Teaching & Learning Resources: Technology: myUCF Grades: FAQ

myUCF Grades

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Why are my students not able to see their grades?
What can I do if I've released the columns and NONE of the students can see their grades?
What can I do if I've released the columns and some students STILL cannot see their grades?
Why are there gradebooks created for my lab or discussion classes when grades are given out by lecture section?
Why am I not able to see one particular course listed among those that I teach?
Will all instructors in a team-taught course have access to the pagelet?
How do I add Teaching Assistants to the course?
How do I delete students from the course roster?
How do I add students to the course roster?
Can I use myUCF Grades to post the semester grades?
Can I use myUCF Grades to calculate end-of-semester grades (or any other calculated grade)?
Can I use myUCF Grades to display the "percentage" rather than the raw score?
Can I use myUCF Grades to curve the raw score?
Are there automatically-generated statistics for each grading event?
Can I rename or delete files in the "File Viewer"?
Can I move records between Webcourses and myUCF Grades? Is uploading and downloading seamless between the two programs?
Why do my tests appear online labeled in a fashion that doesn't match the true number of tests?
How can I get my tests automatically uploaded to myUCF Grades?
The report I get from Test Scoring Services includes some statistics. What do these abbreviations mean?
Why does the main screen now display only a part of the full roster? Were some students deleted?
Can I adjust student names or revise the listing to display nicknames?
Does the roster generated by the pagelet exactly match the roster I can download in the portal (under Faculty/Advisor Self-Service)?
What if I have two students in my class with identical first and last names?
Why does the program suddenly not alphabetize some student names correctly in the case of students with identical last names?
How can I tell students that I'm not using the myUCF Grades pagelet to report grades?
How long do the student records remain in myUCF Grades?
Are the records on the online gradebook considered "official" records? Will the records be automatically stored as required by law?
Can an older version of my gradebook be restored if I mess something up?
Where can I get more help?

1. Why are my students not able to see their grades?

Every column inside myUCF Grades is created with a default setting of being invisible to students, whether you uploaded it yourself, created it inside the pagelet, or had Testing Services upload ScanTron results for you. The reason for this is to grant instructors time to verify everything is in order before allowing students to see the grades. You must manually change this default setting each time. To do so, scroll to the top and locate the "Organize" section on the right. Pull down the menu to "Manage Columns" and click GO. Each grading event is its own column. Place a check mark in the box atop each column that you want to let students see (it's also possible to checkmark multiple columns at once), and then find the "Release Columns" option in the middle of the right side of your screen. Pull down the menu to "yes" and click GO. The students will now be able to see those grades when they log in.

Note: by default, the first name, last name, and student ID are not displayed to students. You may also "release" these columns if you so wish. If they are released, students will see their own names and then the grades you have released to them, all arranged on one row. If the name columns are not released, students will still see exactly one row of information (their own), but they will only see the grades and the titles you have assigned to the grading events.

Note: the "Hide Columns" feature also found in "Manage Columns" is not to hide or reveal columns from students, but to hide them from YOU. If you choose to "hide" columns, they will not show up in the default view of your class. They will, however, always be there in the "Manage Columns" view. Instructors tend to use the "Hide Columns" feature only if they have a lot of grading events and don't want to scroll to the right all the time when using the main view.

Note: the option listed as "Allow Students Access" (under Access on the main screen) refers to students who have been denied the right to see this course in their list of courses, for instance if they have dropped the class. Changing that does not alter the (in)visibility of grading events.

2. What can I do if I've released the columns and NONE of the students can see their grades?

This is likely due to students not knowing that they also have to customize the myUCF homepage before they will even see the program. Send them to this online tutorial for guidance: https://mygrades.ucf.edu/help/

3. What can I do if I've released the columns and some students STILL cannot see their grades?

As long as one student can see her grades, you have done all you can do as the instructor. If there are other students who cannot see their grades, the problem must lie with student access, student NID/PID confusion, or student (non)presence on the roster. For all these problems, refer the students to the UCF Help Desk: 407-823-5117 or helpdesk@mail.ucf.edu.

4. Why are there gradebooks created for my lab or discussion classes when grades are given out by lecture section?

The Grades pagelet automatically generates a gradebook for any class on the books at UCF. If you do not wish to report grades by discussion or lab section, these should be simply ignored.

5. Why am I not able to see one particular course listed among those that I teach?

Each course is associated with a particular Faculty ID number. If the course in question was originally created and listed as being taught by "STAFF" with no faculty attached, it will not be possible to use myUCF Grades for this course until your department has identified an instructor of record within PeopleSoft.

