Grade Book - North Carolina State University

Grade Book
In this workshop we will explore how to use the Moodle gradebook. We will cover topics such as
grade categories, weighted grades, overriding grades, commenting on grades, calculated
grade columns,
and more.
Agenda
⇒ Understand how the
Moodle gradebook is set up
⇒ Use different formulas for
calculating grades
⇒
Create custom grading scales
⇒ Assign letter grades to items
⇒
Export and import your gradebook from Excel
GRADEBOOK
OVERVIEW
with Charlie Morris
Distance Education and Web
Coordinator
College of Natural Resources
Hcharlie_morris@ncsu.eduH
Hcnr_help@ncsu.eduH
The gradebook is set up as a series of categories and sub­categories. Each category contains
grade items that can be graded on a numeric scale, a custom scale, or with a letter grade.
Each category then has a total point value that can be calculated using a number of
different methods. The final course grade can also be calculated with a variety of different
methods, using the values in the sub‐categories, or individual grade items (more on that
later). One important thing to note is that the course itself is considered a category,
and all other categories are related as sub­categories of it (see below).
grade
items
CNR 101: Introduction
to Natural Resources
Essays Quizzes Participation
Essay 1
Essay 2
Quiz 1
Quiz 2
fig. 1: Categories by type of assessment, course name is main category always
categories
Class 1
Class 2
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CNR 101: Introduction to Natural
Resources
Grade Book
Topic 1: Sustainability Topic 2: Economics
grade
items
Essay 1
fig
2: Categories by instructional units, course name is main category always
CNR 101: Introduction to Natural Resources
category
grade
items
fig
3: No sub‐categories. This is the default.
Essay 2
Quiz 1 Quiz 2
Class 1 Class 2
Essay 1
Quiz 1
Class 1
Essay 2
Quiz 2
Class 2
categories
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GRADEBOOK VIEWING PREFERENCES
Grade Book
These settings only impact the way you view the
gradebook (not your students). These settings will
carry with you from course to course, so that all of
your gradebooks will look this way. These options are
found by viewing the gradebook and choosing My
Preferences ­> Grader Report from the "Choose an
action…" drop down menu.
SHOW/HIDE TOGGLES
• Show calculations ‐ allows you to edit a
calculated column when viewing the Grader
Overview Report (Editing must be turned on to
see the edit icon)
• Show show/hide icons ‐ allows you to show
or hide columns directly in the Grader
Overview Report (Editing must be turned on to
see the edit icon)
• Show column averages ‐ adds an additional row at the bottom of the gradebook
that shows the average grade for each column
• Show locks ‐ allows you to lock/unlock a column for editing directly within the
Grader Overview Report (Editing must be turned on to see the edit icon)
• Show user profile images ‐ shows or hides the user profile pictures for each
student in the gradebook
• Show user idnumber ‐ shows or hides the student id (usually the Unity
ID at NCSU)
• Show activity icons ‐ shows or hides the icon next to an activity name
• Show ranges ‐ adds an extra row at the bottom of the gradebook that shows the
minimum and maximum possible grade for each column
SPECIAL ROWS
• Range display type ‐ sets how the grades for a column are displayed to you (not to
your students). You can choose from inherit (use the default setting for the column),
real, percentage, or letter. Probably should read “Scale display type.”
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Grade Book
• Decimals shown in ranges ‐ sets the number of decimal points to display in a grade
to you (not to your students).
• Column averages display type ‐ sets how the average grade for a column is
displayed to you (not to your students). You can choose from inherit (use the default
setting for the column), real, percentage, or letter.
• Decimals in column averages ‐ sets the number of decimal points to display in a
grade column average to you (not to your students). You can choose from inherit
(use the default setting for the column), real, percentage, or letter.
• Grades selected for column averages ‐ sets if students with no grade submitted
yet should be used in calculating column averages
• Show number of grades in averages ‐ whether to show the number of grades used
when calculating the mean in brackets after each average, for example 45 (34).
GENERAL
• Quick Grading ‐ sets if you can edit multiple grades at one time, like a spreadsheet
(Editing must be turned on to edit grades)
• Show Quick Feedback ‐ sets if you can leave feedback directly on the Grader
Overview Report as opposed to having to edit individual items to leave feedback.
(Editing must be turned on to edit feedback)
• Students per page ‐ sets how many students you see per page. This is especially
helpful when you want to be able to see the horizontal scrollbar at all times along
the bottom of the page.
• Aggregation position ‐ sets where the course total or category total is displayed,
either at the first or the last of the grade items.
