[Gradebook] Add a visual indicator in Grades cell when a comment has been added

[curtain]

I wish that something showed up in the grid (spreadsheet-like) gradebook view when a comment has been added for a score. It could be, for instance, something like the red dot that is visible next to unposted scores when an assignment is configured to have scores posted manually. (Likewise, Excel puts a colored triangle in the corner of cells with comments.)

Rationale: I use gradebook comments to note special situations, e.g. a score that needs to be manually calculated and inserted at the end of the semester (as a pro-rated replacement score for an excused absence that exceeds the number of assignments automatically being dropped). But I realized, after doing this for most of the fall semester, that there’s no systematic way for me to go back and find which scores I’ve marked with a comment to denote they need future review/input. I think I might see the comments if I go into speed-grader and click next/next/next through everyone. But with 900-1500 students in the courses I work with each semester, and 12-18 lab scores for each student, it’s completely impractical to click through thousands of scores one-by-one looking for a few comments. If I could instead look at the grid view of the whole class and see a few cells with green or yellow or orange dots/triangles marking ones with comments, I would know that those are the few I need to revisit. (Maybe I’d also look at a few extra ones, if others also added comments for other reasons. But it’d be vastly more efficient than having to look through everyone again to find the few comments.)

My current work-around is to leave the scores blank when there is a comment. (Normally the TAs are instructed to enter a zero immediately for student absences, since the “drop two lowest…” rule will only apply if a zero is entered, and not if a score is left blank.) But even if I leave a score blank, a TA could easily be “tidying up” his/her sections in the gradebook and dutifully fill in a zero where I hoped the score would be left blank. (Conversely, some TAs are less careful and leave some blank scores that should be zeroes, or that they just forgot to fill in.) So leaving the score blank is not a reliable method to be sure I revisit the special cases at the end of the semester.

[KristinL]

Hi @curtain -

Thank you for taking the time to share this idea with the Community! Your details are appreciated.

Before opening this Idea, I did a search and found Notification Indicator for Submission Comments in Gradebook. This read more for "unread" comments, so I wanted to keep the threads separate. However, I felt you may find this Idea valuable as well.

[TiffanyStull]

I agree, but I think a speech bubble icon with alt text like "Has comments" would be a more accessible indicator than a triangle icon.

Here's a mock-up of how something like this could look:

[curtain]

Good call