Why Use Categories?

Categories are useful to sort the Grade Center, when weighting grades, or when dropping grades. By default, the Grade Center includes several predefined categories: Assignment, Blog, Discussion, Journal, Survey, Turnitin Assignment, and Test. These categories are automatically assigned to Grade Center columns that are created when you create a Blackboard assignment, blog, discussion board, journal or Turnitin Assignment and indicate it will be graded; or you create an online test or survey and deploy it in your course.

You may create your own categories to correspond with different types of assessments for your course (i.e. Homework, Labs, Group Presentation, Research Paper, Extra Credit, etc.). It is best to create categories before creating the Grade Columns so that you can choose the appropriate category to which to assign each new Grade Column.

Create a Category

1. In the Grade Center, click on  Manage on the menu and click Categories.
2. On the Categories page, click Create Category button.
3. On the Create Category page, type the category Name and an optional Description. The description can help differentiate categories and explain a category’s purpose.
4. Click Submit.

Associating a Category to a Column

1. In the Grade Center, access the appropriate column header's menu.
2. Click Edit Column Information.
3. On the Edit Column page, make a selection from the Category drop-down list in the Column Information section.
4. Click Submit.

Associating a Category to Multiple Columns

1. In the Grade Center, click on  Manage on the menu and click Column Organization.
2. Place a checkmark in front of the columns you want to change. 
3. Scroll to the top or bottom of the page and click the button Change Category to... and select the category.
4. Click Submit.