Final Grades Download Tool

What is the Final Grades Download Tool?

CourseLink can be used to create a file containing Final Grades that can then be submitted for upload to Colleague (the Registrar’s system). The Final Grade Download tool will be located in a widget on your course homepage.

Please inquire with your Departmental Administrator as to the Final Grades submission process as departments may have additional requirements.

Reviewing Final Grades for Download

Select Grades in the navbar.
Select the Enter Grades tab.This is where you enter all grades that will be used in the Final Grades calculation and where you will validate the final grade and make any necessary adjustments.
Navigate to the Final Calculated Grade and Final Adjusted Grade columns.
- Note: The Final Grade columns are not released to students
The Final Calculated Grade column should already be populated according to your grade items weighting. If you notice there are no grades in your Final Calculated Grade column follow the steps outlined below:
- Click on Settings, then click the Calculation Options tab
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and ensure Automatically keep final grades updated is checked.
- Note: You may also wish to select the Treat ungraded items as 0 option before you submit your final grades so that students who did not turn in their assignments or did not take a test will receive a grade of zero on these items.

Making Adjustments to Final Grades

Any changes that you need to make to the Final Grades are done in the Final Adjusted Grade column. There is no need to round your grades to remove decimals. When you download the Final Grades file, the grades will be automatically rounded based on conventional rounding practices (e.g. grades >= .5 will be rounded up, and grades < .5 will be rounded down).

Note: If you do not need to make any adjustments to the final grades, you can proceed to Using the Final Grades Download Tool section.

Select the Enter Grades tab and navigate to the Final Adjusted Grade column (last grade item in the table).
Find the student(s) that require adjustment. Input the new values for the numerator and a value for the denominator in the Final Adjusted Grade column.
Note: If the student will receive an INC (incomplete), leave the Final Adjusted Grade column blank.
Click Save.

Transfer All (optional)

The Transfer All option allows you take the grades currently listed under the Final Calculated Grade column and copy the same values over to the Final Adjusted Grade column.

Select the drop down arrow next to Final Adjusted Grade item -> Select Enter Grades.
Select the drop down arrow next to the Final Grades header -> Select Transfer All.
The values from the Final Calculated Grade column will now have been copied over to the Final Adjusted Grade column.

Transfer All button dropdown menu option in the final grades page.

Entering INCs and MNRs

To add any alpha values, such as INC or MNR, you need to add a new column to your grade book. This requires leaving the Enter Grades area so be sure to save any changes you have made.

Under the Manage Grades tab, click New and select Item.
Choose Text as the Grade Item Type.
In the Name field enter Final Alpha Grade. If the item is not named exactly as shown the final grades download will not work.
Click Save.
Click the Restrictions tab.
Select Hide from users.
Click Save.
Return to the Enter Grades page and navigate to the student records that require adjustment. Enter the correct three-character Instructor Recommendation Code in the Final Alpha Grade column.
Note: The Instructor Recommendation Code must be entered in ALL CAPS.
Click Save.

Using the Final Grades Download Tool

Degree Program students

You can download your final grades file directly from the Final Grades Download Tool widget located on your Course Home page.

1. From the Course Home page, locate the Final Grades Download Tool widget (you may need to scroll down to see it).

The Final Grades Download Tool widget showing the 'Open Final Grades Download' button

2. If you have only degree program students for one course code in your site, you should only see the option to Download Final Grades.

Note: The file will either save automatically to your default Downloads folder, or you may be prompted to save the text file (.txt file).

The Final Grades Download page with the 'Download Final Grades' button showing.

OPEN LEARNING PROGRAM STUDENTS

DE instructors who have courses with Open Learning Program students will also need to download a separate file that includes only final grade data for OLP students.

1. From the Course Home page, locate the Final Grades Download Tool widget (you may need to scroll down to see it).

2. From the drop-down box in the Final Grades Download Tool, select Open Learning Program.

Note: The default is set to All.

The Open Learning Program option selected from the list.

3. If you have multiple course codes combined into one course site (E.g. ANTH/SOC*6420), select the button with each specific course code to get only the grades for that course.

The Final Grades Download page showing ANTH*6420 01 and SOC*6420 01 sections.

4. If you have any students with an INC, the tool should automatically generate an ICF form for those students. If you select the View button next to each student, it will create a pre-filled ICF form in PDF format.

3. Click the button to Download Final Grades. Depending on your browser settings, the file will save automatically to your default Downloads folder, or you may be prompted to save the file.

The Final Grades Download page with one student listed in the IRF forms section.

5. Print a copy of the file and sign it for submission to your department. If you wish to make the file more reader-friendly, you may convert it to an Excel spreadsheet by following the steps in the Printing a hard copy of your Final Grades section below

Note: These auto generated ICF forms pre-populate data based on what is available in CourseLink. However, instructors must still review the forms and fill in any missing information before submitting it to the appropriate party.

Note: The file will contain only one set of final grades. The export process takes the grade from the Final Alpha Grade (INCs, MNRs, etc) column first. If no grade exists withing that column, the grade from Final Adjusted Grade is exported. If that column is empty also, the Final Calculated Grade value will be exported.

Note: Please check with your department regarding their procedures and timelines for submitting your final grades. If you are using Safari, you may need to edit the file name before sending it to your Department Administrator by removing the .html extension that is appended to the file

Printing a hard copy of your Final Grades

Follow these instructions if your department requires a hard copy printout of your Final Grades.

Launch a spreadsheet program, such as Microsoft Excel.
Use the Import Data function, and navigate to the final grades download file on your computer’s hard drive. If you didn’t rename the file, it will be named something similar to ORS_W12_ACK_3000_67857_2013-04-16_14-07.txt.
Follow through the steps of the Text Import Wizard, ensuring the following options are selected:
- Delimited for the Original Data Type
- Comma for the Delimiters
- Text for the new Column data format
- You will be prompted to select where the data should be imported into the spreadsheet. The default option is fine.
Click OK
Review the imported data in the spreadsheet to confirm it is correct. Print the file by selecting Print from the File menu.