How Exclude Empty Grades works:

Exclude Empty Grades is enabled for a specific grade item or category:

• Empty grades (grades not yet entered) are ignored in the calculation of the total grade.
• Only the graded items are used to calculate the total. 

Here's an example for grades in the Assignments category with three assignments, each worth 100 points:

• Assignment 1: 80/100
• Assignment 2: 90/100
• Assignment 3: No grade yet (empty)

If Exclude Empty Grades is enabled 

The total grade will only be calculated based on the two graded assignments (Assignment 1 and Assignment 2). The student’s current average would be (80 + 90) / 2 = 85%.

If Exclude Empty Grades is disabled, the missing grade for Assignment 3 would be treated as a 0. The total grade would then be (80 + 90 + 0) / 3 = 56.7%.

How can this be useful? 

• For ongoing courses, it helps to show a more accurate picture of a student's current grade.
• If disabled, you may want to ensure students are aware of missing work since it impacts their grades.

How to access Exclude Empty Grades:

1. On your course page, click Grades from from the red navigation bar at the top of the page. 
2. Choose Gradebook setup from the dropdown menu (ensure Edit mode is on).


You may change the option to exclude the grades at two points:

• A - Grades excluded for the entire course 
• B - Grades excluded for a specific category

3a. To exclude empty grades for the whole course, in the Actions column, click Edit to the right of the course name:

3b. To exclude empty grades for a category, in the Actions column, click Edit to the right of the category name:

5. Select Show more… from the Grade category window.
6. Disable the Exclude empty grades option.
7. Repeat steps 4-6 as needed.
8. Click Save changes when you're done.