Define Grade preferences

You can define district, intermediate organization (optional), and school preferences for grade reports, such as the message to appear on report cards, and which qualification list is used to determine honor roll.

To define grade preferences:

  1. Do one of the following:
    • For the district: Log on to the District view. Click the District tab, and click Preferences on the Setup side-tab.
    • For an intermediate organization: Log on to the Intermediate Organization view. Click the associated tab, and click Preferences on the Setup side-tab.
    • For a school: Log on to the School view. Click the School tab, and click Preferences on the Setup side-tab.
  1. Click the Category drop-down to select Grade. The grade preferences page appears.

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  1. Use the table to fill in the fields:

    Field

    Description

    Gradebook
    Add/drop ignore window (days)Type the number of days you want the system to refrain from displaying drop/adds in the Gradebook at the beginning of a school year.
    Add/drop align gradebook scores behavior

    Select one of the following to determine what happens to a student’s assignment scores when the student transfers from one course section to another:

    • Department: The assignment scores are copied to the student’s new course if the course’s previous and new department match.
    • Course number: The assignment scores are copied if the previous and new course numbers match.
    • Do not copy: The assignment scores are not copied.

    If you select Department or Course number, the following must be true:

    • The assignment categories are the same in both sections.
    • The total points for both assignments are the same.

    Allow multiple posts by staff

    Select this checkbox if you want teachers to be able to post their grades several times during the grade post window. This lets teachers enter their grades, post their grades, go back into their Gradebook to make any necessary edits, and post again. After the end of the post period, teachers can no longer post grades.

    Allow editing of term weights by staff

    Select this checkbox to allow teachers to customize the grade weights used in the district grade calculation for transcript average columns. This preference is deselected by default.

    For more information, see Enable Teachers to Customize Grade Weights in District Average Calculations.

    Note: This field appears in the District (Root Organization), Intermediate Organization and school preferences.

    Current classes day offset

    Type the number of days you want staff members to be able to view classes from the previous term in their Gradebooks when they use the Current Classes filter in the Staff view, Gradebook or Attendance > Class.

    Active date enabled byThis field is for schools that offer continuing courses. These courses do not start or end during the established grade terms. They might continue from one term to the next (or one year to the next) before the teacher posts a final grade. This field determines how the active date – the start of the course for each student in the section – is set.

    -By first assignment mark only is the default. Aspen sets the student's active date when the teacher enters the first score for an assignment.

    -Select By multiple assignments for the teacher to indicate the active date using the Active Assignment field on an assignment's details page.

    Notes:

    • If the teacher does not select the Active Assignment checkbox for any assignment, Aspen sets the active date once any score is entered.
    • If the teacher enables the Active Assignment field for one assignment, the active date is set when the teacher enters a score for that assignment.
    • If the teacher enables the Active Assignment field for more than one assignment, the active date is set when a score is entered for all of the flagged assignments.
    • Select Disabled for teachers to manually enter the active date. The Active Date column appears on the Gradebook Scores page and on student transcripts, if associated with the transcript definition.

    Gradebook Restore enabled

    Select this checkbox if you want the ability to view, and choose to restore, a class's Gradebook data as it was on an earlier date.

    When this field is enabled, the list of system tables that Aspen will audit appears at Gradebook Restore tables (below).

    Note: This feature generates many data audits. It is recommended that your organization implement a way to clear and archive audits older than a specific date for the tables defined at the Gradebook Restore tables preference. Otherwise, you could roll data back to the date when this feature was enabled, and significantly impact Aspen’s performance of queries on the data_audit table.
    Example: You could create a custom procedure to run at the end of each term to delete and archive audits. Or, schedule a procedure to run each night that deletes audits more than X days old; then this feature only allows the restore to go back X days.
    Note: When this field is enabled, the Change History pop-up automatically becomes available to teachers when they press CTRL+H in a grading cell on the Scores page.

    Gradebook Restore tables

    This field appears when Gradebook Restore enabled is selected. Aspen can audit the data from these system tables for a specified date (if your district has kept the audit records).

    Note: Your district can customize this list. Contact Aspen Technical support for assistance.
    Grade Scales

    Enable grade scale grade overrides (District [Root Organization] preference)

    Enable this preference if your district wants the ability to override an individual grade in a grade scale. An override lets you remove the grade or modify its code or value. You associate the override to selected school(s) and/or course(s).

