A: In 2002, I developed model spreadsheets that simplify the grading of assignments and the calculation of final course grades. Please feel free to adapt these to your own purposes.

The first spreadsheet does a couple of things that, if attempted manually, tend to cause instructors some grief:

1. It automatically drops the lowest assignment grade, using the remaining assignments to compute an assignment average.
2. It automatically turns the final course score into a letter grade 80-83=B-, 83-87=B, 87-89.99=B+, etc.

In the model spreadsheet the final course score is a weighted average of the assignment average and the midterm and final exams. The particular weights used are specific to my Sociology 549 course. Like the number of assignments, these weights can be modified to suit your own grading scheme.

The second model spreadsheet is an expanded version of the first, but also simplifies the scoring of individual assignments. For each assignment, the grader fills in the number of points that were missed and the number of points that were possible; from these the spreadsheet calculates the percentage. Of course the number of points possible is the same for every student, so if it is typed in just once the whole column for that assignment can be filled automatically.

The third and fourth spreadsheets also automate the calculation of bonuses or adjustments to assignment and test grades. The bonuses are typed once at the top of the pertinent columns. One bonus spreadsheet adds a fixed amount to each assignment score. The other bonus spreadsheet multiplies each assignment score by a fixed amount. The latter bonus strategy is equivalent to changing the reducing the number of points possible on an assignment; it gives the largest bonuses to students who already did well.

I originally developed these spreadsheets for use by an instructor (me) and GTAs; they make it easier for us not only to grade students but also to answer questions like "What do I need on the final to get a B?" Recently, I realized I could make the model gradebooks available directly to students, through the web, so that they could punch in various scenarios and see for themselves what they need to do to achieve their goals. I hope this will increase the transparency of my grading process.