Googled It: Blackboard use a Rubric on non-submitted assignment with manual override

I recently ran into a situation where I was providing grades in blackboard, but didn’t require an actual submission to receive a grade, since it was just reviewing previous work. However, the assignment had a rubric that I wanted to use.

Blackboard doesn’t intend for you to do this. The point of a manual override is to go above any specific submission, and rubrics can only be used with a specific submission. Without a submissions, you can’t use a rubric.

https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Instructor/Ultra/Grade/Grading_Tasks/Override_Grades

They never intended rubrics and overrides to be used in this pattern. If you don’t have specific submissions, rubrics cannot be used.

Option 1: Set it up correctly

Assignments are different from grading columns. If you set up a grade as a Column rather than an Assignment, it will let you grade without submission.

https://sites.reading.ac.uk/tel-support/2018/09/24/marking-assignments-no-file-submission-blackboard/

You won’t get the “View Rubric” button if the column was set up as an assignment. This will all just be blank, because there isn’t a submission and assignments require submission to grade without an override.

Option 2: Use Excel

The workaround for this: Create an excel template with your rubric details, and use that to auto-calculate the grades. The rubric has discrete categories, so I set those up in the orange columns. Then I assign number values in the green column, and the yellow box calculates the final grade.

If you want to use and update this template, here it is.

If you have a better workaround or better googling skills, leave a comment.

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