This article will explain how to grade and provide feedback on postgraduate assessments in Blackboard Ultra.
All postgraduate assignments (where appropriate) will be anonymous. This guidance is representative of an anonymous summative written assignment graded with a PG grading rubric.
Navigate to submitted work
- From the Courses page in Blackboard, open the relevant course to start marking student assignments.
- Select Gradebook from the Blackboard course menu. This will open up the Gradebook and display all the assessments for the course.
- By default, the Gradebook will show you the Assessments in List View. You will need to be in List View to access the submissions for an anonymous assessment.
In the Gradebook grid view, the column header lists how many submissions you graded. Each student’s cell displays the label ‘Anonymous’. You can’t tell which students have submitted.
- Under Markable Items, find and select the relevant assessment. You will be redirected to the submissions page.
- At the top of the submissions page you will see a message that states that the submission point is anonymous.
- From the Filter, select to view submissions that need marking. Now select a student with submitted work to mark. This will take you to the Grading page for that submission.
Each submission is given a unique ID. The postgraduate assessment team will inform markers which submissions they’re required to mark.
Grading page overview
Before you start grading, you need to ensure that you are marking the latest submission attempt. If a student has submitted more than once, it will default to their latest submission on the Grading page.
On the Grading page, you will be able to see the students submission and the feedback panel. In the top-left hand corner, you will see which attempt you are marking.
If content does not preview correctly on the grading page, it is possible to download the original file that the student submitted. You can do this by clicking on the ellipsis icon (three dots) and selecting Download Original File.
Blackboard converts files uploaded to submission points so they can use the systems inline grading tools. Please note that providing grading and feedback via this tool bar is not part of the standard workflow used at the school.
Follow these simple steps to grade the submission using the appropriate grading rubric:
- In the Feedback panel, select Rubric.
- Expand the details of the rubric by clicking on Show Descriptions. This will display the descriptors for each criterion.
- Enter the appropriate grade for each criterion (by selecting the grade in the rubric and entering a score).
Here you can see ‘Pass with Distinction’ has been selected. Pass with Distinction requires a grade between 70-100. The grader has manually entered 75. This has then started to populate the overall grading to 22.5 out of 100 (22.5 is representative of this criterion being weighted at 30% of the total mark).
- To justify the grade you have awarded, you can add feedback to each criterion. Click the Feedback icon (speech bubble) and add feedback in the Criterion Feedback box. The Feedback icon will turn pink once feedback has been added.
- Once you have graded each criterion in the rubric, an overall grade for that assessment will be calculated. This will be displayed at the top of the Grading page.
- Select the arrow to return to the Feedback panel.
- In the Feedback for student box, you can provide some overall feedback. If you have added specific feedback to each criterion you should reference this here. For example, ‘see detailed feedback in the rubric’. Make sure you Save any feedback added.
- You can edit the feedback you have added by selecting the pencil icon.
- Navigate back to the Gradebook to find another submission to mark.
Student view of grades and feedback
Once grades have been posted (by the Assessment team), students can access all feedback and grades. They can access the marking rubric to see the grades and feedback awarded to each criterion.