Blackboard Grade Book Overview
Use the menu on the left to proceed though this tutorial

  1. Accessing the Grade Book
  2. Exploring the Grade Book Interface
  3. Creating Columns
  4. Creating a Letter Grade Column
  5. Creating a Calculated Column & a Formula
  6. Reorder & Hide/Show Columns












  Create a Calculated Column and its Formula
A calculated column is used when you want to automatically calculate a value based on other numeric or calculated type columns.

To create a calculated column:
Click the Create Column button in top left of the grade book screen, circled in red in the picture below.
create column button
Select Calculated from the Action List drop down menu
Enter the column label and settings you desire and then click Save.
Your new column is placed to the right of the very last column by default so scroll to the right if necessary.



From the main Grade Book screen, click on the name of your new calculated column
or its Action Links Icon Action Links Icon to reveal the Action Links pull down menu and select “Edit Column Formula.”



This will take you to the Edit Formula Screen.  (Click this link to see the Edit Formula Screen in a new window)

Calculated Column formulas can only perform operations on values from other numeric or calculated type columns in your grade book.  You can use them to calculate a student grade based on grades they have received in other gradeable columns in your grade book.

The four function buttons available are SUM, MIN, MAX, or AVG.
  • The SUM function adds up the values from selected columns and provides the total.
  • The MIN function determines the minimum value from a group of columns
  • The MAX function determines the maximum value from a group of columns
  • The AVG function determines the average value from a group of columns

You can also use the on-screen keypad to add, subtract, multiply, and divide, enter numbers, and group expressions within your formula with the parentheses.  You cannot use your computer's keyboard to enter information (values, +, -, numbers, etc.) in the formula editor.

Below is an example formula I created in a course for this example:

I had three columns to use to determine demo student's final grade:
  • A "First Project" with a maximun possible score of 36
  • A quiz with a maximun possible score of 10
  • A Midterm with a maximun possible score of 100
Here are the steps I followed to create a formula to calculate the Final Grade:
  1. I clicked AVE to average the 3 column values
  2. I clicked the left parenthesis to allow me to group expressions so I could turn a score out of a possible 36 into one out of  100
  3. I clicked on "First Project" from the select a column list
  4. I clicked the / divide key, then clicked the '3' then '6', then clicked the * multiply key, then the '1', '0', and  '0' to divide the score by 36 then multiply it by 100
  5. Then I clicked the right parenthesis to end that group
  6. Clicked the Enter Another Value button
  7. Clicked the left parenthesis to allow me to group expressions
  8. Clicked "New Sample Quiz" from the select a column list
  9. Clicked the * multiply key, then '1' and then '0' to multiply the score out of 10 by 10 to turn that score into one out of 100
  10. clicked the right parenthesis to end that group
  11. Then clicked the Enter Another Value button again
  12. Clicked Midterm from the select a column list
  13. Then I clicked the End Function button

This formula worked well to average those three divergent scores and I hope it serves as a good example of how a few of the operations in the formula editor work.