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Home > Help & Support > Knowledge Base > Teaching & Learning > Blackboard > How to Give Extra Credit to Students in the Grade Center

How to Give Extra Credit to Students in the Grade Center

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The method to add Extra Credit varies based on if you calculate your overall course grade using the Total or Weighted Total column. Expand the options below to read more.

Total Column Options

Option 1 (Most Common)

Create a column in the Grade Center called Extra Credit. On the Edit Column page, select Score as the Primary Display and then enter 0 for the Points Possible. Ensure that Yes is selected next to Include this Column in Grade Center Calculations. Click Submit. Entering a value of 0 for Points Possible will ensure that the total possible points of the course do not change.

Note: If you have edited the Total column to only include certain columns in calculating students final score, be sure to add the “Extra Credit” column otherwise it will be ignored.

Assign a value (greater than 0) to each student who should be given extra credit in the Extra Credit column.

Option 2

You can give extra credit to a student by simply entering their score plus extra credit in an existing column and then notate in your feedback to the student that you have given them ## additional points as extra credit.

Weighted Total Column Options
Giving extra credit to students in the Grade Center when you use weighted grades may not seem possible. Creating an extra credit column with a 0% weight would be ignored and creating an extra credit column with any other weight would require decreasing the weight(s) of one or more columns so it would no longer be extra credit.

Option 1 (Most Common)

An easy way to give extra credit to students when grading based on weights is to include those points in an existing column.

First, you will need to make a decision regarding the proportions of the extra credit. For example, adding extra points to a column that has a category of Midterm Exam may weigh those points higher than adding the extra credit points to a column that has a category of Participation.

Option 2

Create a new column for the extra credit, move it next to the Weighted Total column, and manually add the Weighted Total + Extra Credit into the new column. (You could also download the Grade Center, do this in excel, and upload the updated spreadsheet.) This is your new final grade column.

Option 3

Create an Extra Credit column and make the Points Possible worth 1. Give all students a 1 and any students who have extra credit more than 1. You can either add this column to an existing category (i.e. Tests) or create an Extra Credit category and assign the column this category. Then in your Weighted Total column, make the Extra Credit category 1% of the weighted grade.

Last modified: December 16, 2020

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