ELIS Grading learning objectives in ELIS and Moodle

Grading Learning Objectives in ELIS

To record grades in ELIS for learning objectives, go to the ELIS class enrollment screen and select the user's edit icon. A window opens where learning objectives and enrollment data can be edited for that user.

The next image is showing the user's edit window. Enter user data for the learning objectives and enrollment data for the class. Select the green check icon located to the right side of the user row when editing is completed.

All data entry on this screen has to be manually entered, except for the dates. For example, entering passing grades for the learning objectives will not give the user "passed" status in the class or calculate a class grade. When entering learning objective grades manually in ELIS, the class grade needs to be manually edited. This is because ELIS does not calculate a class grade from the learning objectives. To automatically calculate ELIS class grades, the Moodle course gradebook can be used.

ELIS class completion dates will continue to update until records are locked. If an ELIS class record isn't locked, the user's completion date will change each day to the current day when the cron runs. Because of this the user's ELIS class record should be locked when they have completed the class.

Note: Learning objective grades entered in ELIS do not transfer to the linked activities, grade items, or grade categories in the Moodle course, but grades entered in the Moodle course will transfer to linked learning objectives in ELIS.

Grading Learning Objectives in Moodle

The Moodle course gradebook can be used to calculate the ELIS class grade if the learning objectives are linked to activities, grade items, or grade categories in the Moodle gradebook and the grade is entered in the Moodle course. Grades entered in Moodle will be transferred to linked learning objectives in ELIS when the cron runs.

Once the activity has been completed by the user or a grade is entered in the gradebook by the teacher/admin, the learning objective it is linked to will become locked if the user's grade is greater than or equal to the completion grade for the learning objective. The learning objective grade can not be changed when it is locked. To edit a locked grade or allow a locked grade to be updated, unlock the learning objective.

To complete an activity the user must receive at least the completion grade. If the learning objective the activity is linked to has a completion grade of 0, then the user's first score will be recorded and the learning objective grade will become locked. If the activity grade is changed in Moodle at this point, it will not change the grade in ELIS. The learning objective will need to be unlocked in ELIS before the user grade is updated. The middle of the next image has an example of the Locked checkbox for a learning objective.

The class instance and learning objectives in the following image have completion grades of 70, so the class status is still not complete and the record isn't locked for the class and one of the learning objectives.

In the updated user edit screen below, a new grade has been entered in the Moodle course for the LQ learning objective. The user received a 70 on the second attempt of the LQ learning objective, so the user passed the learning objective and the record was locked. The completion grade for the course is 70, so when the user's grade updated to 70 for the learning objective and the class, they completed the class and the class record was locked.

In the previous image, the quiz linked to the learning objective is set for 2 attempts. If the quiz is set for 1 attempt only, then the learning objective grade will not update. Just the grade for the course will update in this scenario, the quiz attempts would need to be increased for the learning objective grade to update also.

Reports

If a learning objective is linked to a Moodle activity, then the grade entered for the activity will be automatically entered for the learning objective. If the learning objective grade is edited in ELIS, the Moodle activity grade will still over ride the learning objective grade in reports.

We recommend that users not use learning objectives that are linked to Moodle activities if they plan to grade the learning objectives in ELIS. If learning objectives are linked to Moodle activities, the grade should be entered in the Moodle course.

Learning Objectives and Course Grades In practice:

In the screens above you can see an important point about ELIS - the user has a learning objective grade of 50 and a final course grade of 70. Why is the course grade different from the learning objective grade? If you had a second completion element grade of 25 points, how would that affect the final course grade?

This is a trick question, the answer is 'there is no way to know without knowing how the course grade is being calculated in the Moodle gradebook'. This is because ELIS is a reporting system, not a grading system. There is no relationship in ELIS between the sum or average of the learning objectives and the final course grade. The calculations for the final course grade are all made by the Moodle gradebook, and reported to ELIS. ELIS stores these reports, and indeed locks these reports, for archiving and reporting purposes.

FAQ for Learning Objectives:

I updated a user's grade on a learning objecive, why do they still show the same grade in ELIS?

The completion grade for an item is the grade a user received when she/he met the completion requirement in ELIS for that item. Thus if the minimum completion requirement for a Moodle quiz is 50 points, and Sally gets 55 points, that becomes her completion grade in ELIS, and the grade is locked. If she later retakes the quiz and gets a 75, the ELIS record is still locked at 55. If you want the updated score to show on her transcript, you would need to unlock her score in ELIS for the Learning Objective linked to that quiz, and then wait for the reporting system to update (which occurs every 5 minutes in ELIS 1.8).

For this reason, it is best to link learning objectives to summative assessments - ones that students/learners complete to show the sum of the knowledge they have gained in a topic.