Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Pending Items

What on earth is a Pending Item?

Sometimes, have students said they have submitted an assignment created using the Assessment tool but when you go to check it out, it's not there?  Do you know about the Pending area in ANGEL?  Pending is the Purgatory of ANGEL where the assignment is not submitted, but not available to students either.  This is when you will have to access the Pending items and make a few decisions.

It is definitely important for you to check this area regularly.  Remember:  PENDING!!!
  • First, go to the item and select Submissions
  • The submissions menu will open up a window like this:
  • Usually, you choose "View, Grade or Delete Submissions" when you want to grade student submissions, but in this case, choose the third item on the list "Pending Items"
  • If there is nothing on the list, you do not have to do anything more.  However, if there is student work in the Pending area, it will show up in a list.
  • If you would like to see what students have done so far, you can choose the View button.
  • If you want to delete the student submission so the student can try again, choose the Delete button.
  • If you want to just submit what the student has done so you can grade what is there, choose the Submit button.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Print the Gradebook Grades (or just create a PDF of them anyway)

Gradebook and Records

As the semester moves along, it is good practice to keep a copy of student grades for your records.  Even though you may be keeping the grades on ANGEL, it is still a good idea to run a report of student grades every week or every couple of weeks and print or keep a copy on your computer or your common drive.


ANGEL has a really nice way to create this record by producing a PDF file.  Here's how:

  • Go to the Manage tab and select Gradebook
  • Look in the left side list and select "Print Grades"
  • This pops open a new window with options for printing the grades
  • You should now see the View or Print Gradebook PDF window
  • Most of the time, you will want to leave the Format Settings the way they automatically display, but do take a look at the options and decide if you need to make any changes.
  • NOTE:  if you choose the last option of "Show Averages Only" it will NOT display individual graded items and will only show the Category averages.  If you want to see all of the graded items plus the averages, DO NOT SELECT that last option.
  • Once you click the Generate PDF button, a new window should appear as a PDF display of your gradebook. 
 
  • Once the PDF window appears, you may just view the record, print it or keep a copy.
  • If you want to save a copy on your computer or on the common drive
    • Select the litte button on the toolbar that looks like a disk (2nd button)
    • Decide where you want to save the document by making the selection from the Save in box
    • We highly recommend you change the File name to reflect the course and current date for which you are running the Gradebook grades such as PS100_816101S_20Oct2010
    • Click the Save button
  • NOTE:  When naming this file, you should NOT use any special characters in the title such as ? / > < ) ( * & ^ % $ # @ ! and especially not the period.  If you want to designate space in the title, use the underscore ( _ ) or a regular hyphen (-).