How do I grade discussion forums by student?

Site administrators can grade discussion topics and messages by student or while reading discussion posts.

You can also grade in the Discussions tool by forum or topic.

Important: In order to grade in Discussions, you must have added a gradebook item in the Gradebook for each forum or topic to grade.

Grade posts while you read them.

Go to Discussions.

Select Discussions from the tool menu in your site.

Choose a topic.

Select the title of a topic to access the topic.

Note:

  • Topics are indented underneath the forum where they are located.
  • The message indicator text next to the topic title will tell you how many messages have been posted within that topic, and how many of them are marked as unread.

Select the title of an existing post to view the conversation.

Select Grade on a post.

When you are viewing a post, select the Grade button to assign a grade to it.

Enter and submit a grade and/or comments.

In the Grade Forum Message window:

  1. If you already selected a gradebook item when creating or editing the forum or topic you are grading, this item will appear by default in the Select a Gradebook item drop-down menu along with boxes to enter a grade and comments.

    If you did not select a gradebook item when creating or editing the forum or topic, choose the gradebook item where grades will be recorded from the drop-down menu.
  2. Enter a grade in the corresponding text box.
  3. If desired, add Comments.
  4. Select Submit Grade.

Tip: If you have recently saved comments in Discussions, Tests & Quizzes, or Gradebook, type a few letters from one of your comments and an auto-fill option will appear to select and reuse it.

View confirmation.

The Grade Forum Message window closes and a confirmation message indicating a successful grade submission briefly displays on the screen.

Grade posts by student.

Go to Discussions.

Select Discussions from the tool menu in your site.

Choose a topic.

Select the title of a topic to access the topic.

Note:

  • Topics are indented underneath the forum where they are located.
  • The message indicator text next to the topic title will tell you how many messages have been posted within that topic, and how many of them are marked as unread.

Select a student while viewing posts.

When you are viewing posts in Discussions either in a topic or a conversation, each student's name is linked to their posting statistics. Select a student's name.

Or, to access a list of all site participants, select Statistics & Grading.

On the Discussions main page, select the Statistics & Grading tab.

Select a student.

A table listing site participants will display, with the following summary statistics for each user:

  1. Participant's name,
  2. Number of new posts authored,
  3. Number of replies authored,
  4. Total number of posts authored,
  5. Number of posts marked as read,
  6. Number of unread posts,
  7. The percentage of posts the person read.

You may sort the data in the table by selecting any of the column headings: Name, Authored - New, Authored - Replies, Authored - Total, Read, Unread, or Percent Read.

Select a site participant's name to access posts authored and read by that participant.

Tip: For more information regarding the numbers of read and unread posts shown in these columns, see What makes a forum post count as read?

Next to the Subject of the post you would like to grade, select the Grade link.

Note: When you select the Grade link, the post will be displayed in the grading window that pops up.  You can also select the post's Subject to display the post individually, or the [display in conversation] link to display the post in its thread.

Enter and submit a grade and/or comments.

In the Grade Forum Message window:

  1. If you already selected a gradebook item when creating or editing the forum or topic you are grading, this item will appear by default in the Select a Gradebook item drop-down menu along with boxes to enter a grade and comments.

    If you did not select a gradebook item when creating or editing the forum or topic, choose the gradebook item where grades will be recorded from the drop-down menu.
  2. Enter a grade in the corresponding text box.
  3. If desired, add Comments.
  4. Select Submit Grade.

Tip: If you have recently saved comments in Discussions, Tests & Quizzes, or Gradebook, type a few letters from one of your comments and an auto-fill option will appear to select and reuse it.

View confirmation.

The Grade Forum Message window closes and a confirmation message indicating a successful grade submission briefly displays on the screen.