    Show only the default grade scale for staff (District [Root Organization] preference)

    Select this checkbox so Staff-view users can only see and select the default grade scale for their school.

    This is specified at the Default grade scale field (School view, Grade preference).

    Default grade scale (School preference)

    Click to see the Grade Scale pick list. Users in the Staff view will only be able to see and select the grade scale selected here.

    Note: The Show only the default grade scale for staff preference must be enabled in the District (Root Organization) view. If it is not, then this preference is not available.
    Example: You select the high school grade scale here. In the Staff view, high school teachers can only select this grade scale in their Gradebook user preferences, when they click Options > Lookup on their Scores page, and when they create an assignment or an assignment category.
    Calculations

    Decimals

    Type the number of decimal places you want the system to calculate.

    Credit update proceduresClosed used for data manipulation or operations, such as running GPAs

    Click to select the credit update procedure your district uses, if it is different than the Aspen standard credit update procedure.

    Hide assignment score percentage bar

    		When enabled, this preference hides the percentage bar from the Score column on the assignments page in the Family and Student portals (Academics > Assignments). Schools that use standards-based grading might want to select this checkbox to prevent the bar from appearing.
    Note: The fields below only appear in district (root organization) preferences.
    Transcript

    Enable Transcript Column Attributes

    Select this checkbox to allow Intermediate Organizations and schools to modify the following transcript attributes, depending on the column type:

    • Text column length and "Bank name" (if the column type is "Text comment").
    • Grade calculation and "Auto recalculate" (if the column type is "Other average").
    Post course columns for enrolled students only

    This preference is for use with Post columns-Course only. It has no interaction with Post columns-Term or Post columns-Progress. Select this checkbox to prevent the option to post grades for all students in the School view, Grades > Grade Input or Staff view, Gradebook > Scores. If deselected, two options appear when the teacher posts grades:

    • Course dates for enrolled students
    • Course dates for all students
    Update transcript's related staff OID after post

    Select this preference to post the name of the teacher currently associated with a class section to a term's transcripts. If you do not enable this field, the primary teacher's name can appear on transcripts if they had posted grades for a prior term, even if they subsequently leave and are replaced.

    Note: Enabling this preference updates the Related staff object identifier field on the Student Transcript system table. The database field name is TRN_STF_OID (District [Root Organization] view, Admin > Data Dictionary > Tables > select Student Transcript system table > Fields > Related staff object identifier field).
    Example: Mr. Pires taught Honors Physics and posted grades for term 1, then took a medical leave of absence. Ms. Abrams took over the class, so you want her name to appear on the term 2 transcripts.
    Graduation Summary and History
    Grade levels included

    Click to see the Reference Code - Common pick list. Select the checkboxes next to the grades to be included in the Graduation History calculation. These grade levels appear when school administrators view graduation requirements for a group of students (School view, Schedule > Graduation History).

    Note: This field only appears in the District (Root Organization) preferences.

    Graduation Summary Columns

    If you want additional transcript columns to appear in the Course Breakdown section of the Graduation Summary and Graduation Progress pages, type their column headers here, separated by commas. Column headers are displayed in the default field set of the transcript definition columns page, under the short name (heading) ColHdr.

    Example: Suppose you wanted the Semester 1 course average to appear in the Course Breakdown section of all students’ Graduation Summary or Graduation Progress pages. You would navigate to the transcript definition used for your district, note the column header for the column you want to include – in this case, S1Avg – and type that header in the text box for this preference.
    Note: This field only appears in the District (Root Organization) preferences.

    Graduation Summary Procedure

    If you want to customize the columns specified in the Graduation Summary Columns preference via a procedure, click and select that procedure from the pick list.

    Example: If you enabled the Final Grade column to appear and wanted the column to also display a message based on the final grade value, you would select a procedure created for that purpose.
    Note: This field only appears in the District (Root Organization) preferences.
    Note: The fields below only appear in school preferences.

    Averages to show in gradebook

    Category average display mode

    Display category average by term is the default. When set to the default, a teacher's Gradebook displays an average for each category (such as homework or tests) by term. Select Display category cumulative average for the Gradebook to display the average for each category since the beginning of the class, instead of by term.

