The Moodle Gradebook allows academics to view and manage all grades in their course. Developing a good Gradebook structure is important and determines what appears on the grades page for students.
The Gradebook is important for:
- Determining which grades are shown to students and in what order
- Transfer of Moodle marks to Astra
- Viewing overall student marks
What is the Gradebook?
The Gradebook is a set of pages where all the grades in a course is shown and managed. Grades are automatically shown in the Gradebook as they are given throughout the course, and can also be added manually in the Gradebook.
The following tips are good for getting started.
- Visit the Gradebook early in the course creation process. Get a feel for how the Gradebook works. It is important to set up categories (folders) to put gradable items in.
- Structure the Gradebook clearly and logically. It is important to lay out the Gradebook in logical categories (folders). Categories are usually set up according to the assessment structure for students to see.
- Visit the Gradebook throughout the term. Use the Gradebook to view and moderate student marks.
Manage Grades
The Grader report is the most commonly used page in the Gradebook and allows staff to:
- View and filter student grades across the whole course.
- Enter marks Add your own columns and enter marks or override existing marks. What is entered into the Gradebook is what Moodle will take as the student's mark.
- See the student view See how grades will look from the student's perspective
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide
Customise the Gradebook
It is important to set up the Gradebook into logical categories/folders to display marks to students. The following are commonly made changes:
- Group items and add marks. Sum different assessment marks together using a category.
- Clean up the Gradebook by grouping and hiding unmarked items from students using a category.
- Add a new grading column. Add grade item to directly enter marks into. Great for tasks that are conducted outside Moodle, such as participation.
You can further customise the Grader report by selecting Grades > dropdown item Preferences: Grader Report.
Aggregate Marks with Categories
Categories are folders that add contained marks into a category total. This is generally used to group related assessments such as weekly quizzes into a single total for Astra and to show students.
The "Course total" is often mistaken as a category total and instructors are advised NOT to unhide it as final course marks are now managed in Astra.
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide
Give Grade Item/Category Weightings
Weightings are numbers that can be assigned to grade items within a category to allow some grade items to be worth more when calculating the category total. Weightings are commonly assigned as a percentage number adding up to 100, corresponding to each assignment's course worth.
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide
Add an Unmarked Category
A common issue is that many unmarked activities appear in the Gradebook and cannot be deleted. It is important to create an "Unmarked" category to group all unneeded grade items and hide them from students.
This unmarked category should be hidden to stop students from seeing it. See Hide an Item or Category.
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide
Add a Grade Item
Create a Grade item to add a custom column into the Gradebook to directly enter (see Manage Grades) or upload marks via csv import (see Explore more). This is commonly used to enter participation or face to face marks into Moodle.
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide
Hide/Show a Grade or Assessment
Hide an assignment or grade item in the grade book to stop all students from seeing their marks and feedback for that item in Moodle. This is usually used to hide marks during the grading process, to release manually only after marks are finalised.
Not all activities can be hidden, some activities like quiz and turnitin have their own settings to release marks and will not have a hide option in the Gradebook. Activities hidden in the course main page via any of the following will also restrict students from seeing marks.
- All: Access restrictions can be used to selectively release content
- All: Visibility can be hidden to stop all students from seeing content
- Moodle Assignment: You can set marking workflow status to anything other than Released.
View Grading History
The grade history report allows staff to view all grading changes that affected the Gradebook in Moodle. This is great for viewing past grading progress affecting a submission or assessment.
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide
Customise Grade Letters
Grade letters are text letters that represent ranges of marks, such as PS for pass or DN for distinction. Grade letters can be set up for a course at different mark ranges and assigned selectively to assessments.
Specific activities and grade items need to be set explicitly to use grade letters after they are set up (See Explore More)
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide
Explore More
The following links provide additional resources on advanced features in the gradebook.
Scales.
Add and use scales as a marking method in the course.
Outcomes. Build and manage outcomes.
Import grades. Import grades from a structured csv file into grade items in Moodle.
Export grades. Download grades into a csv file.
Grade letters. Assign activities to grade letters.
How to change maximum grade?
Instructors can update the max mark of gradebook items and activities before they are used to grade.
Activity: Activities such as assignment and Turnitin depend on how the activity works and is updated within the activity settings by clicking 'Edit settings' beside the activity in the course main page.
Gradebook item: Updated in Gradebook by clicking 'Gradebook setup' in the course's settings block and editing the grade item/category.
Once grades have been allocated in an activity, the max grade cannot be changed.
A gradebook category can be used to map already graded max marks to a different category total max mark.
How to override grades in Gradebook?
Only enter marks into an existing activity's column as a final measure to override a student's existing mark. Overriden marks will be displayed on a yellow background and Moodle will use the gradebook's mark instead of the mark provided within the activity (ie, Assignment or Turnitin).
1. Turn Edit Mode on and go to Grades section.
2. In Grader report view find the activity you want to override marks and enter marks.
3. Click Save and the bottom of the page once done.
How to make an activity ungraded?
Most activities that have grading can be changed to ungraded.
1. Click 'Edit' and 'Edit Settings' beside an activity when editing the course
2. In the 'Grade' section, set 'Grade' Type to 'None'
3. If using an external tool such as Lecture Recordings, in the 'Privacy' section untick 'Accept grades from the tool'
This does not remove most activities from the gradebook but will make it worth no marks for course total calculations.
What is category weight?
Gradebook weights control how each category’s ‘Category total’ is calculated, this includes the course total as well.
1. In a course, click 'Gradebook setup' and edit a category
2. Set the 'Aggregation method' to 'Weighted mean of grade' or 'Mean of grades'
3. If using weighted mean, update the weight field in the gradebook. If using simple mean, each items max mark determines its weight.
For more information, visit Gradebook weightings section.
Students cannot see grades when they are marked.
If you have completed marking and students say they cannot see the marks, there's several things to check:
- Are the grades released in the activity? Commonly, Turnitin has a post date and Quiz has review options that control feedback release/display.
- Is the Activity hidden in the course and gradebook? The activity should not be greyed out in either. Check how to Show/Hide Grades to students.
- Are some students marks not available, and others available even though everything is released? Hide and unhide the activity in the gradebook setup page to refresh the release of marks.
Can't link assessment item to Astra ID number it is greyed out
If the Astra ID is greyed out in the Gradebook setup section, it is likely due to the Astra ID needing to be configured from the activity settings themselves within the "Common module settings" dropdown menu.
You will need to first open the activity itself and then it's settings page.
Do Astra grade IDs get transferred over on the course rollover?
Yes, if you roll over an activity or grade item, the Astra grade ID will also be rolled over. If the assessment structure in Astra has been changed since the assessment last ran, the old grade ID structure may need to be updated in Moodle.
Please note that Turnitin submissions are not brought over via course roll-over.
More information can be found following this page.
Students cannot see their feedback files which tutors uploaded
Make sure that the gradebook settings are correct and the grade item is not hidden.
Try hide and then unhide the grade item as this sometimes triggers the feedback to appear for students. Also, make sure that the activity in the course is not hidden from students.
Broken calculation formula error is displayed.
This error happens when there is an issue with a calculation in the Gradebook.
This commonly occurs during course rollover into another term, when the id numbers for assessable tasks used in a calculation is changed or the task is removed. The calculation will hence be trying to get a mark out of an assessment that is no longer available.
A "Circular reference" can also cause this, occurring when a calculation is trying to calculate a mark out of an activity which mark also depends on the calculation. For example, a Category A which marks are dependent on Category B which marks depend on Category A.