There are several different ways to calculate weighted totals in Blackboard. The following includes examples on how Blackboard calculates weighted grades. This guide was adapted from Loyola University in Chicago.
Step-by-Step Guide
Understanding Weighted Grades
To illustrate weighted grade calculation, the following example will be used.
If you create categories for items and weight for each category, Blackboard will not total the scores in a given category and multiple the total score of all items by the weight. Instead, Blackboard divides the weight equally to each item in the given category. To illustrate the following process, a new example will be used:
If a student has not finished all of the available quizzes, you will need to figure a Running Weighted Total instead of a Weighted Total. So of the five quizzes, let's say the student has only completed two of them (5/5 and 2/5). The following shows how Blackboard will calculate the running weighted total:
If you are dropping the lowest score in a category, Blackboard will reapportion the percentage given to each item in a category. For the example, this would be one of the five quizzes with scores: 2, 3, 5, 5, 5. Dropping the score of two, the percentage for each quiz will now be 15%/4 or .038 per quiz. The total points for the category will also change because a quiz is being removed from the total score (175 to 170).
In the previous examples, all items in the Quiz category were of the same point value. If you give different point values to quiz items within a category but want the percentage of the items to remain equal, Blackboard will apportion the percentage of the weight with the following formula.
In the previous example, percentages were distributed equally among items in a category. If you will to proportion the weight of the items, the following formula is used by Blackboard.
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