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MANUAL GRADING
Grade Book
You can let Moodle do the work and organization of grading assignments and assessments
automatically, or you can enter grades in manually. This is useful in the cases where you
have collected a paper assignment
and want to distribute the grades online.
CREATING A GRADE ITEM
First you have to create a grade item, a column in your grade book for entering
the grades.
1. From the “Choose an action…” drop‐down, select “Simple view”
2. Scroll to the bottom of this page and click the
“Add grade item” button
3. Give the item a name (like “Term Paper”).
4. The rest of the settings you’ll likely leave as the default. Click “Save changes”
Next you can easily enter in grades manually for all of your students all from
one page view.
1. Select “Grader Report” from the “Choose an action…” drop‐down
2. Click the “Turn editing on” button in the top‐right corner
3. At this point you can enter grades for any student on any assignment. This works as
a means of manually entering grades for manual grade items as well as overrides of
automatically graded items from Moodle.
4. When you are done click “Update” at the bottom. If you don’t do this you will lose
all of your grades you just entered!
CREATING CUSTOM SCALES
You may have noticed that you can choose to make a grade item grade based on “value,”
“text” or “scale.” Value is the typical number‐based grade. Text would cover letter‐grades.
And scales are special grade types that
you can define. Examples of custom scales are
• Poor, Fair,
Good, or Excellent
• Fail, Pass
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• Unsatisfactory, Satisfactory,
Excellent
• Incomplete, Complete
To create a new custom scale
Grade Book
1. In the Moodle gradebook
choose Scales ‐> View in the drop down menu
2. Click Add a new scale
3. Give the scale a name, like "Pass‐Fail"
4. Type the terms to use (comma separated) in the scale, going from worst to best,
like "Fail, Pass". Another example would be "Fail, Needs Work, Passing"
5. Type a description of the scale (optional)
6. Click Save changes
This scale can be used in your class for any gradable item. Scales will be translated into
numbers for formula calculations. Moodle will automatically divide the terms in your
scale into the appropriate number, scaling it from the minimum to the maximum possible
grade. For example, the scale "Poor, Fair, Good, Excellent" on a 100 point scale it would be
• Poor = 0
• Fair = 33
• Good = 67
• Excellent = 100
You do not have to include custom scales in your calculations, but if you do this is how they
will
be translated.
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Grade Book
ASSIGNING LETTER GRADES OR CUSTOM SCALES TO GRADE ITEMS
TO USE ONE OF YOUR CUSTOM SCALES FOR A GRADE ITEM
1. Choose "Categories and Items" ‐> "Simple view" from the "Choose an action…"
drop down menu
2. If the grade item already exists click the edit icon next to the grade. Otherwise
click "Add grade item" at the bottom o f the page
3. Under "Grade type" choose "Scale"
4. Under "Scale" choose the scale you want to use
When assigning grades to these items you will now be presented with a dropdown menu to
choose the scale values from.
TO ASSIGN A LETTER GRADE TO A GRADE ITEM
1. Choose "Categories and Items" ‐> "Simple view" from the "Choose an action…"
drop down menu
2. If the grade item already exists click the edit icon next to the grade. Otherwise
click "Add grade item" at the bottom of the page
3. Under "Grade type" choose "Value"
4. Click "Show advanced" if you do not see the option
for "Grade display type"
5.
Under " Grade display type " choose "Letter"
CALCULATING GRADES
GRADE CATEGORIES
In Moodle you can organize grades into categories. Categories can be things like
"Homework", "Quizzes", "Projects", etc.. You can create new categories by going to
"Categories and Items ‐> Simple View (or Full View)". Click on "Add Category". When you
create new activities or custom columns you can put them into categories. You can also
move existing items into new categories.
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Grade Book
The course is actually considered a category itself. Each category, including the whole
course category, can have formulas applied to it to calculate the grade. Each of these
formulas are explained in the following
section.
WAYS TO CALCULATE YOUR GRADE
By default Moodle will calculate your grade by taking a simple weighted mean of grades.
This means the total points received will be divided by the total points possible.
However, Moodle allows you to use its built in formulas for calculating grades or provide
your own formula. Here is a brief comparison between the two techniques and details for
how to use them.
YOUR CUSTOM FORMULA
Pros
• exact control over your grade
calculation
• a very "Excel‐like" formula
Cons
• all items not submitted yet will be counted as a "0" in the
calculation formula
• dropping lowest grades from a formula is very difficult
To use your own formula do the following:
1. In the gradebook choose "Categories and Items ‐> Simple View" from the drop
down menu
2. Click on the calculator
icon in the "Course total" row.
