Create and Grade a Negative Grade Item
Why Do This?
There might be a scenario where you would want to take away points from a student’s cumulative total in the Gradebook. For example, you may want a student to lose 5 points for every class session that they miss. Creating a negative grade item allows you to do this.
Creating a Negative Grade Item
- From your course homepage, click on the gear in the upper right of the course to access the Course Administration, then select Gradebook setup.
- Scroll to the bottom and select Add grade item.
- Enter the Item name. Keep these names short to minimize the gradebook column width.
- The value in the Maximum grade box must be greater than 0 in order to calculate properly. If you only want the grade item to take away points and not contribute points to the course total, you should put 1 in the box and then later we will make the item Extra Credit (steps 7-9).
- The value in the Minimum grade box should include a minus sign and then the maximum number of points you want to be able to deduct.
- Select Save changes at the bottom of the page.
- To make the item Extra Credit, click Edit and then Edit Settings for the grade item you just created.
- Check the box for Extra credit at the bottom of the page.
- Select Save changes at the bottom of the page.
Grading a Negative Grade Item
- While in the gradebook, click on the View tab and then the Single View
- Select the negative grade item from the “Select grade item…” drop down.
- Enter a minus sign followed the number of points the student should lose in the Grade box for each student.
- Click Save in either the upper or lower right.