Using Excel in the Grade Centre
Blackboard allows you to export the Grade Centre from your course, so that you can work on it offline (in Excel for example) and import again later. The process is very easy, but there is one aspect to which you should pay close attention.
Some of our student IDs, which start with the year in which the student first registered, being with a 0 digit (zero). When the exported file from Blackboard is opened in Excel, Excel thinks that the student IDs are numbers, and removes any leading zeroes. So, the student number 08123456 (for example) becomes the number 8,123,456. This leads to problems when you try to reconcile the student IDs with other data, or when you try to import the file back to Blackboard.
The following steps allow you to export the Grade Centre from a Blackboard course and then import it into Excel without losing correct student IDs.
If your module contains no student ID starting with 0, please follow these instructions. To work from Excel if you do have students with a 0, please refer here.
Exporting from the Grade Centre
Log into your Blackboard and go to the course where you want to export the Grade Centre. In the Control Panel, click on Grade Centre, and then Full Grade Centre.
In the Full Grade Centre, you will see a list of all your students, their student numbers, the last access date, and several columns representing assignments and/or running totals. If you have used the Blackboard course for assignment submission, there will be a column for each assignment you created.
To export the Grade Centre, click on Work Offline > Download in the top, right of the screen.
You will be presented with the Download Grades screen. In most cases, you can accept the default settings. Click Submit at the bottom of the screen.
Click Download when prompted. Save the file in a meaningful place on your own computer.
Importing from Excel to the Grade Centre
You can work from this spreadsheet offline and re-upload it when you are finished. You can add new columns or edit existing ones. Do not add any graphs or tables.
(see more on how to take due care when important student IDs here)
In this instance, a new column in Excel was created for a quiz and marks were entered.
Blackboard recognises the Username column and will allocate marks accordingly. When you are ready to upload, go to the Full Grade Centre and choose Work Offline > Upload.
Using the default settings, browse for your file and click Submit once it is attached.
When the file was uploaded successfully, Blackboard informed the instructor that new results were being added to the Grade Centre.
