Grades

How do I setup my grade book in Avenue to Learn? https://documentation.desire2learn.com/en/Grades

Here are some considerations if you choose to load your grades from Avenue directly into Mosaic. This is a quick sheet for loading grades into Mosaic: http://mcmaster.ca/mosaic/faculty/load-grades-from-A2L.pdf . The full instructions for Mosaic can be found here: http://mcmaster.ca/mosaic/faculty/online-grade-user-guide.pdf

1. Please ensure your course is active. If you have deactivated your course at the end of the term, please activate it so that Mosaic can pull the grades from your Avenue course directly (only active courses will appear).

2. In your Grades tool, under Settings (right hand side of the screen), go to the Org Unit Display Options tab. Under the Final Grades Calculation, ensure that the “Display how final grade was calculated to users” is checked off (it is NOT checked). This will ensure that students do not see their final grades in Avenue.

3. Still in the Settings area, under the Calculation Options tab, ensure that the final grade released is the grade item you are actually using for calculating your final grades (ie. if you have been using the Adjusted Final Grade, make sure that this is selected in this area of the Settings) - this is the setting by which Mosaic will pull grades from Avenue. If you have the Adjusted Final Grade selected under Settings, but you have not been using that grade item (ie. you have been using the Calculated Final Grade, Mosaic will not pull any grades, as it is looking in that field in Avenue. In this case, you will need to have the Calculated Final Grade checked in this area of the Settings. The default setting until now has been the Adjusted Final Grade. For all new courses starting in the spring 2016, the default will be the Calculated Final Grade.

4. Final grades must be rounded, with no decimals before being uploaded into Mosaic. The easiest way is to do this directly in Avenue before uploading to Mosaic. You can do this by going into Settings, then into the Org Unit Display Options tab. There, change the two decimal places boxes to 0 under the Managing View and Student View Display Options. This will change the gradebook to display round numbers with no decimal places.

We strongly recommend that if you use Avenue for your grades, you choose the first method outlined above of pulling the grades from Avenue straight into Mosaic. It is the easiest, fastest and most accurate method of submitting your final grades. However, if you choose to use a spreadsheet file to import your grades into Mosaic, here's how to export your grades from Avenue and import them into Mosaic in a csv format.

From within the course in Avenue that you want to collect grades for export, choose Assessments and in the drop down menu select Grades.

Make sure you are in theEnterGrades menu and select Export.

On the Export Grades page, you will want to consider your options when exporting key fields. You will want BothOrgDefinedID and Username exported. For most students, the Org Defined ID is their student number (in specific cases, some students may have their MacID as their Org Defined ID). The Username is always the student’s MacID. Under User Details, you may want to add the First Name and the Last Name to the export as well. This will help you differentiate similar MacIDs, but the names are not needed for the Import process.

When you are choosing which grades to select for exporting, the only one you will need is either the Final Calculated Grade or the Final Adjusted Grade. Select whichever one you have been using in Avenue for your grades.

When you are satisfied with the information you are exporting, then click Export to CSV or Export to Excel. A pop-up window will appear, and begin to process the CSV (a file that has Comma Separated Values) or Excel file. Once the process is complete you will see a link that contains the CSV or Excel file. Click on the link to open it, or right click to save the file to your computer.

The next few steps will take place in Microsoft Excel 2007. The process will be similar for Microsoft Excel 2003 and Open Office Calc. If you saved the file to a location on your computer in the previous step, open the file now; if you opened the file in the previous step, save the file to a location on your computer now. Now is a good time to double check that the correct student has the correct mark. If there is an issue, you can make changes now to the number in column E.

The first thing you need to do is to remove the column headings to conform to what the Online Grade submission expects. The column headings are found in row 1 of the Excel spreadsheet above. Then, you can remove the columns that are not necessary, and add the class number column. Your final spreadsheet should have the class number, student number, and the final grade.

When complete, it should resemble this:

Now you can save your spreadsheet by going to Save As, Other Formats, CSV.

Note: For MAC users, please make sure you save as Windows Comma Separated (csv).

The CSV is now ready for uploading to Mosaic. The rest of the instructions for how to upload your grades in Mosaic can be found here: http://mcmaster.ca/mosaic/faculty/online-grade-user-guide.pdf

Please let us know if you have any pedagogical input for this tool.

For questions or concerns, Avenue support is available from Monday to Friday, 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM at (905) 525-9140 ext. 22911 or email support.avenue@cll.mcmaster.ca.