What it does
Staff record grades for learners in a program, then move each grade through a controlled lifecycle: draft, finalized, and published. A learner never sees a grade until it is explicitly published, and every step records who did it and when.
Who it's for
Program administrators, coordinators, and faculty supervisors enter and manage grades here; learners see published results in the personal portal instead.
How it works
Entering a grade. From the gradebook, select Add Grade for a learner. Choose the Score Type (the grade category), then enter a Numeric Score, a Letter Grade, a Percentile (0–100), or a combination of these — status-only score types ask for a Status instead. Add a Date and optional Notes. The person who enters the grade is recorded as the grader.
Finalizing. When a grade is confirmed, select Finalize, which stamps who finalized it and when. If the learner has unmet minimum-passing-entry requirements on the linked course or rotation, finalizing is blocked until those are met. Graders can only edit grades that are not yet final; a finalized grade can still be corrected by staff with gradebook management permission, but cannot be deleted.
Publishing. Publishing is a separate, deliberate step that makes a grade visible to the learner, needing a dedicated grades-publish permission beyond ordinary grading access. A grade must be finalized before it can be published, and publishing records who released it and when. You can unpublish a grade to withdraw it from the learner's view.
Comments and attachments. Each grade supports threaded comments and file attachments. Comments can be marked private, which keeps them staff-only; non-private comments become visible to the learner once the grade is published. Only a comment's author can edit it.
Before you start
You need program-level gradebook grading permission to enter grades, and gradebook management permission to edit or correct someone else's grades.
Publishing needs a separate grades-publish permission — grading access alone lets you enter and finalize, not release, a grade.
If the score type gates on minimum passing entries, make sure the learner has enough passing scores recorded first, or finalizing is blocked.
Do this
Open the Learner Grades page (
/grades/learners) → you should see the grades list with filters and a row per grade.Select Add Grade → the Add Grade sheet opens.
Choose the Student and Score Type, then enter a score, a status, or both in the sheet → the fields shown depend on the score type you picked.
Set the Date and any Notes on the sheet, then select Save Grade → you should see the new grade on the Learner Grades page, marked Pending.
To confirm it's correct, select Finalize on the grade's row → a confirmation dialog opens; select Finalize again → the row's status changes to Finalized.
To release finalized grades to learners, select their checkboxes, then select the Publish button → the grades become visible on the learner's own grades view.
You're done when
The grade shows Finalized in the Learner Grades list, with the grader's name recorded.
A published grade is visible on the learner's own grades view; an unpublished one is not.
Boundaries and limits
Learners see only their own published grades and never grade values before publication, though a finalized grade may appear as a pending entry (score type, no score) before it is published.
Internal grading notes and the original imported comment on a grade are staff-only, excluded from every learner-facing read path at the database level.
Entering and editing grades requires program-level gradebook grading or editing permission. Graders can edit only their own non-final grades; broader corrections need gradebook management permission. Publishing requires a separate grades-publish permission.
A grade cannot be published before it is finalized, and a finalized grade cannot be deleted. Deleting a non-final grade is a soft removal, not a hard erase.
Numeric scores must be between 0 and 1000. Letter grades are limited to 10 characters in storage, though the entry field accepts at most 3 (for example "A+"). Notes are limited to 2000 characters.
A grade's course/rotation link must belong to the same program as the grade; the platform blocks cross-program references.
Common questions
Q: The learner says they can't see a grade I entered. Why? A: The grade must be finalized and then published before the learner can see it. Check the row's status — it should read Finalized, and the grade should be included in a Publish action.
Q: Can I change a grade after it's finalized? A: Staff with gradebook management or grade-editing permission can. The original grader alone cannot edit a grade once it is final.
Q: Can learners see comments on their grade? A: Only comments that are not marked private, and only after the grade is published. Private comments stay visible to staff only.
Q: Can I take back a published grade? A: Yes. Selecting the grade and choosing Unpublish removes it from the learner's view. The publish history (who and when) is retained on the record.
Q: Why won't a grade finalize? A: If the score type requires a minimum number of passing entries on the linked course or rotation, finalizing is blocked until the learner has met that minimum.
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