You can review information about how grading is configured for your course, and access student grades, at any time after you create the course. You can also make adjustments to student grading for a problem, for a single student or all students. For information about the grading data that you can access and the changes you can make, see the following topics:

For information about how you establish a grading policy and work with the Problem components in your course, see Establishing a Grading Policy or Working with Problem Components.

You can review the assignment types that are graded and their respective weights on the Instructor Dashboard.

You establish a grading policy for your course when you create it in Studio. While the course is running, you can view an XML representation of the assignment types in your course and how they are weighted to determine students’ grades.

1. View the live version of your course.

A list of the assignment types in your course displays. In this example, Homework is weighted as 0.3 (30%) of the grade.

In Studio, you define this information by selecting Settings > Grading. For more information, see Configure the Assignment Types.

Important

Any changes that you make to the course grading policy, to graded subsections, or to graded components after the course begins will affect the student experience in the course and analysis of its data. Unavoidable changes should be announced to students, on the Course Info page for example, and carefully tracked for researchers.

## 12.11.2. Generate Grades for Enrolled Students (All Courses)¶

For any course, you can generate grades and then download a file with the results for each enrolled student.

When you initiate calculations to grade student work, a process starts on the edX servers. The complexity of your grading configuration and the number of students enrolled in your course affect how long this process takes. You can download a report of the calculated grades in a CSV (comma-separated values) file when the grading process is complete.

For courses with fewer than 200 students enrolled, you also have the option to review student grades on the Instructor Dashboard. See Review Grades for Enrolled Students (Small Courses).

To generate the grade report for the students who are currently enrolled in your course:

1. View the live version of your course.
A status message indicates that the grading process is in progress. This process can take some time to complete, but you can navigate away from this page and do other work while it runs.
1. To track the progress of the grading process, reload the page in your browser and scroll down to the Pending Instructor Tasks section.

After you request a grade report for your students, the result is a time- stamped CSV file that includes columns to identify each student: id, email, and username. It also includes a column for every assignment that is included in your grading configuration: each homework, lab, midterm, final, and any other assignment type you added to your course. If your course includes cohorts or content experiments, the grade report includes additional columns indicating the name of the cohort or experiment group that each student belongs to.

Important

Because this file contains confidential, personally identifiable data which may be subject to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), be sure to follow your institution’s data stewardship policies when you open or save this file.

1. View the live version of your course.
3. To open or save a grade report file, click the {course_id}_grade_report_{date}.csv file name at the bottom of the page.

Note

To prevent the accidental distribution of student data, you can only download these files by clicking the links on this page. Do not copy these links for reuse elsewhere, as they expire within 5 minutes. The links on this page also expire if the page is open for more than 5 minutes: if necessary, refresh the page to generate new links.

### 12.11.2.2. Interpret the Grade Report¶

Grade reports provide a snapshot of cumulative course scores, by assignment, of every currently enrolled student.

You can open {course_id}_grade_report_{date}.csv files in a spreadsheet application to sort, graph, and compare data.

The CSV file contains one row of data for each student, and columns that provide the following information.

• The overall grade, with the total score a student has currently attained in the course. This value is expressed as a decimal: a student with a grade of 0.65 has earned 65% of the credit in the course, and a student with a grade of 1 has earned 100%.
• Each {assignment type} {number} defined in your grading configuration, with the score a student attained for that specific assignment. For example, column HW 03 shows the scores for the third homework assignment.
• An {assignment type} Avg with each student’s current average score for that assignment type: for example, HW Avg.
• If cohorts are used in the course, a Cohort Name column indicates the name of the cohort that each student belongs to, including the default cohort. The column is empty for students who are not yet assigned to a cohort.
• If content experiments are used in the course, an Experiment Group column indicates the name of the experiment group that each student belongs to within a group configuration. The column heading includes the name of the group configuration. The column is empty for students who are not assigned to an experiment group. If you have more than one experiment group configuration in your course, you see one column for each group configuration.

Note

The grade reports do not include information about individual questions within the assignments, or include student answer distributions.

## 12.11.3. Review Grades for Enrolled Students (Small Courses)¶

For courses with enrollments of up to 200 students, you can review a gradebook on the Instructor Dashboard.

1. View the live version of your course.

2. Click Instructor, then click Student Admin. For courses with fewer than 200 students enrolled, this tab includes a Student Gradebook section.

The gradebook includes the following features.

• You can click the student username in each row to review that student’s Course Progress page. See Check the Progress of a Single Student.

• There is a column for each {assignment type} {number} defined in your grading configuration, with the scores your student attained for that specific assignment.

The gradebook does not have a scroll bar, but it is draggable: to see columns that are hidden at one side of the grade book, click the gradebook and then drag left or right to reveal those columns.

• For assignment types that include more than one assignment, an {assignment type} Avg column displays each student’s current average score for that assignment type.

• The Total column presents the total score a student has currently attained in the course. This value is expressed as a whole number: a student with a grade of 65 has earned 65% of the credit in the course, and a student with a grade of 100 has earned 100%.

