Managing and editing your grading scale

Adjusting the grading scale can create challenges, so these should be reviewed and clarified before making any changes.

Things to Consider Before Changing Your Grading Scale

1. Consistency with past grades
   All previous grading has been done according to your current scale.

   If you introduce a new one, you’ll need to decide how the old and new scales should align (e.g., how 1–5 translates into letters).

   Using both numbers and letters increases complexity, and changing the number of grades (e.g., from 1–5 to 1–4) can significantly affect historic results.

2. Impact on student history
   Once the grading scale is changed, all historical records will be updated to match the new scale. Students should be informed about this. We recommend enabling the Data Backup Module for at least a month beforehand, so you have a local PDF copy of all records based on the old scale.

3. Effect on all syllabi
   The new scale will apply across all course syllabi on your account, including historical data.

Because of these implications, changing your grading scale requires careful planning. We’d like to have a detailed conversation with you before making any changes. Please reach out to us to discuss next steps.