Grades: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 16:52, 4 December 2010

Moodle1.9

Note: This page, together with the pages listed in the block on the right, describe the gradebook in Moodle 1.9 onwards. For documentation on the gradebook in Moodle prior to 1.9, see Grades pre-1.9.

Introduction

The concepts of grades and of gradebook have been completely revisited in Moodle 1.9. These words and modules were used in earlier version. There are important differences that users who are upgrading to 1.9 need to understand and this should also help new users.

The two central ideas of grading in Moodle 1.9 are:

Grades are scores attributed to participants in a Moodle course
The gradebook is a repository of these grades: modules push their grades to it, but the gradebook doesn't push anything back to the modules

The three building blocks of the Gradebook in Moodle 1.9 are

The grade category

A grade category groups grade items together, and has settings for affecting these grade items

The grade item

A grade item stores a grade for each course participant, and has settings for affecting these grades

The grade -Student scores in a course

A grade has settings for affecting how it is displayed to the users, as well as locking and hiding functions.

As an overview: Grades can be calculated, aggregated and displayed in a variety of ways, the many settings having been designed to suit the needs of a great variety of organisations.

Many activities in Moodle, such as assignments, forums and quizzes may be given grades. Grades may have numerical values, or words/phrases from a scale or rating system.

Grades can also be used as outcomes and as arbitrary text attributed to each participant in a course.

How Grades Get Into the Gradebook

Grades pushed by modules

When activity modules produce grades, they use the gradebook public API to push (or send) their grades to the gradebook. These grades are then stored in database tables that are independent of the modules. The grades are still kept in the module database tables, and the gradebook will never access or modify these original grades.

The gradebook, however, provides administrators and teachers with tools for changing the ways in which grades are calculated, aggregated and displayed, as well as means to change the grades manually (a manual edit of a grade automatically locks the grade in the gradebook, so that the module which originally created the grade can no longer update that grade in the gradebook until the grade is unlocked).

Grades Manually Added by Teachers

Users with Teacher permissions for the course can add "manual" grade items to the gradebook through the Categories and Items section.

Settings affecting grades

Being the smallest unit in the gradebook, the grade is affected by many settings at different levels. Here is a list of these levels, in hierarchical order:

Outcomes

Outcomes are specific descriptions of what a student is expected to be able to do or understand at the completion of an activity or course. An activity might have more than one outcome, and each may have a grade against it (usually on a scale).

Gradebook reports

The gradebook includes a variety of reports. Select the grades link in each course administration block. The default report is the grader report and other reports are available by using the "Choose an action.." pulldown menu under View to find:

Grader report - The main teacher view of a course gradebook.
Outcomes report
Overview report
User report

Additionally on "Choose an action" menu, teachers can find interactive category reports which can alter the way the "View" reports appear. The "My report preferences" link (on a tab in earlier versions), enables teachers to change how the grader report is displayed.

Grades organisation

Teachers may organise grades into grade categories, import and/or export grades, and make grade calculations.

Symbols to represent ranges of grades may be set as grade letters.

Administrators may control the appearance of the gradebook site-wide by adjusting settings available via the grades link in the site administration block:

