Grades | How to create a grade scheme

What are grade schemes

Grade schemes are the way grades are displayed to students. Grade schemes allow grades to be presented as text, customized grade ranges or grades rounded to a certain percentage.

A grade scheme enables you to organize users' performance on grade items into levels of achievement. Each level of achievement has its own range of acceptable grades that fall within that range. Each range has a symbol to represent it, which can be text, a letter or a number.

Example Scheme

In the example above, students will fall into the 'Fail' range if their grade is below 5.5 points (or 55% of the total grade), and will receive a 'Very good' if their grade is between 7 points and 8.4 (or 70 and 84% of the grade).

On organization level, there are 5 grade schemes already available by default in your Brightspace:

  • 1-10 decimal scheme for partial grades. Minimum grade to pass is 5 points.
  • 1-10 decimal scheme for partial grades. Minimum grade to pass is 5.5 points.
  • 1-10 decimal scheme for partial grades. No minimum grade.
  • Pass/fail scheme.
  • WUR-grading, which rounds grades according the exam regulations. This is usually only used for final grades.

How to create a grade scheme

You can create personalized grade schemes for your course.

1. In the navbar of the course, click onĀ Grades, this will open the grade book

New Scheme - Course for Creating Screensteps Manuals - Wageningen University & Research - Google Chrome

2. In the grade book, click on Schemes

3. Click on New Scheme

new scheme

4. Enter a name for the new grade scheme

You can also give the scheme a shorter name to be displayed in places with limited space.

Enter name

In theĀ RangesĀ area, enter your scheme details.

5. Enter the name (symbol) of the different ranges. You can add more ranges clicking in Add Ranges

The first range is always the lowest value. Build your scheme from the lowest to the highest grade.

6. Add Start % and Assigned value % to your ranges
  • The Start percentage is the minimum grade needed to fall into a grade range.
  • The Assigned Value percentage is where you enter the numeric grade you want learners to achieve.
With assigned value

For example, taking the ranges from the picture above, students will receive the following grades based on their points:

  • 5 = C+
  • 6,9 = B
  • 8,5 = A-
  • 10 = A

Note: if you do not enter an Assigned Value %, the Start % is used by default. Meaning that the start Assigned Value % will be the same as the Start % (See image below). Nonetheless, the Start % will still be kept as the reference, so for example if a student gets an 8,5 the grade will be A- as it has not reach 9, Start % of the next range.

Without assigned value

7. You can associate a color with each range. Your grade book will be color-coded accordingly.

8. Click on Save and Close

Your personalized grade scheme is now created and can be used in grade items!