The University is committed to a 15-day turnaround time for student feedback.
During this period, while marking is taking place, you will want to be sure that students cannot see the interim grades and feedback which staff have entered. Then, of course, as soon as marks are agreed you want to be sure that students can see their marks and feedback.
Ensuring that interim marks are hidden
For any assignment – Blackboard or Turnitin – if the relevant Grade Centre column is hidden, you can be sure that students can’t see their marks and feedback. It is easy to check this setting, by going to Control Panel > Grade Centre > Full Grade Centre.
For details please see How to ensure that students cannot see their marks and feedback prematurely
Ensuring that moderated grades are visible to students
You may find it useful to read our guidance for students on how to find their marks and feedback:
Student guide to finding marks and feedback through Blackboard
There are various routes, depending on the type of assessment, and exactly how staff have set up the course.
Although students can see their grades via the Global Navigation menu (top right of the screen), if you are making marks and feedback available through Blackboard you should add ‘My Grades’ to your course menu:
>>> Adding the ‘My Grades’ tool as a menu item in a course <<<
In order for students to see marks and feedback in ‘My Grades’ the corresponding Grade Centre column must be unhidden. The relevant control is ‘Hide from Students (On/Off)’ – it’s either on or off. Please see Hide a Grade Centre column from students
Can a Grade Centre column be automatically hidden and unhidden?
This depends on the type of assessment.
Blackboard Assignment
When you Set up a Blackboard Assignment, under ‘Display of Grades’, there is a setting ‘Show to Students in My Grades’. If you leave that setting unchecked, then the assignment will automatically be hidden from students.
There is not, unfortunately, any way of automatically revealing the scores on a certain date, so when you are ready for students to see their results you will need to manually Unhide the Grade Centre column.
Turnitin Assignment
When you Set up a Turnitin assignment you will choose a Due Date and a Post Date. The latter dictates when students will be able to go back to the Turnitin submission point and view their grades and feedback which you have entered via Turnitin GradeMark.
When creating your Turnitin Assignments, you should always say Yes to the option ‘Reveal Grades only on Post Date’. By ticking that box, you ensure that the Blackboard Grade Centre column for the assignment will automatically be hidden, and automatically unhidden when the Post Date is reached.
When anonymous marking is enabled in Turnitin, no information will transfer from Turnitin to the Blackboard Grade Centre until the Post Date i.e. up until the Post Date, you will not be able to see which students have submitted, nor the grades allocated to individual students, and students will not be able to view their marks or feedback. It is still advisable, however, to say Yes to ‘Reveal Grades only on Post Date’, even when anonymity is enabled.
Recent improvements to the integration between Blackboard and Turnitin mean that if you tick the box ‘Would you like to save these options as your defaults for future assignments?’ Turnitin will remember your preferences regarding anonymous marking and the ‘Reveal Grades’ feature.