6. Will all instructors in a team-taught course have access to the pagelet?

All instructors will have access. Through an automated process, one instructor will be designated as the "primary designer" but all others should be automatically added as secondary designers. However, only the primary designer may add Teaching Assistants to the course.

7. How do I add Teaching Assistants to the course?

Giving access to other instructors must be done by the instructor of record. Click to expand the menu at the top-middle labeled "Access" and scroll to "Add Shared Faculty." Click GO. In the open field on the right side of the page, type the Webcourses ID of the faculty member, GTA, or Grader you wish to grant designer access to the course and click ADD.

8. How do I delete students from the course roster?

By default, the system will not delete students from the roster and there is no option to remove them fully. You can, however, adjust the display to only show the "active" students: Click "Organize - Change Settings" and then select "Hide inactive users." On your main screen, you will no longer see these students.

9. How do I add students to the course roster?

The roster is created automatically; you cannot add or delete students from this roster.

10. Can I use myUCF Grades to post the semester grades?

Only unofficially. The official grades need to be submitted to the Registrar via MyUCF. But you can also create a column here called Semester Grade and let your students see it, unofficially. Simply create a new alphanumeric column inside myUCF Grades and label it "Semester Grade" (the term "final grade" is ambiguous and might be seen to refer to the final exam). Then, you may manually enter grades for the term. An alternative is to download a copy of the gradebook to MS-Excel, enter or calculate the grade locally, and then upload the results to myUCF again. As a third option, it is also possible to create the column first in Excel and allow myUCF Grades to recognize the creation of a new column during the upload process.

11. Can I use myUCF Grades to calculate end-of-semester grades (or any other calculated grade)?

Yes, it is possible to create a new column not as "alphanumeric," but as "calculated." When you return to the main screen, click the link in the new column labeled FORMULA. You may calculate grades on the next screen, using first the "function" menu and then "Start list" and then "inserting" columns one at a time, separated by a "plus" sign. There are several caveats: columns should all be previously converted to numeric (not alphanumeric) for this to work; you will not be able to type in the calculation field direclty and will instead have to use the buttons in the calculator graphic to perform functions like clearing the screen or using the plus-sign; and it is also possible to assign different weighted values for each "item" by using percentages in advance of each column's appearance in the formula. For most users, it is far simpler to set up the grade calculation using MS-Excel and a downloaded copy of the records from myUCF Grades, and then re-upload the calculated grade as a new column back to myUCF Grades.

12. Can I use myUCF Grades to display the "percentage" rather than the raw score?

Yes! First, create a new column: go to "Manage Columns" and click the button near the bottom right to "Add Column." Give it a name and select "calculated" as the type. Click ADD and then click DONE. When you return to the main screen, click the link in the new column labeled FORMULA. You may calculate grades on the next screen, making sure you use the on-screen interface rather than typing directly with your keyboard. To display a percentage, first aim the mouse into the large empty box and click once so that your cursor blinks there. Then, pull down the menu next to "Column" to select the test or column that contained the raw score, and click INSERT. Using the keypad on screen (not your keyboard), type the "slash" (which will mean "divided by") and then use the onscreen keypad to "type" the number of points possible. Then click the UPDATE button at the bottom. The main screen should reload with percentages. If you had wanted percentages in whole numbers (87 rather than .87), go back to the formula and start over (click the big C to clear it), this time typing the points possible as a decimal (for example, .35 instead of 35). That will take care of those decimal places when the formula does its calculation. Lastly, make sure you release the column with the calculation (you may wish to leave the raw scores column un-released).

13. Can I use myUCF Grades to curve the raw score?

Yes! First, create a new column: go to "Manage Columns" and click the button near the bottom right to "Add Column." Give it a name and select "calculated" as the type. Click ADD and then click DONE. When you return to the main screen, click the link in the new column labeled FORMULA. You may calculate grades on the next screen, making sure you use the on-screen interface rather than typing directly with your keyboard. To add points to everyone's score, first aim the mouse into the large empty box and click once so that your cursor blinks there. Then, pull down the menu next to "Column" to select the test or column that contained the raw score, and click INSERT. Using the keypad on screen (not your keyboard), type the "plus" and then use the onscreen keypad to "type" the number of points you wish to add. Then click the UPDATE button at the bottom. The main screen should reload the new scores. Lastly, make sure you release the column with the calculation (you may wish to leave the raw scores column un-released).

14. Are there automatically-generated statistics for each grading event?

Yes! Navigate to the "Manage Columns" screen and place a checkmark into every column that you want to have statistics. Then, in the margin on the right, locate "Show statistics" and click the pulldown menu to select either "All" or "Mean only." Finally, click the "Go" button. If you have released these columns to students, students will now see a link near the top of each column saying "Graph." Once clicked, that link will display the statistics for this grading event.

15. Can I rename or delete files in the "File Viewer"?

Files in the File Viewer cannot be manipulated, edited, renamed, or deleted. They will be automatically removed at the end of the semester, but you will not be able to remove them yourself. Instructors can, however, always upload more files to the File Viewer. Since long filenames are supported, it is adviseable to name these files with as much detail as possible, preferably including the upload date as part of the filename. In this fashion, replacement files that are clearly labeled can be uploaded and used instead, and the older ones simply ignored in the File Viewer.

16. Can I move records between Webcourses and myUCF Grades? Is uploading and downloading seamless between the two programs?

Because Webcourses and myUCF Grades do not update each other, some instructors wish to post grades in both places. It is possible to move records between the two programs, but there are potential hazards in doing so and great care should be taken. You cannot move records directly between programs, but must first download files from one program to your desktop computer, and then upload them to the other program. The downloading and uploading of records must be accomplished using comma-delimited files (.csv extension), which can be opened, edited, and saved with Microsoft Excel. Instructors must be especially careful with columns. It is risky to move columns within Excel and then upload the results back to Webcourses or myUCF Grades; data can even be lost. It is far safer to first upload the file, and then move columns within the user interface of Webcourses or myUCF Grades (specifically, the "Manage Columns" function).

17. Why do my tests appear online labeled in a fashion that doesn't match the true number of tests?

This can happen if you are teaching a multi-section course and the tests were submitted separately to Test Scoring. Whenever ScanTrons are read by the machine and the grading program is applied, this occurence counts as a separate event for the course. Thus, if Test #3 is given on different days of the week to different sections, and the first batch is turned in to Test Scoring before the second batch, that first group will be graded and reported as Test #3. The second batch will be graded and reported as Test #4, despite being an identical test. The grading machine has no "memory" and this can be most easily avoided by delivering all the tests at once to Test Scoring. Alternately, instructors may choose to simply rename each column in the Grades pagelet before releasing them to students.

18. How can I get my tests automatically uploaded to myUCF Grades?

Only instructors using the university's Test Scoring Services (website; 407-823-5493) can have their test results automatically uploaded to the pagelet. If your department runs ScanTrons locally, you will either have to import the results as a .csv file (see the section on how to upload), or switch to using Test Scoring Services. Note: Test Scoring Services only accommodates the raspberry form.

19. The report I get from Test Scoring Services includes some statistics. What do these abbreviations mean?

"Diff" means the difficulty of the question, with higher numbers ironically meaning the question is easier. "Ivar" means the Item variance, with larger numbers meaning that students were more different from one another in responding to an item. "Corr" refers to the correlation between each item and the total test score, with higher correlations suggesting that an item measured the same thing as the total score, implying that such an item belongs on the test. Items with lower correlations might be something to consider removing for next time, depending upon whether the item should be measuring the same thing as all the other items.

20. Why does the main screen now display only a part of the full roster? Were some students deleted?

Students are never deleted from the course during the semester. It might be possible that you or the system has "denied access" to students, but this will not affect whether they are displayed on the main screen. If your view of students seems incomplete, it is most likely that you have selected to "view some students" and now only a subset is displayed, even if you seemingly return to the main screen. To display the entire roster again, find "Records" in the top-left corner and pull down the menu to "View all students" and click GO.

21. Can I adjust student names or revise the listing to display nicknames?

Yes! You can edit first or last names by clicking the EDIT link just under each column header. Only the student ID number (the NID) cannot be altered.

22. Does the roster generated by the pagelet exactly match the roster I can download in the portal (under Faculty/Advisor Self-Service)?

There is one prominent way the two rosters might be different: the roster from the portal will be completely alphabetical, while Grades pagelet might display names slightly out of alphabetical order if there are multiple students with the same last name. You might see, for instance, that "Smith, Linda" shows up before "Smith, Alvin" using the roster generated by the pagelet (this error might be an artifact of how NIDs are assigned, or may have resulted from you clicking column titles and resorting the records away from fully alphabetical). Additionally, the portal's roster tool does delete the names of inactive students, whereas they remain in myUCF Grades.

These discrepancies will be important to recognize if you are manually entering a series of grades into the pagelet and have presumed complete alphabetization. Some instructors prefer to "fix" the pagelet so that it displays names fully alphabetically; you can edit first or last names by clicking the EDIT link just under the column header.

23. What if I have two students in my class with identical first and last names?

If you only use myUCF Grades to report the results of events that have been graded by Test Scoring, you will not need to know which "John Smith" is which. However, if you grade ScanTrons without the office of Test Scoring or otherwise want to add a grading event manually to your course, you may have a problem knowing which "John Smith" is which. At the core of the problem is that myUCF Grades displays only NIDs, while ScanTrons and the roster from the Portal make use exclusively of PIDs. While NIDs and PIDs are connected deep in the database, many faculty members have no electronic means of discovering how to align the two, and thus how to record the grades for the two John Smiths. Asking for NID/PID clarification in your department is one answer (anyone with "Advisor" access in PeopleSoft can look them up), but it might simply be better to personally obtain full NIDs and PIDs from any students in your classes who have duplicate names.

24. Why does the program suddenly not alphabetize some student names correctly in the case of students with identical last names?

It is possible to click a column heading and re-arrange the data on the screen according to that column. If you create a column called Quiz #1 and then click the column's name, the page will reload with student data organized from highest grade on that quiz to the lowest. If you then click "Last Name" and assume you have re-alphabetized the students, you may find that students sharing last names might be slightly out of alphabetical order. The reason is simple: the pagelet "remembers" the most recent sorting option by column; all else being equal, it won't change that ordering. The only way to return to a TRUE alphabetized list is to click "First Name" and then click "Last Name." That will erase the effects of prior clicks on any other column. Note: this may be especially important to do if you export or import grades from Excel and want to assume your list is fully alphabetized.

25. How can I tell students that I'm not using the myUCF Grades pagelet to report grades?

The Grades pagelet will automatically appear for all students and all instructors. If you choose not to use myUCF Grades, you may safely simply ignore its presence on the portal. However, many instructors choose to adjust the appearance of myUCF Grades so that students clicking to see their grades will realize this method will not be used. We recommend that you select all existing columns of data and switch the "release columns" value to "no," so that students will not see their names, ID numbers, or any grades that have been uploaded. Then, create a new column and give it a name that will be the message itself: "Grades for this class will not be reported using myUCF Grades." Make sure that this column is "released to students" (it should be the only one released), and any student who clicks to view the course will instead be greeted by this message.

26. How long do the student records remain in myUCF Grades?

Shortly after the end of each semester, the complete contents of all courses in myUCF Grades will be deleted permanently. The list of courses available to you will also update as the transition is made to the new semester and your new classes. As always, the rosters will be auto-populated in the new classes as well. Because the removal of records in myUCF Grades may occur more quickly in some semesters than others, it is advisable to download a final backup of the course records as soon as you (or Test Scoring) have uploaded the last grades of the term.

27. Are the records on the online gradebook considered "official" records? Will the records be automatically stored as required by law?

While the Registrar's office retains scans of semester grades in perpetuity, the online gradebook is not considered an "official" record. Faculty members are advised to keep local copies of the class records at the end of each semester. This is best accomplished by performing one final download of the contents of the Grades pagelet after all records have been updated at the end of the semester.

28. Can an older version of my gradebook be restored if I mess something up?

Course Development and Web Services makes daily backups of all courses on a trailing thirty-day basis, and once-a-month backups are kept for older instances. However, these backups may not capture all changes and are not guaranteed to restore fully and completely. It is strongly recommended that restoring a course not be considered a "backup" option, but something more akin to a final act of desperation when nothing else works.

29. Where can I get more help?

If you're having difficulty locating the Grades pagelet or trouble accessing it, contact the UCF Help Desk (407-823-5117 or helpdesk@mail.ucf.edu). The Faculty Center (407-823-3544 or fctl@mail.ucf.edu) is happy to consult with you about further applications or complications using myUCF Grades. Additionally, the Faculty Center offers regular workshops and one-on-one consultations on creating and maintaining Excel gradebooks.

This tutorial was designed for instructors. If you need to send students for online help, refer them to https://mygrades.ucf.edu/help/

For Further Assistance

University of Central Florida, Orlando Campus: Classroom Building 1 Room 207 | Phone: (407) 823-3544 | Fax: (407) 823-2355 | Email: fctl@mail.ucf.edu | Terms of Use