ANGEL Community Hub

Q: It does not appear that the Gradebook rounds on the .5. Does it do so for final/published grades? I was told that the PSUGB did not round. If an instructor wants to round up, must they make provisions in the Grading Scale? What is the best answer?

A: It does not appear that the Gradebook rounds up or down. I went in and gave students a grade of 85.4, another 85.5 and another 85.6 and that is the grade they got. It also did not round up on the final grade. The grade is what the grade is entered. If an instructor wished to round up he/she can do in when they publish the final grades in the end (they get an option to change grades there) or they can go into the actual assignment and round up the grade there.

The reason for this setup is that not all instructors agree on rounding therefore we had to be specific with our calculations and let the instructors adjust them manually.

Q: Is the Gradebook available in a Resource Library?

A: A resource library is a place for stored course content (quizzes, drop boxes, presentations, papers, etc). Faculty members use resource libraries to store content they used continuously over several courses and or semesters or to share content with other faculty. There is no Gradebook for a resource library. It is simply a place to store course resources.

Q: Some participants had past PSUGB experience and were quick to point out "..I could do this in the PSUGB" or "...that is not what it was like in the PSUGB". I provided the disclaimer that this is a different product and continued to reference it throughout the session. I was under the impression that those who used the PSUGB had been given the opportunity for the earlier/preemptive training that addressed comparison.

A: All individuals who used the PSUGB were offered the opportunity to use the Course Gradebook and most did take us up on it.

Here is a link to the pilot podcast for the ANGEL Community Hub. Note that at the time this was recorded (July '06) we were still referring to the Community Hub as "Liquid ANGEL". ACH: Pilot Podcast.

Note: To watch a reply of the Gradebook session click here.

First off, a great big Thank You to ALL who participated in Thursday's (10/26) session. Without YOU nothing else could have happened. We had folks show up in person from the TLT Training Group, World Campus, Harrisburg, and perhaps other places. I do not have the final roster in front of me to do everyone justice. Additionally, we had folks joining us via Breeze from Abington, Behrend, Hazleton, Worthington-Scranton, Lehigh Valley, York..again I apologize for missing anyone. It's my faulty memory and no slight towards you. Full props will be coming once I gather up all the data.

Also, a big THANK YOU to Rox Toto, and the College of Engineering, for hosting the event. Everything was perfect. The accommodation's, the support, all was spot-on. And another big shout out needs to go to the man who produced and facilitated our gradebook shin-dig, John Spotts. If any of you ever get the opportunity to work with John you'll get top notch technical help and facilitation.

Thursday's session is at noon at not 11:30 as originally announced. I've updated the posting.

With the Course Gradebook there is no longer the manually scored assignment (MSA) option under the Lessons tab, like there was with the Penn State Gradebook. Instead this option has been incorporated right into the gradebook proper. To create an MSA:

1. go into the gradebook
2. select the assignments link
3. select the add new option
4. complete the fields (assignment name, point values, etc.)
5. select save

This will serve the same function. You can add/edit scores and students can see their grades for assignments outside of ANGEL.