Moodle Gradebook End of Semester Reminders

It is a good idea at the end of the semester to look over your Moodle gradebook to make sure it is calculating grades correctly.

Here are some tips for avoiding common pitfalls before submitting final grades:

Gradebook Calculations

Check that your gradebook setup is consistent with the grading scheme for your course.  By default, the gradebook is set to "Mean of grades" and will simply average any grade items together.  In nearly all cases, additional set up is required.  For example, you may need to update the aggregation method and add categories to organize your gradebook items into groups.

See these tutorials for help setting up your gradebook:

Setting up a Moodle Gradebook: Weighted Categories

Setting up a Moodle Gradebook: Natural or "Sum" of Grades

The gradebook is complex and has many grade aggregation options.  It is a good idea to spot-check one or two student grades to make sure they are calculating the way you expect them to.   You can also view the same grade report that your students see by following the instructions in this tutorial:

Viewing Grades as a Student

Hidden Grades

You may have hidden grades in your course, such as a hidden assignment or a quiz whose scores you haven't shared.  If so, by default Moodle will hide students' course grades also.  Be sure to reveal any hidden grades or delete any unused hidden assignments if you want the course grades to be visible and accurate. Hidden grades can cause discrepancies between the calculated totals seen by you and those seen by the student. 

Empty Grades

By default, Moodle will not use "empty" grades when calculating course grades—blank cells in the gradebook will be ignored.  If students have not completed an assignment, and you expect a zero to be calculated in for that grade, you must enter zero for that item in the gradebook.  Otherwise, the missing assignment will not affect the students' course grades.

Zeros can be entered directly into the Grader Report when editing is turned on in the gradebook. You can also update all empty grades for a single assignment at once by following these steps.  

1. Go to the Grader Report and click on the pencil icon at the top of the column for the grade you want to update
2. At the top of the Override column, select All 
   
   
   
   
   
3. Scroll down.  At the bottom of the screen, click the checkbox to the left of Perform bulk insert.  Empty grades and a value of 0 will be selected by default.
   

   
   
   
   
4. Click Save.  The page will refresh and any previously empty grades will be updated to zeros.  

Overrides

Some grade cells in your gradebook may be orange rather than the normal gray or white.  This indicates that a grade has been "overridden".  Normally, grades in the gradebook are pulled in from the activity itself (e.g. the Assignment grading interface).  Override grades are entered directly in the gradebook, and replace the grade that would otherwise be there.  This is common and not normally a cause for concern.  For example, if a student receives a scores of zero for a discussion forum, the recommended solution is to enter the grade directly in the gradebook.  

One place in the gradebook where an override can cause issues is when a grade category total is overridden.  Grade categories are calculated based on the grading scheme of the category, and the grades that it contains.  If you override the grade for a category total, Moodle will, from that point forward, keep that grade as you have entered it and not continue to recalculate the category total when items within the category are updated.  In general, it is best to avoid this practice unless you have a specific reasons for preventing Moodle from calculating the category total from the items it contains. 

Quiz Grades

Some quiz grade visibility settings are controlled within the quiz itself.  If your students are not able to see a quiz or exam grade, take a look at the post "My students can't see their quiz grades.  What should I do?".

My students can't see their quiz grades. What should I do?

Quizzes have some additional visibility controls not found within other modules.  Usually an issue with these settings is what prevents students from seeing their quiz grades. To access the specific visibility settings for a quiz, turn editing on and to the right of the quiz select Edit and then Edit settings from the dropdown menu.  Scroll down to Review Options.  This section allows you to control what students see and when:

Points, refers to students scores.  Depending on your language settings, it may be labeled as Marks. If you uncheck this option for a particular time period, students will not be able to see their score at that time.  For example, if Points is unchecked in the second column, then students will not be able to see their score immediately upon completion of the quiz.  If Points is checked in the third column, students are able to go back to the quiz after they have exited the quiz and view their score as long as the closing time for the quiz has not been reached.  

If you have set a close time for the quiz, the last column will be any time after that time has passed.  If you don't have a close time then this column is disabled. 

Using Groups in Moodle

Assigning students to work in teams is a great way to increase student engagement.  Student groups can also be implemented in Moodle.  One of the most common uses for this is to allow students to submit assignments in groups.  This can significantly streamline your grading process if you're already using Moodle to collect assignments.  When set up, scores and feedback for each group assignment need to be entered only once, and Moodle will give that score and feedback to each member of the group.

Another popular use is to give group members a private forum on Moodle in which to communicate with each other.  Even if you don't have students submitting their assignments in Moodle, giving groups a space of their own in which to communicate can help them collaborate more effectively.

See this tutorial on the Moodle Training Course for more information on how to create student groups on Moodle, and how to set up group assignments and private forums.  See the video below for a brief overview:

Exporting and Importing Grade Spreadsheets in Moodle

Moodle's gradebook is very flexible and can be set up for most of the common configurations instructors describe in their syllabi.  Moreover, if you ever need help setting up your gradebook, the instructional designers are happy to help.

That said, in some situations, the easiest solution is to use Excel or another spreadsheet program to calculate grades. Doing so offers several advantages:

• Fully-offline grading
• Use of a familiar application for grading
• Complex calculations that are not straightforward to implement in Moodle may be easier to enter in Excel

To use this method, you can take advantage of Moodle's capability to import and export a gradebook.  First, you'll need to first export your existing gradebook from Moodle into a spreadsheet.  After entering grades, you'll upload the revised spreadsheet.  You and your students will be able to then view the grades in the Moodle gradebook, just as if they'd been entered into Moodle directly.  See this tutorial on the Moodle Training Course for details on how to implement this method.