Creating a grade book category

Use grade book categories to organize and group related grade items into sections. For example, you could have separate categories for Assignments, Quizzes, Case Studies, Participation, Discussions, and so on. When grade items are grouped together in a category, you can distribute points equally across all grade items and drop the highest or lowest item in the group.

On the Manage Grades page, click Category from the New button.
Type a Name for the category.
If you want, enter a Short Name to display in the grade book.
If you want, enter a Description of the category.
- Select the Allow users to view description check box if you want to make the category description available to users.
If you are using the weighted system, enter the total Weight or percentage that you want the category to contribute towards the final grade.
Set additional options as required and click Save, then click Close. To create another category, click Save and New.

Additional grade category options

Option	Procedure
Allow users’ grades to exceed the maximum value for the category	Select the Can Exceed check box. Weighted system example You create an “Assignments” category that contains two grade items: A1 and A2. Both assignments are worth 50% of the category and can exceed the weight specified. Frank Catcher receives 100% on A1 and 110% on A2. Frank receives 105% in the Assignments category. Points system example You create an “Assignments” category that contains two grade items: A1 and A2. Both assignments are out of 10 points and can exceed the maximum points specified. Frank Catcher receives 12/10 and 9/10 on the grade items.
Exclude items in the category from the final grade calculations	Select either: 0% in the Weight field in the weighted system. Exclude from Final Grade Calculation in the points system.
Distribution of weights and points for grade items in the category	For the weighted system select one of: Manually assign weight to items in the category Calculating and setting item weights enables you to control the weighting of individual items that belong to a weighted category. Distribute weights by points across all items in the category Uses the points of individual, non-bonus grade items to determine the relative weighting of each item out of 100%. Distribute weight evenly across all items Gives all grade items equal weighting in the weighted category regardless of the number of points the individual item is out of. For the points or formula system: Distribute points across all items then enter the Points per item.
Drop the highest or lowest grade item in a category	Enter the number of items to drop in either: Number of highest non-bonus items to drop for each user Number of lowest non-bonus items to drop for each user Note Grades must be distributed evenly to use this option and you cannot drop bonus items.
Change what users see for this category from your standard display settings	Select or clear: Display class average to users Display grade distribution to users