How Exclude Empty Grades works:
Excluding empty grades, when initiated, omits grades that have not yet been entered (0, zero, counts as a value towards an entered grade), therefore only graded items will be taken into consideration when calculating the course total.
Here's an example for grades in the Assignments category with three assignments, each worth 100 points:
- Assignment 1: 80/100
- Assignment 2: 90/100
- Assignment 3: No grade yet (empty)
If Exclude Empty Grades is enabled
The total grade will only be calculated based on the two graded assignments (Assignment 1 and Assignment 2). The student’s current average would be (80 + 90) / 2 = 85%.
If Exclude Empty Grades is disabled, the missing grade for Assignment 3 would be treated as a 0. The total grade would then be (80 + 90 + 0) / 3 = 56.7%.
How can this be useful?
- For ongoing courses, it helps to show a more accurate picture of a student's current grade.
- If disabled, you may want to ensure students are aware of missing work since it impacts their grades.
How to access Exclude Empty Grades:
1. On your course page, click Grades from from the red navigation bar at the top of the page.
2. Choose Gradebook setup from the dropdown menu (ensure Edit mode is on).
You may change the option to exclude the grades at two points:
- A - Grades excluded for the entire course
- B - Grades excluded for a specific category
3a. To exclude empty grades for the whole course, in the Actions column, click Edit to the right of the course name:
3b. To exclude empty grades for a category, in the Actions column, click Edit to the right of the category name:
4. Select Show more… from the Grade category window.
5. Disable the Exclude empty grades option.
6. Click Save changes when you're done.