Grade Center - Total Points Possible

What seems to have happened is that this feature is now different in Blackboard 8.  You CAN however still access the total for ANY column including the TOTAL.  Here is what you do.

1. Go to the grade center for your course.
2. Click on ANY student cell in the TOTAL column (NOT the Total header/label row).
3. Look at the bottom of your grade center sheet and find the gray "Grade Information Bar", which has "Grade Type", "Points Possible", etc.

You can also use the Grade Information Bar to find information about any column when you click on a cell in a row that contains student grade data (NOT the header/labels row).

This is what the Grade Information Bar looks like at the bottom of your grade center when you click on a student grade data cell.

[Note: In the example above, the instructor has an extra credit column to which has been allocated a points possible of 0.001, which allows the column of extra credit scores to be added automatically into the students grade total but only adds a miniscule value to the total value.  You could then also add .001 to each students cell in the extra credit column that fails to submit any extra credit and there would then be no (even miniscule) "penalty" for not submitting extra credit. If you have a value of 0.0 for extra credit then Blackboard ignores the column, thus requiring this small point value allocation if you have an extra credit column.]