Note: If you are not making any changes to the 'set-up' of your gradebook, none of this concerns you. You can ignore everything that follows and click off of this page. If you *ARE* planning changes, read and heed!
If you do not have any year-long classes, none of this concerns you.
*caveat*: I am a secondary tech coordinator; I am NOT the ultimate source on Zangle information. I have thought carefully about the topics mentioned on this page and believe that my analysis is correct. If it is not, I would be most appreciative if someone would let me know. I will then change this posting 'immediately'. If you have evidence that you think *might* show that this is wrong, I would be most interested in seeing it. But in the meantime, I am posting this because if I am correct, teachers might do permanent damage to their gradebooks with just a few clicks.
This applies to teachers who have 'year-long' classes in Zangle. These can be identified by looking at the Term: pulldown menu in many places in the gradebook. If the same class shows options for both Semester 1 and Semester 2, or Quarters 1, 2, 3, and 4, it is a year-long class. If it does not show both semesters, this page (and these issues) presumably do not apply to you.
If you make changes in the basic setup of a year-long class in your gradebook for second semester, they will be applied retroactively to first semester. If you delete a category you no longer wish to use, it will wipe out all the grades from your gradebook in that category for first semester. If you change a weighting of a category, it will do it to your ‘master’ gradebook. (It should not change any Marks (grades) that are already posted, but it will change the ‘data of record’ that back up those grades.)
I. Do NOT delete or change the weight of any categories that are in place for first semester that have grades entered for students. If you delete categories, it will *PERMANENTLY* delete all grades in those categories and classes. You can delete categories that you have never used, but be very careful! (Note that in Gradebook Setup / Add/Edit Assignments, you can set the filter at the top to show only the assignments of one category. This will allow you to see whether you have used that category or not.) Changes in category weights can be changed back, but they will show incorrect grades until you do so.
II. Do NOT make any changes to the weighting of Gradebook Setup / Scoring Options used during the first semester. Those changes will be applied retroactively to the fall semester gradebook. These too can be changed back, but will show incorrect grades until you do so.
III. Do NOT change from Point Calculation Method to Percentage Calculation Method or vice versa. (Gradebook Setup / Class Options). If you do, you can change it back, but calculated grades will change until you do.
I. You may add new categories with impunity. Because they have no grades entered for 1st semester, they will cause no changes. If you wish to use a different weighting scheme, enter *ALL* new categories (add a '2' after their names (test2) or something like that. Then apply your weights to those new categories independently of the weights of the original categories. (If there are no grades, Zangle ignores the category and does not include it in the weights. Both the old and new percentages will show properly.) Use only the new categories for second semester. If you grade by 'Points' rather than 'Percentage', you can leave all of your weights at '1'. You can then mix and match new and old categories. Just don't use the ones that you don't want.
II. If you wish to weight your Scoring Options in a different way, pick a different Scoring Option to use for the same function for second semester. Or document what you have done very carefully and change the original, recognizing that the grades shown in the 1st semester book will be wrong until you change it back. Technically, this 2nd method should work, but I consider it *very* bad practice!
III. I do not think that it is possible to change between Points and Percentage without affecting 1st semester grades without doing some very careful calculations. (You could create new categories to use second semester and make sure that your weights were set for first semester to maintain the original. Doing so is beyond the scope of these instructions.)