Overview

Goal

Create two or more separate Gradebooks and generate a cumulative grade that consists of the weighted averages from the separate Gradebooks, including a final exam grade.

For example, I teach a semester-long class with two quarters. The final grade for the class is the weighted average of two quarter grades at 40% each and 20% for the final exam. I also need to submit the final exam grade using School Loop's Grade Export Feature.

Note: If you are not required to submit a final exam grade separately or do not use School Loop's Grade Export feature, see the final exam variation of Scenario III.

In this scenario, you will need to create four Gradebooks: two quarter-long Gradebooks, a final exam Gradebook, and one special Gradebook for calculating the first-semester grade. This image illustrates how these Gradebooks should be created:

The Semester 1 Gradebook will be used to import the averages for each student from the other Gradebooks: Quarter 1, Quarter 2, and Final Exam. In this example, both the Final Exam and Semester 1 Gradebooks are set with the minimum date range of two days each.

Step-By-Step Guide

From the Gradebooks menu on the navigation bar of your Portal homepage, choose Add/Edit Gradebook for one of your courses.
Click the Edit link next to the name of the default year-long gradebook.
Add "Q1" to the name of the gradebook and the term label.
Set the end date to be the last day of Quarter 1.
Click Submit.
Back on the Add/Edit page, click the Add New Gradebook button.
Add "Q2" to the name of the gradebook and the term label.
Set the start date and end date which correspond to the start and end dates of Quarter 2.
Click Submit.
Click the Add New Gradebook button to create the semester gradebook.
Add "Semester 1" to the name of the gradebook and the term label.
Set the start date to the day after the last day of Quarter 2. Set the end date to two days after the last day of Quarter 2.
Click Submit.
Click the Add New Gradebook button to create the Final Exam gradebook.
Add "Final Exam" to the name of the gradebook and the term label.
Set the start date to the day after the last day of the Semester 1 gradebook. Set the end date to two days after the last day of the Semester 1 gradebook.
Click Submit.

Notes:

The Semester 1 and Final Exam Gradebooks should not have overlapping dates with any other Gradebooks.
We recommend that you run all your Gradebooks back-to-back without any days between Gradebooks. For example, if the 2nd Semester starts on January 12, you should end the previous Gradebook on January 11.
Be sure to give each Gradebook an appropriate name and be careful that the start and end dates are accurate for each term.
If you have already published grades in a Gradebook, remember to republish after editing the date range.

Setting up Cumulative Gradebook

Setting Up Weighting

Create three new categories named Q1, Q2 and Final Exam.
Turn weighting on for the Semester 1 gradebook.
Set Q1 and Q2 to 40% each and set Final Exam to 20%.
Use these links to go to the relevant help pages for creating categories and setting weighting.
Create Assignments and import Gradebook Scores.
In the Semester 1 gradebook, create three assignments titled Q1 Grade, Q2 Grade, and Final Exam. Make each worth 100 points and assign the corresponding categories to each assignment.
Click the Q1 Grade assignment in the Semester 1 gradebook to access the assignment scoresheet.
Click the Import Gradebook Scores drop-down menu and select the Q1 gradebook.
Click Save & Exit.
Repeat steps 2 - 4 for the Q2 Grade assignment and the Final Exam assignment.

Note: When you import the scores from another gradebook, the cells will populate with the values equal to each student's percentage score from the imported gradebook multiplied by the maximum value of the assignment. For example, the Q1 Grade assignment in our example is worth 100 points. If, for example, the student's average from the Quarter 1 gradebook is 75%, the cell value, in this case, would be 75 points (100 point maximum multiplied by 0.75).

Confirmation

If the procedure was carried out correctly, the weighted average for the created Gradebooks and final exam will now be displayed under the Gradebook section.