3. If you do not have Id
numbers entered for
each item
a. enter a
meaningful,
unique id for
each item, like
"Assignment 1"
b. click "Add id numbrers"
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Grade Book
4. Type your formula in the "Calculation" field, using a format like "=[[Assignment
1]] * .2 + [[Assignment 2]]
* .2 + [[Quiz 1]] *.3 + [[Quiz 2]] * .3"
5. Click "Save changes"
MOODLE FORMULAS
Pros
• easily drop lowest grades from a category
• give an accurate "where you stand now" grade, even when all items have not been
graded
• lots of different formulas to choose from
Cons
• must use one of the built‐in formulas
IMPORTANT: If using the "Aggregate only non-empty grades" feature, it is
important to uncheck this option for each category before calculating a final
grade for the semester. If you do not, grades that have no entry will not be
counted as real 0s – they will still be ignored in the calculation.
The following are the different types of formulas in Moodle. To switch to one of these
formulas for any of your categories go to "Categories and Items ‐> Simple View (or Full
View)". Next to the category name you can choose the formula to use for that category. If
you use sub‐categories you can assign different formulas to each category.
SUM OF GRADES
This will add up all of the points earned for all of the columns in a category. The total
possible points is determined by adding the possible points from each column. If you click
"Extra Credit" next to an item its possible points will not be added to the total possible for
the category, but the actual points earned will be added to the total. The category total
cannot exceed the total sum of the non‐extra credit grades.
MEAN OF GRADES
This takes a simple average of all of your grades.
SIMPLE WEIGHTED MEAN OF GRADES
The
total points received will be divided by the total points possible.
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Grade Book
WEIGHTED MEAN OF GRADES
This takes the average of all of your grades, but you can apply weights to individual items
to make them count more or less. Each item will be multiplied by the weight before being
added into the total points earned
or calculating the total possible points.
For most, using Sum of grades will work best. For those who want to curve your best
option is Weighted mean of grades.
DROPPING THE LOWEST GRADE
To drop the lowest grade (or multiple lowest
grade s) , do the following:
1. Choose “Full view” from the drop‐down
menu
2. In the category where you want to drop
the lowest grade, find “Drop the lowest”
3. Enter the number of grades you wish to
drop
4. Click “Save changes” at the bottom of
the screen
IMPORTING AND EXPORTING GRADES FROM EXCEL
To safely export and import your Moodle gradebook to and from Microsoft Excel
1. Go to your gradebook and from the drop down menu choose Export ‐> Excel
spreadsheet.
2. Choose which columns you would like to export
3. Click Submit
4. Click Download
5. Make any edits in Excel
6. Save the file as a .cvs (Comma Separated Values) file. NOTE: This is a different
format than you originally downloaded it as.
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Grade Book
7. In the Moodle gradebook choose Import ‐> CSV File
8. Browse for the file to upload and select it. Click “Upload grades”
9. In the “Identify user by” filed, choose "Map from: ID Number and choose "Map to:
useridnumber"
10. Choose the appropriate columns to map to the existing database. NOTE: For
safety only map columns where grades were changed in Excel. This will help
maintain any calculated columns or aggregator formulas from being over‐ridden.
11. Click Upload grades
12. Click Continue
And
you should see your new grades in the grade book.
PRACTICAL
TIPS AND TRICKS
The re are a number
of ways that Moodle makes grade manipulation easier:
1. Sorting – You can sort your gradebook by any column. Depending on the
theme you are using there will be an icon next to each column header that
can be clicked to enable sorting for that column. (see right)
2. Highlighting – If you are like me you’ll find that it’s easy to lose your place when grading.
To help prevent that, you can highlight a given row or column. If you click on the cell
header for the row or the column itself, highlighting will
be enabled.
3. Expanding/Collapsing – Another way to make your
experience easier is to expand or collapse certain sub‐
categories based on what you are grading. If you have
only one category (your course) then this option isn’t
very useful to you. (see right)
4. Use a big screen! – Grade books can be unwieldy due to their size. The more students and
the more grade items you have, the more difficult it will become to manipulate. For this
reason I recommend using the largest possible screen that you have available.
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IN CLOSING…
In this workshop we’ve learned how…
Grade Book
• the gradebook is setup into categories and sub‐categores
• you can change your viewing preferences
• to create new grade items and
enter grades manually
• to setup a text‐based scale
• Moodle automatically calculates final grades for
a category
• you can create your own formula for grading
• to work with MS Excel to import/export your grades
• to make your experience easier with practical tips and tricks
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