The Discussion Forum was set up to be graded. Instructor has graded this forum for several students. Two days after the last grade entered, she went into the forum and no longer could grade the forum. The "grading" option was gone from the forum.
The only fix we could think of was to turn "grading" back on. So she did this. When she went to the Grade Center, she saw two grade columns for the same Forum (a column for the previously graded forum and a column at the end of the grade list for the same forum).
Now she has two columns for the same column and needs to transfer grades to the new column and delete the old.
Is there a way to fix the loss of "grading' on the forum without getting two columns in the grade center?
Nicki,
I apologize for the slow reply. I've seen reports about discussion forums suddenly losing their "graded" setting, and I was trying to track down where I'd seen them, but couldn't seem to find where I'd seen them. So, I don't have any information about how the forum "graded" setting might have gotten changed.
It is possible to re-associate a forum with a graded center column by directly querying the database records. The process is described in the Behind the Blackboard KB article at http://kb.blackboard.com/display/KB/Graded+Discussion+Forums+and+Threads+lose+gradebook+connection.
But the described process only works if the forum is set to be graded, and that automatically creates a new GC column. So, you'd have to change the forum to be graded, then look for the FORUM_GRADE_HANDLE value, delete it from the linkrefid field in the newly-created column, and add it to the linkrefid field on the original column. At that point you'd be able to delete the extra column that was created. You have to decide whether that's better than just transferring the grades from the old column to the new.
Mike
This exact same event happened to my course yesterday--we're on Spring Break now-and I'd like to assume it's due to "maintenance"....However, this is two consecutive courses in which it's happened. And not to all courses I'm teaching. Just the same one each time. This is a big problem. Very inefficient and waste of time to again work on newly-created columns, transfer grades from the "dead" existing columns, and finally delete the old "dead" columns. When this problem was first encountered in Jan 2012, the answer I received was: "...The loss of the discussion forum grading function after content import has been an ongoing challenge for quite some time. That is, we import a content package in which each of the forums are set with the grading feature. Sometime after the import, and sometimes after our review, the grading feature disconnects. It has been reported continually, but it appears that Blackboard has been unable to come up with a resolution."
Is this still true? No resolution?
Judith,
If what you heard in January was directly from Blackboard support, it would be best to go back to them with your ticket number to find out if they have found a solution yet for the specific Service Pack version that you're using.