Each Blackboard Grade Center must have one External Grade column, which is denoted by a green check mark: 
External Grade columns, which aren’t currently used at USD, are used to report a student’s progress to external systems. Most Instructors and Students find these columns confusing, so to clear up any uncertainty about their purpose, you are encouraged to hide them (or designate another column as an External Grade if, say, you would like to use the Total column, which is set to be an External Grade in your course by default).
To hide an External Grade column, click on the action arrow next to the grade column you’d like to hide:
On the next screen, scroll down to Options and click “No” under “Show/Hide this column to students:
You can also denote another grade column as an External Grade by clicking the action arrow next to a Grade Center column and selecting “Set as External Grade” from the drop-down menu:
