George Mason University

Faculty can send grades from Blackboard into PatriotWeb when it is time to enter midterm and final grades. This alleviates the need for faculty to retype this information and reduces mistakes. Faculty must make sure a column in their course’s Blackboard Grade Center exists with a specific name and confirm the grades in the column are letter grades. Then the instructor will go to the grade entry page in PatriotWeb, and click the “Import Blackboard Grades” button to populate grades. Changes can be made to the grades in PatriotWeb before submitting.

• Enter Midterm or Final Grades in Blackboard Grade Center
• Import Midterm or Final Grades from Blackboard into Patriot Web
• Issues with the Import Process

To learn more about Blackboard or to schedule an individual appointment, please contact Blackboard support at courses@gmu.edu. For more information, please go to Grading for Faculty.

Enter Midterm or Final Grades in Blackboard Grade Center

Only letter grades can be imported.  Plus/minus grades are allowed as prescribed by the allowed list of grades for the course level and type.  If an invalid grade is input to Blackboard, the grade will not be imported to Grade but displays in the Blackboard Grade column.  Manual data entry will be required. Special Grades must be entered manually via Patriot Web. For more information see Special Grades.

• Enter the Blackboard course for which grades will be submitted.

• Access the Full Grade Center, by going to the Control Panel > Grade Center

• Create a column named MIDTERMEVALUATION and/or FINALGRADE by creating a new column using the Create Column button, or renaming an existing column with existing grades, such as Total or Weighted Total (mouse over column name, click arrow after name, choose Edit Column Information)

Note: These names are case-sensitive and must be entered exactly as written in order to be recognized by PatriotWeb.

The column must have Primary Display type of Letter because PatriotWeb can only accept letter grades. Confirm this by clicking on the action arrow next to the MIDTERMEVALUATION and/or FINALGRADE column header. Choose Edit Column Information. Set the Primary Display to Letter. A Points Possible value must also be entered if creating a new column. Then click Submit. If the column had existing scores, they will now be displayed as letter grades; if you type grades as scores/percentages into a cell they will be converted into letters; or you can type in letter grades directly.

Figure 2 – Blackboard Learn / Edit Grade Column

Optionally, especially if using a preexisting calculated column, the instructor should decide what point value a letter will represent (a grading schema). The default letter grade schema in Blackboard Learn is shown below and can be edited in the Grade Center from the Manage button > Grading Schemas.
For example, if a student had a final score of 90% this would convert into an A- by default. Be sure to only use values that students can receive for their grade. If you need to enter a non-letter grade (such as SA, NA) you must do this in PatriotWeb.

More detailed information on letter grades and grading schema is available on Blackboard Support.

Once letter grades are in the MIDTERMEVALUATION or FINALGRADE column in Blackboard Learn, they are now ready to be imported into PatriotWeb.

Import Midterm or Final Grades from Blackboard into PatriotWeb

Login to PatriotWeb.

On the Faculty Tab, go to the Banner Self-Service Area, click on the Faculty and Advisors folder.

Click on the “Import Midterm Evaluations from Blackboard” or “Import Final Grades from Blackboard” (Figure 4).

Figure 4 – Patriot Web Faculty Menu

Choose the appropriate academic term.

From the drop-down menu, select a course for which grades will be submitted.  The course roster will appear.

Click on the button “Import Grades from Blackboard”

Note. If you do not see the “Import Grades from Blackboard” button enabled, the course is not designated as a Blackboard Learn course in Banner or you are not authorized to enter grades for the term and course selected.  When you are not authorized to enter grades but can view grades, the page is read-only.

The push button caption changes to “Loading Blackboard Grades.”

When appropriate midterm or final grade data can be found in Blackboard Learn, it populates to the grade selection dropdown for each student.

When not all grades import due to an invalid grade imported from Blackboard, a warning message will display.

If an invalid grade is in the Midterm or Final column in Blackboard, Banner will set that student’s grade to NONE.  All other grades will be imported and submitted as normal.  Please confirm that all grades are in the appropriate format and that they are submitted successfully in Banner by checking the grade submission channel in PatriotWeb under the Faculty tab.

Once midterm or final grades have been imported from Blackboard Learn and checked for accuracy, and any necessary adjustments have been made, click the Submit button below the list of student names to complete the submission process.

Issues with Import Process

If a grade is changed in Blackboard after the initial import, the new data cannot be imported; the grade must be changed manually in PatriotWeb.  If you reset the current student’s grade in PatriotWeb to “None”, then updated grade data can be imported from Blackboard.

If an invalid grade is in the Midterm or Final column in Blackboard, Banner will set that student’s grade to NONE.  All other grades will be imported and submitted as normal.  Please confirm that all grades are in the appropriate format and that they are submitted successfully in Banner by checking the grade submission channel in PatriotWeb under the Faculty tab.

When no Blackboard Learn course exists matching the CRN or if no Midterm or Final grade column is found in the Blackboard Learn course, an error message will display.

When a system error is encountered, an error message will display.