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Preserving Calculated Grade Items from Master to Instance

Roger.H.7027

We used calculated grade items for Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) assessments. That is, we map each CLO to one or more grade items related to that CLO so that we can determine whether a student has mastered that particular CLO at the end of the semester. In our case, we hide those grade items from the students and do not include them in their final grades, but we use them to update our CLO assessment tool, eLumen.

The problem is, when we put those calculated grade definitions into the master shell for a course they are lost when use that master to create session instance shells from the master. So, I am wondering whether we are doing something wrong or is there no way to create calculated grade items in master shells that are preserved in the session instance shells?

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Stephen.R.50

Hello @Roger.H.7027, thanks for your question, and welcome to the Brightspace Community!

You should be able to copy Calculated Grade Items from one course to another without issue. Could you tell me the process you follow to copy from one Course Offering to another, and if you select any specific settings?

Thank you!

~Stephen

Roger.H.7027

Hi Stephen, thanks for the quick response.

My process goes through the package format: I export the master as a Brightspace Package and import that package into the session instance shell. I believe that explains what I am seeing, and I want to confirm my reasoning.

I inspected the exported grades_d2l.xml directly. A Calculated item (type_id=5) exports with the same skeleton as any other grade item (category, name, scoring) but with no element of any kind referencing its member items. I compared a full export against grades-only exports with and without source files included, and the gradebook XML was byte-identical in each case, so no export variant appears to carry the membership. The Valence API documentation also states that direct creation of grade object types 5 through 9 is not supported, so the wiring cannot be supplied programmatically either as far as I understand.

If that is right, then the membership is never serialized into the package, and no import setting can restore information that is not in the file. The item arrives as an unwired shell, which matches what we observe.

So two questions: (1) Does that match your understanding, i.e. is export/import a dead end for Calculated membership regardless of settings? (2) Is Copy Course Components the supported path here, and does it preserve the member selection, with the references remapped to the copied items? If so, we can restructure our master-to-instance process around copy instead of import. I plan to verify in a sandbox either way, but it would help to know whether that is the intended behavior.

Thanks again,
Roger

Stephen.R.50

Hi Roger,

Thanks for all this information!

Just to clarify your processes, so I can check this further, can you tell me how exactly you are making the copy with the exported Brightspace Package?

Thanks!

~Stephen

Roger.H.7027

The process is straightforward - at least I think it is. ;^) We export a brightspace cartridge from shell A and then import it into an empty shell B. The calculated grade "wiring" does not survive the export, so that wiring is lost on import. We get the calculated grade items, but their connections to the other grade items are MIA.

Stephen.R.50

Hi @Roger.H.7027,

I've confirmed that when using an export, the contents/'math' of both a Calculated and Formula grade item will not be retained, and there's no way to work around this at the moment.

I did fully verify that an org unit to org unit copy (course to course) will retain the contents of both Calculated and Formula grade items. This is possible when copying between courses, one at a time, or by using the Course Copy Bulk tool.

I think I'd recommend Course Copy Bulk, as you can build your spreadsheet and let the system run it without needing to enter each Course Offering.

Hopefully this will be a path forward for you to use! Let me know if you have any questions at all.

~Stephen

Stephen.R.50

I should also share the documentation for the Course Copy Bulk/CCB tool, especially for anyone else who may come across this conversation:

https://community.d2l.com/brightspace/kb/articles/4703-about-copy-course-bulk-ccb

Always happy to help guide with using this as well!

Roger.H.7027

Thank you, Stephen, for looking into the issue. You confirmed our understanding of the current limitation in the export/import workflow. We will take a look at the Copy Course Block route you identified.