Define Gradebook preferences in the District, Intermediate Organization, and School view

You can set teachers' Gradebook preferences in the District (Root Organization), Intermediate Organization, and School views. Each preference has an Owner field. Users can edit the preference if the Owner is set to their organization level or below.

Example: The district (root organization) enables the Show student alerts preference and selects School at the Owner field. Users at the intermediate organization and school levels can select/deselect the preference and change the owner in their own views.

In general, when the Owner is set to a higher level, users at lower levels can still view the preferences, but they are grayed out and cannot be edited. However, these preferences are hidden in the Staff view.

Note: By default, the Gradebook preferences appear in the Staff view for teachers to set, unless a higher organization level is set as the Owner. In that case, the preferences are hidden in the Staff view, and teachers cannot view or edit them.

Example: The grading manager sets the Shade alternate lines preference to District tab. In the School view, a user can view, but not edit, this preference on the Gradebook preferences page. In the Staff view, teachers cannot view this preference when they click the gear icon or click Set Preferences under their user name.

Note: Edits to this page only apply to new Aspen districts and/or staff members. If needed, the system administrator could write a procedure to change a preference for existing Gradebook users.

To define Gradebook preferences:

1. Do one of the following:
• For the district: Log on to the District view. Click the District tab tab, and on the Setup side-tab, click Preferences.
• For an intermediate organization: Log on to the Intermediate Organization view. Click the associated tab, and on the Setup side-tab, click Preferences.
• For a school: Log on to the School view. Click the School tab, and on the Setup side-tab, click Preferences.

2. Click the Category drop-down to select Gradebook. The Gradebook preference page appears:

3. 

3. Use the following table to enter information in the fields.

• Note: Wherever the Owner field appears, select the level at which users can edit this preference, as described in the introduction.

