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An introduction to Moodle Grades, including how to access and use them, starting with definitions.

This refers to Moodle 3.2 from September 2017 onward

How to use Moodle Grades (Gradebook) #1: Introduction & overview

There are several help sheets in this series. Start here!

Introduction to the Moodle Gradebook (‘Grades’)

The Gradebook collects all the items that have been graded (marked) – such as the assignments and assessments and other activities in a Moodle module that are assessed. You can then view and change the grades as well as sort them into categories. You can also calculate totals in various ways.

When you add an assessment or an assignment to a Moodle module, the Gradebook automatically creates an item or column for the grades it will produce. As a marker adds the grades (e.g., for an assignment), or the system generates the grades (e.g., for an automatically marked quiz,) the grades appear in these columns in the Gradebook.

Grades are accessed from the Navigation block:

1. Log into Moodle and go to your module
2. From the module dashboard, find the Navigation block, and click on Module title > Grades

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Note: Students can click Grades which shows their personal grades, when available. The Editing Teacher can choose in Module Settings to allow or not allow students to see their own grades. (You can do this permanently for your module, or perhaps temporarily while you are completing marking.)

 3.   Once Editing teachers or teachers click on Grades you go straight to the Grader report (Gradebook)

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Let's start with some definitions.

Definitions and overview of functionality

Grader report

The Grader report is a table of all grades given in the module (and their respective weightings if used). It gives numeric values to all given grades and calculates the module total. It’s the basis of all work on grades. There are many features within the report, some of which are outlined below.

Student view

A student can only see their own grades – never another student’s. They may only see grades that have been made available to students: they will not see grades that are kept hidden by the editing teacher or that do not meet selective release criteria for availability.

Students can see their grades for the current module plus any feedback (as made visible by the editing teacher) and can also see an overview report - grades for all modules they are enrolled on.

See Viewing your grades and feedback in Moodle assignment for students

Default maximum grades

A maximum grade of 10 or 100 is often the default for an assessed activity when it is created in Moodle. You can set your own maximum grade to match your requirements.

Adding a graded activity

When a graded activity, such as an assignment, is added to your module a new column is created in the Grader report/Gradebook for the result. Additionally the Module total in the Gradebook will include the grade in the calculation.

Grade weighting

Nearly all activities in Moodle (those that are found by dropping down the menu on the main page under ‘Add an activity’) can be graded. Each graded item will be weighted by the maximum grade obtainable in the Gradebook. When adding several items, you’ll need to consider the weighting to ensure grades are distributed as desired throughout the module.

For example you might have two assignments, both marked out of 100 but one is worth 30% of the final marks in the module and the other 70%. You might want to weight the grades so that the module total reflects the final results after the weighting of 30% or 70% has been applied.

Grade scale / rubric

You can use a scale (also called a rubric) to evaluate a student’s performance. Moodle comes with a standard set of numeric scales. It is possible to create custom scales, as well as use those provided as standard in Moodle. For example, you can give the student a word or short phrase as a grade or minimal type of feedback, e.g., ‘below standard’, ‘good’, ‘very good’ and ‘excellent’.

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Grade categories

When a module has several graded activities, it can be useful to organise them into categories. An example of this would be if you had formative assessments as well as summative. Each group of assessments can be put into a category which can aid organisation or be used by the Grader report to sum category and module totals.

See How to add and use categories in the Grader report

Outcomes

Outcomes (which may also be called competencies or goals) are specific descriptions of what a student is expected to be able to do or understand at the completion of an activity, module or course. An activity might have more than one outcome, and each may have a grade against it (usually on a scale). Outcomes can be applied to multiple activities. When the activity is marked, a mark should be given for the submission itself and for the outcome. 

Note: See also Curriculum Mapping for advanced methods of measuring outcomes. This is a University of Nottingham