• If cohorts are used in the course, a Cohort Name column indicates the name of the cohort that each student belongs to, including the default cohort. The column is empty for students who are not yet assigned to a cohort.

• If content experiments are used in the course, an Experiment Group column indicates the name of the experiment group that each student belongs to within a group configuration. The column heading includes the name of the group configuration. The column is empty for students who are not assigned to an experiment group. If you have more than one experiment group configuration in your course, you see one column for each group configuration.

• To filter the data that displays you can use the Search students option. This option is case-sensitive and limits the rows shown in the gradebook to usernames that match your entry.

## 12.11.4. Check the Progress of a Single Student¶

To check a single student’s progress, you can locate the specific row on the grade report or review the student’s Progress page. The Progress page includes a chart that plots the score the student has earned for every graded assignment and the total grade as of the current date. Below the chart, each assignment and the score attained are listed.

To review a student’s Progress page, you supply an email address or username. You can check the progress for students who are either enrolled in, or who have unenrolled from, the course.

Students can view a similar chart and assignment list (of their own progress only) when they are logged in to the course. See A Student’s View of Course Progress.

To view the Progress page for a student:

1. View the live version of your course.

2. Click Instructor, then click Student Admin.

4. Click Student Progress Page.

The Progress page for the student displays a chart with the grade for each homework, lab, midterm, final, and any other assignment types in your course, and the total grade earned for the course to date. The chart does not reflect any cohort or experiment group assignments.

To learn more about a particular assignment, move the cursor onto the value in the chart. A brief description displays.

Below the chart, subsections are listed on the left and the units that contain assignments are listed on the right. The student’s individual problem scores display.

### 12.11.4.1. Interpret the Student Progress Page¶

The chart of a student’s scores on the Progress page and the rows of data on the grade report present assignment scores in a similar order. However, the total, cumulative score earned for the course is placed in a different position on the Progress page.

In this example grade report, the indicated student has a current grade of 0.43 (43%).

• On each of the first four homework assignments the student scored 1 (100%), but currently has a 0 (0%) on each of the remaining three assignments.

Notice, however, that the student’s current average score for homework assignments is listed as 0.666666667 (67%): in this course, the homework assignment with the lowest score is dropped, so this average is over six assignments rather than all seven.

• The student has a score of 0.75 (75%) on the midterm, and a score of 0 (0%) on the final.

On the student’s Progress page, you see the same information graphically represented; however, the student’s “total” of 43% is on the far right.

The chart on the Progress page includes y-axis labels for the grade ranges defined for the course. In this example, Pass is set to 60%, so at the end of the course students with a grade of 0.60 or higher can receive certificates.

Note

Student scores on the Progress page are a snapshot of the current state of the problem score database. They can, at times, be out of sync with actual problem scores. For example, asynchronicities can occur if the weight of a live problem was changed during an assignment, and not all students have resubmitted their answers for that problem.

### 12.11.4.2. A Student’s View of Course Progress¶

Students can check their progress by clicking Progress in the course navigation bar. The student’s progress through the graded part of the course displays at the top of this page, above the subsection scores. Progress is visualized as a chart with entries for all the assignments, total percentage earned in the course so far, and percent needed for each grade cutoff. Here is an example of a student’s progress through edX101.

The student can see from this page that edX101 was graded as a Pass/Fail course with a cutoff of 34% and that the grading rubric contained one assignment type, called Learning Sequence, consisting of 11 assignments total. Furthermore, this particular student has only submitted correct responses to two assignments, and that her current total percent grade in the course is 6%. By hovering over each progress bar, the student can get further statistics of how much each assignment was counted as.

Further down on the Progress page is a list of all the subsections in the course, with the scores recorded for the student for all problems in the course. Here is the Progress page for the student in the example above:

Note that point scores from graded sections are called “Problem Scores”, while point scores from ungraded sections are called “Practice Scores”.

If you modify a problem or its settings after students have attempted to answer it, student grades can be affected. For information about making changes to problems in Studio, see Modifying a Released Problem.

To recalculate the grades of affected students when a correction or other change is unavoidable, you can make the following adjustments.

• Rescore the submitted answer to reevaluate student work on the problem. You can rescore a problem for a single student or for all of the students enrolled in the course. See Rescore Student Submissions for a Problem.
• Reset the number of times a student has attempted to answer the problem to zero so that the student can try again. You can reset the number of attempts for a single student or for all of the students enrolled in the course. See Reset Student Attempts for a Problem.
• Delete a student’s database history, or “state”, completely for the problem. You can only delete student state for one student at a time. For example, you realize that a problem needs to be rewritten after only a few of your students have answered it. To resolve this situation, you rewrite the problem and then delete student state for the affected students only so that they can try again. See Delete Student State for a Problem.

To make adjustments to student grades, you need the unique location identifier of the modified problem. See Find the Unique Location Identifier for a Problem.

### 12.11.5.1. Find the Unique Location Identifier for a Problem¶

When you create each of the problems for a course, edX assigns a unique location to it. To make grading adjustments for a problem, or to view data about it, you need to specify the problem location.

