Knowledge Article View - Technology Support Portal

Categories can be created in several areas within a course, including the: Home Tab > Assignments, Schedule Tab, and Syllabus Tab. The area where the assignment and category is created does not matter. Each one of the assignments and categories is linked together throughout Learning Suite and will appear in each section.

Note: All assignments must belong to a category, even if you create only one general category. A category created in the LS will not appear in the grades section until an assignment has been created within the category. Category weights and assignment weights only apply when using Weighted Categories.

When you first create a course, your assignments will look like this:

To create a new category, click + New Category. Below is what you will see after selecting this button.

Title

First select the name of the category you would like to create. The category acts like a folder in which you can put the individual assignments.

Grading

Choose whether the assignments and exams in this category will be given grades and affects student's scores. Note that categories may not be switched between graded and ungraded. If a professor wants to change the category from one to the other, then a new category must be made and then the assignments transferred to the new category.

Category Weight

Here you will enter a percentage value according to what percent of the students' final grades will come from items in this category.
Weighted Categories will calculate grades as such: It will take the percent that the student got on the assignment multiplied by the assignment weight, then multiplied by the category weight.

Note: It is unclear how or why this occurs, but when we hear reports of strange or miscalculated scores and totals, this is often one of the first things we check, because such issues are often caused by having a category weight set at zero. Problems can occur as well when a weighted category only has extra credit assignments in it.

Assignment Weights

Variable: Assignments in this category will vary based on each assignment's score as to how much they count toward the students' final grades. Example: A large homework assignment (larger point value) would affect a student' grade more than a small homework assignment (Smaller point value).
Equal: All assignments in this category will have equal weights. Example: A small homework assignment worth 10 points will count just as much as a large homework assignment worth 25 points.

Drop Low Scores

Here you can select if you would like low scores dropped and how many you would like dropped. Example: You might give a quiz every week and drop the lowest two scores to provide some flexibility for your students.

Note: Scores are dropped in BYU Grades as soon as a score is entered. So if the category is set to drop 2 lowest scores, it will immediately begin to drop them, and then update as more scores are entered.

The default is NOT to show which scores are dropped. To mark dropped scores with a grey line through them, click the drop-down menu next to Overall Score on the Scores page, then check Show Dropped Scores.

When marked, dropped scores will be greyed out with a downward diagonal slash through the score, like below:

Students View Scores In

You can select students to view scores in Points, Percent, or Letter grade. At least one option must be selected at all times. If you want to change from points to percentage, you must first select Percent and then it will let you un-check Points.

Click Save.