Four different ways work can be left out of a grade, and why they are not the same thing.
Sooner or later a piece of work should not count for a student. ProfDesk keeps four separate answers because they mean genuinely different things, and two of them behave differently in your outcome data.
| Counts towards the final grade? | Counts towards CLO attainment? | Shows in To Grade? | Who decides | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Excused | No | No | No | You, per student |
| Ungraded | No, not yet | No, not yet | Yes | Nobody; it just isn't marked |
| Dropped (lowest) | No | Yes | No | The assessment's rule |
| Discarded attempt | No, that attempt only | No, that attempt only | No | You, per attempt |
Excusing says this student is exempt from this work. Whatever the reason, such as illness, an approved absence, or a question that was misprinted on their paper, it stops counting.
The important part is what happens to the arithmetic: the item's weight leaves that student's denominator rather than scoring zero. Their percentage is worked out over everything else.
Ungraded simply means not marked yet. It is the normal state of new work, and it is what the To Grade queue counts.
Ungraded work is left out of the final grade rather than counted as zero, so a percentage shown mid-term describes only what has been marked so far. Results & Outcomes shows a banner whenever anything is still outstanding, so a provisional figure is never mistaken for a settled one.
You marked it, then decided you want another look. Setting it back to ungraded removes the score, rubric selections and AI feedback, and returns it to your To Grade queue.
An assessment can be set to drop each student's lowest score, a common policy for a run of quizzes. It is worked out from the marks as they stand, so it re-decides itself every time a grade changes. You never mark anything as dropped; the rule does it.
Because excusing happens first, and the drop then applies to what is left. That ordering is what stops an exemption from quietly eating the student's drop allowance. Four quizzes out of 10 each, drop-lowest switched on, a student scoring 9, 4, 7, 8:
| Situation | Left out | Counted | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nothing excused | Quiz 2 (their lowest) | 9 + 7 + 8 / 30 | 80% |
| Quiz 2 excused because they were ill | Quiz 2 excused, then Quiz 3 dropped as lowest of the rest | 9 + 8 / 20 | 85% |
The ill student still gets their lowest sat quiz dropped, like everyone else. If the two mechanisms were the same thing, the exemption would have bought them nothing and they would have landed on 80%, the same as somebody who simply had a bad day.
When resubmission is allowed, an assessment's marking policy decides which attempt counts: highest, latest, or the average. That policy is set for the whole class, which is a problem when the attempt you need to throw out is the one the policy picks.
Discarding takes that one attempt, for that one student, out of the running. Every marking policy inherits it at once.
Discarding asks for a reason, such as academic misconduct, a wrong file submitted by the student, lateness beyond the accepted window, a technical problem, or another reason, plus an optional note. It is often an academic-integrity decision, so it goes on the record rather than being an unexplained flag.
You also choose whether the student gets the attempt back. The reason suggests an answer and you decide:
| Reason | Attempt returned by default | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Wrong file / technical problem | Yes | It was never a real attempt |
| Late beyond your window | No | They used their attempt |
| Academic misconduct | No | A refund would hand back another try at the work they were caught on |
Discard every attempt and the item goes back to not graded yet, returning to your To Grade queue. It does not become a zero. Any excusal on it survives.
Discards are reversible: Restore on the attempt row puts it back among the candidates and the grade recomputes.
Earlier attempts never appear separately in To Grade. The queue lists one item per student per sub-part, however many times they submitted. A resubmitted item simply carries an attempt count. Marking it clears it from the queue.
Most of the time you will grade the latest attempt and leave the earlier ones alone, and the gradebook then shows exactly the mark you entered: the marking policy only has a decision to make when two or more attempts have been marked.
