those categories.

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So in the table below, the hyphen indicates unscored items, and otherwise a weight is provided to indicate the course grade weight that item will contribute:

Fig. 4

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So, if we were to calculate the "Category 1" grade for Joe, we first need to examine the desired category weights for each item, as in the table below:

Fig. 5

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Note that, taking each student above individually, the hyphens above could be the result of any of the following:

• Dropping the lowest score in a category
• Excusing that student from that one item in that category
• Choosing not to enter a grade for that student for that item

Project Extra Credit

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Project Extra Credit Project Extra Credit

Basically the idea is that in "categories" mode, there are two options:

(1) Project Extra Credit = TRUE
(2) Project Extra Credit = FALSE

With (1) the instructor is saying that she wants to see extra credit contribute to the score ONLY as much as it will once all grades are entered. So if the total non-extra-credit points in a gradebook are 100, and you enter 5 points of extra credit, the percentage contribution of those 5 points will be +5/100 = 0.05

With (2) the instructor is saying that he wants to see extra credit contribute EXACTLY the number of points that are entered. So if only 1 non-extra-credit item (with 10 points possible) of the above gradebook is graded, then the percentage contribution of the 5 points extra credit will be +5/10 = 0.50

In "weighted categories" mode, the impact of "Project Extra Credit" is similar, but it has a substantially different impact on scores if you have an Extra Credit category with more than one item in it. That is, when "Project Extra Credit" is TRUE in "weighted categories", it means, assume that the extra credit contribution can be for the whole category weight even if only one item is graded. If "Project Extra Credit" is false, then the extra credit contribution will be bounded to the % grade for that item.

Weight By Points

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Weight By Points Weight By Points

Weight by points is only applicable when the mode of the gradebook is set to "Weighted Categories". The grade type can be any valid grade type: points, percentages, letter grades. In "Weighted Categories" mode a checkbox labeled "Weight By Points" will be visible for any category when editing.

Checking this box will recalculate the % category values for the items under this category to match the relative values of the underlying points and scaled as though the total points for that category represent 100% of the category weight. So if you have 10 items with 10 points each, of course they will each have 10%, but equally, if you have 10 items with 40 points each, they will have 10% each.