  Field	Description
  Shade alternate lines	Select this checkbox if you want the system to shade every other row of the Grade Input page. Otherwise, deselect this checkbox.
  Track administrator updates	Select this checkbox to have an exclamation point appear next to any grades a staff member in the office changes in the School view.
  Tab direction	Select whether you want the Tab key to move you across a row or down a column when a teacher enters grades on the Grade Input page.
  Show studies	Select this checkbox if you want courses with a category of Study to appear in the Gradebook.
  Enable gradebook features	Select this checkbox if you want teachers to use the Grade Input page to enter scores for assignments. If you do not select this checkbox, the Gradebook only displays post columns (Term 1, Term 2, etc.).
  Assignment column order	Select if you want assignments to appear in Date due (ascending), Date due (descending), or Sequence number order on the Scores page.
  Show points in headers	At the Default weighting field, if you select Total Points, you can select the Show points in headers checkbox if you want teachers to view the number of total points in the column header of an assignment.
  Show category names in headers	Select this checkbox to display the names of assignment categories in the assignment headers.
  Publish assignment statistics	Select this checkbox if you want low, median, and high assignment scores to appear for parents and students when they view grades using the Family and Student portals.
  Show student alerts symbols in Aspen that signal the user about important student information, such as a medical condition or legal situation	Select this checkbox to display alert icons next to student names.
  Enable student details	Select this checkbox for teachers to view student demographic information from the Scores page. When enabled, a Student Information icon appears in the Name column. Teachers can click it to see demographic information from a student's details page (Student>Details).
  Enable student academics	Select this checkbox for teachers to view additional academic information for a student from the Scores page. If enabled, a Student Information icon appears in the Name column. Teachers can click it to see academic information from the Academics side-tab (Student>Academics).
  Enable student data	This field appears if the system administrator enables custom fields for the Gradebook. Select this checkbox if you want teachers to create custom fields to collect and view additional information about their students. Example: A teacher would like to create a field to enter the ISBN for every textbook assigned to students in his class. When this field is enabled, a Student Information icon appears in the Name column on the Scores page. A teacher can click it to view the custom fields.
  Show course selection recommendation	Select this checkbox to display the Recommendation column on the Scores page. Staff can only make recommendations during the date range defined by the school.
  Anchor averages	Select this checkbox to left-align average columns on the Scores page. This way, the averages always appear next to the student information, and the assignments appear to the right.
  Add Assignments Add to all linked classes by default	This checkbox is enabled by default, so a new assignment that a teacher creates for a class will apply to all of its linked sections. (All linked classes are automatically selected in the Also add this assignment to linked classes field on the New Assignment page.) If you deselect this checkbox and a teacher creates an assignment that she wants to apply to one or more linked class sections, she will have to manually select them on the New Assignment page. Note: This preference does not affect adding assignments in the Planner or the Submit Assignments widget on class Pages.
  Missing Assignments Show missing column	If teachers create special codes to enter for missing assignments, select this checkbox so they can view the Missing column on the Scores page. For each student, the Missing column displays the total number of assignments special codes were entered for. The values in this column might help teachers when determining students' final grades for the term. Note: This column is for the teacher's eyes only. Students and family members do not see it in the portals, and office and administrative staff members do not see it in the School or District views.
  Count empty as missing	If you selected the Show missing column checkbox, any assignments that were due before today, and that a teacher has not entered scores for, are counted as missing. Note: You might want to select this checkbox at the end of a term when a teacher has finished entering all assignment scores. Otherwise, the Missing column will include scores for assignments the teacher has not graded yet.
  Show unscored	When this checkbox is selected, teachers will see all rubrics for the selected term for an individual student, even if no grade is entered. If it is not selected, teachers will only see the rubrics relevant to the term selected and with a grade entered. Note: Rubric ratings must be set up in Aspen in order for this preference to take effect.
  Averages Default weighting	To indicate to the system how teachers calculate averages, do one of the following: Select Categories only if you want to weight categories only in the teacher's Gradebook. For example, assume a teacher creates three categories: Homework, Tests, and Quizzes. All homework assignments are worth the same amount, as are all tests and quizzes. To determine student term averages, Homework is worth 25% of the grade, Tests are worth 50% of the final grade, and Quizzes are worth 25% of the final grade. Select Category and assignments if you want to weight both categories and assignments within those categories. For example, a student's homework average is worth 25% of the term grade, but each homework within the category is weighted differently. For example, the teacher weights reading homework assignments 1, and intensive writing homework assignments 3. Select Total points to calculate averages by dividing the total points a student earns by the total number of points possible. For example, a student receives a 100, 90, and 80 for grades. The student's average is 270/300=90. Select Category total points if you want to use total points for individual assignments within categories that are weighted. For example, assume the teacher creates a Homework category. The homework average counts as 25% of the student’s final grade. Within the Homework category, the teacher grades each individual assignment using points (HW 1 is worth 10 points, HW 2 is worth 20 points). Note: This value becomes the default average mode for teachers. Teachers can then assign a different average mode to different course sections in the Gradebook.
  Decimals	Type the number of decimal places you want the system to use for calculated averages.
  Grade scale	Click to select the grade scale you want teachers to use to calculate term averages. If a teacher uses a grade scale different than the district grade scale, when he or she update post columns, the system translates the grades to the district grade scale.
  Semester cumulative average	Select this checkbox to show semester running averages on the Scores page. Aspen calculates semester running averages based on the assignment grades within each of the terms inside of it, not on the average for each term. Students and family can view this column in the Student and Family views. Note: Your school must enable the School Grade preferences (for Show semester averages in the Gradebook) for this user preference to be activated. See your Aspen system administrator for details. Aspen uses the column header Semester # (for example, Semester 1) for semester running average columns.
  Cumulative average	Select this checkbox to display an overall cumulative average on the Scores page. The overall cumulative average includes all grades and scores entered since the beginning of the class, regardless of term. Aspen calculates the overall cumulative average using the average mode specified in your Gradebook. Aspen uses the column header Cumulative for the overall cumulative average. Note: Your school must enable its Grade preferences for this user preference to be activated. See your Aspen system administrator for details.

4. Click Save.