Grading in Sakai

Grading permissions can be set in Sakai for TAs with the Assign TAs tool or permissions can be set within each individual tool.

Grading in Assignments

In order for Teaching Assistants to be able to grade assignments Instructors must adjust the Permissions in the Assignments tab to select Grade assignment submission(s) under the TA role.

If you'd like to connect your Assignment to Gradebook so that the grades from this assignment can be sent to Gradebook and released to the students, select one of the options below in your Assignment Settings.

• Do not add assignment to Gradebook: This is the default selection. This option does not send any grade information to the gradebook.
• Add assignment to Gradebook: This will create a new item in the gradebook with the same name as your assignment title.
• Associate with existing Gradebook entry: This option allows you to link your assignment to an existing gradebook item. This is useful if you have already created items in your Gradebook and you want to use one of them, rather than creating a new assignment. You may only link an assignment to a single Gradebook item, and vice versa.

For more information on grading Assignments see the various articles linked below:

• Grade an Assignment
• Grade Assignments Offline
• Allow Teaching Assistants to grade assignments
• Change the Assignments tool permissions
• Grade a Video Assignment
• Grade a Peer Assessment Assignment
• Upload graded assignment submissions and feedback
• Release Assignment Grades
• Send Assessment Grades to Gradebook

Grading in Forums

Teaching Assistants can view and grade Forum submissions when the topics are live/open. Once the topic closes Instructors need to either Lock the topic, which shows students and TA's past posts but no longer lets them add to that topic. To do this go to Forums > select Topic Settings beside the topic you want to lock > under Topic Posting > select Lock topic (Disable topic postings) > Save

OR if instructors prefer to keep the topic closed and hidden from students they will need to change the role of the TA to an Instructor in order for them to view past topics. To do this go to Site Info > Manage Participants > find the TA in the list of participants > under the dropdown menu for Role change it to Instructor > Update Participants. TA's will now have Instructor level access to the Sakai site and tools.

For more information on grading Forums see the article linked below:

• Grade discussion forums

Entering Grades in Gradebook

Anyone in the Teaching Assistant role can enter and edit grades for Gradebook items that Instructors have created.

If you want to restrict Teaching Assistant grading to a particular group in your site you can do this in the Permissions tab of Gradebook > select the Grader to edit from the dropdown menu > select the group they can grade (for example, Seminar 1) in the All Gradebook items in dropdown menu > select Add Rule > Save Changes

For more information on entering grades in Gradebook see the various articles linked below:

• Enter and/or edit grades in Gradebook
• Exclude a grade for a specific student
• Give extra credit points in Gradebook
• Format my file for importing grades into Gradebook
• Import grades into Gradebook
• Set empty cells to zero for a single grade item
• Set all ungraded items to zero in Gradebook
• View grades in Gradebook

Assign TAs

The Assign TAs tool is helpful in setting permissions for grading. If you want TAs grading in Tests and Quizzes it is how to give those with the role Teacher's Assistant access to the submissions. More information is available in Assign TAs.

Some considerations when entering grades

Releasing Grades Grades can be released on an assessment level (all students at once) via the tool (Assignments: Release Assignment Grades, Tests and Quizzes: Grading and Feedback options for an assessment (i.e. test or quiz)). Grades that are sent to Gradebook from these tools also need to be released to students: Edit Gradebook items.

Entering Zeros: Zeros must be entered for an assessment in order to be calculated into the grade. They are especially important when the "Drop the Lowest" option is enabled. However, when a student receives a zero it can stimulate a negative response from the student, communication can often assist with this response. When zeros are entered. Zeros entered directly in Gradebook can be reverted to a null (empty) entry manually by double clicking in the grade cell and then deleting the zero.

Set empty cells to zero for a single grade item

Note about Grading with Rubrics

If you are using Rubrics in your grading for Assignments, please see the following pages for more information on Rubrics:

• Add a rubric to an assignment
• Grade an assignment using a rubric
• Add a rubric to a forum topic
• Grade a forum topic using a rubric
• Add a rubric to a gradebook item
• Grade a gradebook item using a rubric