To find the unique location identifier for a problem:

1. View the live version of your course.

2. Click Courseware and navigate to the unit that contains the problem.

3. Display the problem and then click Staff Debug Info.

Information about the problem displays, including its location.

1. To copy the location of the problem, select the entire location, right click, and choose Copy.

To close the Staff Debug viewer, click on the browser page outside of the viewer.

### 12.11.5.2. Rescore Student Submissions for a Problem¶

Each problem that you define for your course includes a correct answer, and may also include a tolerance or acceptable alternatives. If you decide to make a change to these values, you can rescore any responses that were already submitted. For a specified problem, you can rescore the work submitted by a single student, or rescore the submissions made by every enrolled student.

Note

You can only rescore problems that have a correct answer entered in edX Studio. This procedure cannot be used to rescore problems that are scored by an external grader.

#### 12.11.5.2.1. Rescore a Submission for an Individual Student¶

To rescore a problem for a single student, you need that student’s username or email address.

1. View the live version of your course.
2. Click Courseware and navigate to the component that contains the problem you want to rescore.
3. Display the problem, then click Staff Debug Info. The Staff Debug viewer opens.
4. In the Username field, enter the student’s email address or username, then click Rescore Student Submission. A message indicates a successful adjustment.
5. To close the Staff Debug viewer, click on the browser page outside of the viewer.

#### 12.11.5.2.2. Rescore Submissions for All Students¶

To specify the problem you want to rescore, you need its location identifier. See Find the Unique Location Identifier for a Problem. To rescore a problem:

1. View the live version of your course.

2. Click Instructor, then click Student Admin.

3. In the Course-Specific Grade Adjustment section of the page, enter the unique problem location, and then click Rescore ALL students’ problem submissions.

4. When you see a dialog box that notifies you that the rescore process is in progress, click OK.

This process can take some time to complete for all enrolled students. The process runs in the background, so you can navigate away from this page and do other work while it runs.

1. To view the results of the rescore process, click either Show Background Task History for Student or Show Background Task History for Problem.

A table displays the status of the rescore process for each student or problem.

Note

You can use a similar procedure to rescore the submission for a problem by a single student. You work in the Student-Specific Grade Adjustment section of the page to enter both the student’s email address or username and the unique problem identifier, and then click Rescore Student Submission.

### 12.11.5.3. Reset Student Attempts for a Problem¶

When you create a problem, you can limit the number of times that a student can try to answer that problem correctly. If unexpected issues occur for a problem, you can reset the value for one particular student’s attempts back to zero so that the student can begin work over again. If the unexpected behavior affects all of the students in your course, you can reset the number of attempts for all students to zero.

#### 12.11.5.3.1. Reset Attempts for an Individual Student¶

To reset the number of attempts for a single student, you need that student’s username or email address.

1. View the live version of your course.
2. Click Courseware and navigate to the component that contains the problem you want to reset.
3. Display the problem, then click Staff Debug Info. The Staff Debug viewer opens.
4. In the Username field, enter the student’s email address or username, then click Reset Student Attempts. A message indicates a successful adjustment.
5. To close the Staff Debug viewer, click on the browser page outside of the viewer.

#### 12.11.5.3.2. Reset Attempts for All Students¶

To reset the number of attempts that all enrolled students have for a problem, you need the unique identifier of the problem. See Find the Unique Location Identifier for a Problem. To reset attempts for all students:

1. View the live version of your course.

2. Click Instructor, then click Student Admin.

3. To reset the number of attempts for all enrolled students, you work in the Course-Specific Grade Adjustment section of the page. Enter the unique problem location, then click Reset ALL students’ attempts.

4. A dialog opens to indicate that the reset process is in progress. Click OK.

This process can take some time to complete. The process runs in the background, so you can navigate away from this page and do other work while it runs.

1. To view the results of the reset process, click either Show Background Task History for Student or Show Background Task History for Problem.

A table displays the status of the reset process for each student or problem.

Note

You can use a similar procedure to reset problem attempts for a single student. You work in the Student-Specific Grade Adjustment section of the page to enter both the student’s email address or username and the unique problem identifier, and then click Reset Student Attempts.

### 12.11.5.4. Delete Student State for a Problem¶

To delete a student’s entire history for a problem from the database, you need that student’s username or email address.

Important

Student state is deleted permanently by this process. This action cannot be undone.

You can use either the Staff Debug viewer or the Instructor Dashboard to delete student state.

To use the Staff Debug viewer:

1. View the live version of your course.
2. Click Courseware and navigate to the component that contains the problem.
3. Display the problem, then click Staff Debug Info. The Staff Debug viewer opens.
4. In the Username field, enter the student’s email address or username, then click Delete Student State. A message indicates a successful adjustment.
5. To close the Staff Debug viewer, click on the browser page outside of the viewer.

To use the Instructor Dashboard, you need the unique identifier of the problem. See Find the Unique Location Identifier for a Problem.

1. Click Instructor, then click Student Admin.
2. In the Student-Specific Grade Adjustment section of the page, enter both the student’s email address or username and the unique problem identifier, and then click Delete Student State for Problem.