Grading Discussions

This page is for instructors who wish to grade their discussion boards. 

Turning on Discussion Grading

If you do not have a discussion forum created, see How to Create a Forum.

1. In your course, open the Discussion Board.

2. Hover over the name of the forum you wish to enable grading for, and then click the gray down arrow.

3. Click Edit.

4. Scroll down to Forum Settings.

5. Under "Grade," check either Grade Discussion Forum or Grade Threads.

   1. If you select "Grade Discussion Forum," make sure to enter the points possible in the box next to "Points possible." You will also want to check the box next to "Show participants in ‘needs grading’ status after every x Posts.” This will notify you to grade students' performance after a certain number of posts have been made.

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6.  Click Submit.

Grade Discussion Forum vs. Grade Threads

The "Grade Discussion Forum" option puts the entire discussion board into the grade center as one column. This means that the entire discussion board will have one grade. The "Grade Threads" Option allows you to individually grade threads within the discussion board. Please note that students cannot create threads in a thread graded discussion forum; they can only respond to threads created by the instructor.

Grading a Discussion Forum

1. In your course, open the Discussion Board.

2. Click on the name of the forum you wish to grade.

3. Click Grade Discussion Forum (at the top of the page).

4. Click the Grade button next to the student you wish to grade. This will take you to the grading page which will show all of the student's discussion board posts

5. Put the numerical grade in the top right "Grade" box, and provide any feedback you wish to send to the student. This will be the grade for all of the discussion posts – not just one of them.
   

6. Click Submit to save the grade.

7. Repeat this process for all students who need to be graded.

Grading a Discussion Thread

1. In your course, open the Discussion Board.

2. Click on the name of the forum you wish to grade.

3. Click Grade Thread next to the thread you wish to grade.

4. Click Grade next to the student you wish to grade. This will take you to the grading page where you can see the student's contributions to the thread.

5. Put the numerical grade in the top right "Grade" box, and provide any feedback you wish to send to the student

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6. Click Submit to save the grade.

7. Repeat this process for all students who need to be graded.

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