    Term average

    		This field is enabled by default, so that the term average column appears on the Gradebook Scores page when Grade Columns are set to Averages or All. Schools that use standards-based grading can deselect this checkbox to hide the term average column in the Gradebook.

    Semester cumulative average

    Select this checkbox to display the semester running average for students in the Staff view. Semester running averages calculate based on the assignment grades within each of the terms inside of it, not on the average for each term.

    Note: Only school years with an even number of grading terms can use semester running averages.

    If you select this checkbox, and a teacher selects the "Show semester averages" checkbox in their user preferences, the column appears on the Scores page in the Gradebook. Otherwise, the teacher cannot view semester running averages.

    Note: Aspen uses the column header Semester # for semester running averages. For example, Semester 1 is the column header for running average for S1.

    Overall cumulative average

    Select this checkbox to display an overall cumulative average for students in the Staff view. 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 the teacher's Gradebook.

    The Cumulative column can appear on the Scores page in the Gradebook if this preference is selected, and the teacher sets their user preferences on the Gradebook tab to show the overall cumulative average. Otherwise, the teacher cannot view overall cumulative averages.

    Note: Aspen uses the column header Cumulative for the overall cumulative average.
    Report Cards

    Report card message

    Type a message to appear on report cards.

    Honor roll qualification list

    Select the qualification list you want the system to use to generate the honor roll when you run report cards.

    Transcript auto-calculation options

    Credit mode

    GPA mode

    Rank mode

    Grade mode

    Define how Aspen will auto-calculate a student's credits, GPAClosed grade point average, rank and/or grades when you manually change a grade on his or her transcript.

    Note: If you manually change the value in the Credit field for a transcript record, the Adjusted icon appears next to the value. When this icon appears, the system does not auto-calculate the credits. To allow auto-calculation of an adjusted value, delete any value in the Credit field and save the record.

    You can select a different mode for how the system updates each field. Select one of the following modes for each:

    • Disable: to have the system not auto-calculate a student's credits, GPA, grades or rank when you manually change a grade on his or her transcript. The Update checkbox does not appear on the student's transcript page.
    • Force: to force the system to auto-calculate a student's credits, GPA, grades or rank when you manually change a grade on his or her transcript. The Update checkbox appears on the student's transcript page, but the user cannot deselect it.
    • Enable - Checked: to enable auto-calculation of a student's credits, GPA, grades or rank when you manually change a grade on his or her transcript, and to have the Update checkboxes automatically selected on the student's transcript page:

    Users can decide to deselect any of the checkboxes before making a grade change.

    • Enable - Unchecked: to enable auto-calculation of a student's credits, GPA, grades or rank when you manually change a grade on his or her transcript, and to have the Update checkboxes deselected on the student's transcript page:

    Note: If you select Enable - Checked or Enable - Unchecked, you must also select the Update earned credits on change checkbox for each transcript definition column you want users to be able to update credits for upon changing a transcript grade.

    Users can decide to select any of the checkboxes before making a grade change.

    Note: If you force both student GPA and rank to be auto-calculated whenever a student’s transcript grade is updated, the system recalculates the student’s GPA and updates the rank of all students in his or her year of graduation. This can cause moderate wait times for users, depending on how many students are in that year of graduation.

    If your school or schools have large graduating classes, you can avoid this issue by selecting Enable - Unchecked for the GPA mode and Rank mode preferences. Users can then select just the Update GPA checkbox when altering a student’s transcript grade, allowing them to update student ranks at a later time. This can be useful when users have to update transcript grades for multiple students in the same year of graduation.

    Note: Aspen cannot recalculate a student’s rank if his or her GPA is not also recalculated. Depending on your selection for the GPA mode preference, certain options are disallowed in the Rank mode preference, as follows:

    If you select Disable for the GPA mode preference, the following options are disallowed for Rank mode:

    • Enable-Checked
    • Enable-Unchecked
    • Force

    If you select Enable - Unchecked for GPA mode, the following options are disallowed for Rank mode:

    • Enable-Checked
    • Force

    An error message appears if you select any of the above disallowed options.

    Rank options

    Rank type

    Select if your school calculates rank using Total Points or Grade Point Average.

    Rank Calculation mode

    Select if your school calculates rank using Cumulative points or Current year points only.

  1. Click Save.