Link a discussion topic to a grade item to grade learners based on their participation or knowledge in your course. Discussions are a great way to interact and engage with your learners and allow them to practice demonstrating their knowledge.
Make a discussion topic gradable and link it to a grade item
When you add a discussion topic’s score to a numeric grade item in your grade book, your learners’ scores automatically transfer to the grade book. This enables you to factor the topic score into their final grades for the course.
Note: You can only link numeric grade items to discussion topics.
To make a discussion topic gradable and link it to a grade item
- You can edit an existing topic or create a new discussion topic:
- Navigate to Discussions. In the Actions menu for a discussion topic, click Edit Topic.
Figure: The Actions menu for a discussion topic showing the Edit Topic option.
- Navigate to Content. In the module where you want to create your discussion topic, click Create New > Discussion.
Figure: The What would you like to create? page showing the Discussion option.
- On the topic creation or edit page, enter a numeric value in the Grade Out Of field
Figure: The Grade Out Of field.
- In the Grade Out Of section, click the drop-down menu and click Edit or Link to Existing.
Figure: The drop-down menu with the Edit or Link to Existing option highlighted.
- In the Edit or Link to Existing dialog, select one of the following:
- Select Create and link to a new grade item to create a new grade item associated with your discussion topic. Choose the Grade Scheme for your new grade item.
- Select Link to an existing grade item to link your discussion topic to an existing grade item. Select the existing grade item from the drop-down list.
- Click OK.
Figure: The Edit or Link to Existing dialog showing the options for associating a discussion topic to a grade item.
- Toggle the Visibility of your discussion topic ON or OFF.
- Click Save and Close.
Figure: The Save and Close option and Visibility toggle for a discussion topic.
Your discussion topic is now linked to a grade item.
Assess a discussion topic
You must publish the score in order for Brightspace to update the grade item in the grade book. This prevents the display of inaccurate grades before you finish assessing users. When you publish the topic score, Brightspace updates the grade item in the grade book, and makes the grade visible to learners in Discussions, Content, and User Progress. Any additional changes you make to a user’s score automatically updates in the grade book.
To assess a discussion topic
- Navigate to Discussions.
- From the Actions menu of the topic you want to assess, click Assess Topic.
Figure: The Actions menu for a discussion topic showing the Assess Topic option.
- On the Assess Topic page, do one of the following:
- To publish scores for specific learners, select the Draft check box in the Status column beside each learner whose score you want to release. Click Save.
- To publish scores for all learners, click Publish > Yes.
Video: How to grade a discussion in your grade book