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-{{Grades}}
+{{Grades}}<p class="note">'''Note:''' This page, together with the pages listed in the block on the right, describe the gradebook in Moodle 1.9 onwards. For documentation on the gradebook in Moodle prior to 1.9, see [[Grades pre-1.9]].</p>
-[[Image:Grades icon link.JPG]] feature can be found in the course administration block. This page describes Grades (sometimes called Gradebook to avoid confusion) from Moodle 1.9 onwards.  If you are using an older version, please see the documentation labeled [[Grades_pre-1.9]].
-==Definitions==
+==Introduction==
-;[[Grades|Gradebook]]
+The concepts of ''grades'' and of ''gradebook'' have been completely revisited in Moodle 1.9. These words and modules were used in earlier version.  There are important differences that users who are upgrading to 1.9 need to understand and this should also help new users.
-:The '''"Grades"''' feature is often referred to as '''Gradebook'''.  Both refer to "A central location in Moodle where students' grades are stored and displayed. Teachers can keep track of their students' progress and organize which set of grades their students will be able to see. Students see their own grades.
-;Activity
+The two central ideas of grading in Moodle 1.9 are:
-:An instance of an [[:Category:Modules|activity module]] (e.g. a single quiz, assignment etc...)
-;Calculation
+#'''Grades''' are scores attributed to participants in a Moodle course
-:A formula used to calculate grades, based (optionally) on other grade items. Not the same as [[Calculated_question_type|Calculated question types]].
+#The '''gradebook''' is a repository of these grades: modules push their grades to it, but the gradebook doesn't push anything back to the modules
-;[[Grade categories|Category]]
+The three building blocks of the Gradebook in Moodle 1.9 are
-:A set of grade items.  A category also has its own aggregated grade which is calculated from its grade items.  There is no limit to the level of nesting of categories (a category may belong to another category). However, each grade item may belong to only one category.
-;Course completion
+*The [[Grade_categories|grade category]]
-:The concept of meeting certain criteria for completing a course. In the context of the gradebook, this means a set of grades that must be reached, or a number of outcomes/competencies to complete/master.
+:A grade category groups grade items together, and has settings for affecting these grade items
+*The [[Grade_items|grade item]]
+:A grade item stores a grade for each course participant, and has settings for affecting these grades
+*The grade -Student scores in a course
+:A grade has settings for affecting how it is displayed to the users, as well as [[Grade locking|locking]] and [[Grade hiding|hiding]] functions.
-;Grade
+As an overview:
-:A '''grade''' is a single assessment. It may be a number or an item on a scale (possibly tied to an outcome). Raw grade value is the numerical or scale grade from activity. Final grade is the grade reported in gradebook.
+Grades can be [[Grade_calculations|calculated]], [[Grade_categories#Aggregation|aggregated]] and [[Grader_report#Display|displayed]] in a variety of ways, the many settings having been designed to suit the needs of a great variety of organisations.
-;Grade item
+Many activities in Moodle, such as [[Assignment module|assignments]], [[Forum module|forums]] and [[Quiz module|quizzes]] may be given grades. Grades may have numerical values, or words/phrases from a [[Scales|scale or rating system]].
-:A "column" of grades.  It can be created from a specific activity, calculated from other grade items, or entered manually.
-;Grade locks
+Grades can also be used as [[Outcomes|outcomes]] and as arbitrary text attributed to each participant in a course.
-:Both whole columns and individual grades can be locked in the gradebook, via the "locked" field. Teachers may want to do this to prevent further changes from the modules, or from other teachers.
-;History
+==How Grades Get Into the Gradebook==
-:The gradebook has its own type of log, which keeps a history of all changes made to grades.
-;[[Outcomes]]
+===Grades pushed by modules===
-:Outcomes are specific descriptions of what a person is expected to be able to do or understand at the completion of an activity or course. An activity might have more than one outcome, and each may have a grade against it (usually on a scale).  Other terms for Outcomes are ''Competencies'' and ''Goals''. See some [[Development:Outcomes_examples|outcome examples]].
+When activity modules produce grades, they use the [[Development:Grades#API_for_communication_with_modules.2Fblocks|gradebook public API]] to push (or send) their grades to the gradebook. These grades are then stored in database tables that are independent of the modules. The grades are still kept in the module database tables, and the gradebook will never access or modify these original grades.
-;[[Scales]]
+The gradebook, however, provides administrators and teachers with tools for changing the ways in which grades are calculated, aggregated and displayed, as well as [[grade/edit/tree/grade|means to change the grades manually]] (a manual edit of a grade automatically locks the grade in the gradebook, so that the module which originally created the grade can no longer update that grade in the gradebook until the grade is unlocked).
-:A scale is a set of responses from which the teacher can choose one.  e.g.  Very cool, Cool, Fairly cool, Not very cool, Not cool
-;Letter grades
+===Grades Manually Added by Teachers===
-:Special representation of grade values similar to scales.  Letters are configured in course contexts or above and are defined by lower boundary. e.g.   A (above 90 %), B (above 80 %), C (above 70 %), D (above 50 %), F (above 0 %)
+Users with Teacher permissions for the course can add "manual" grade items to the gradebook through the Categories and Items section.
+==Settings affecting grades==
+Being the smallest unit in the gradebook, the grade is affected by many settings at different levels. Here is a list of these levels, in hierarchical order:
+*[[General_grade_settings|Site-wide general settings]]
+*[[Grade_category_settings|Site-wide grade category settings]]
+*[[Grade_item_settings|Site-wide grade item settings]]
+*[[Gradebook_report_settings|Gradebook report settings]]
+*[[Gradebook_course_settings|Course settings]]
+*[[Grade_categories|Category settings]]
+*[[Grade_items|Grade item settings]]
+*[[grade/edit/tree/grade|Grade settings]]
+==Outcomes==
+[[Outcomes]] are specific descriptions of what a student is expected to be able to do or understand at the completion of an activity or course. An activity might have more than one outcome, and each may have a grade against it (usually on a [[Scales|scale]]).
+==Gradebook reports==
+The gradebook includes a variety of reports. Select the [[grades]] link in each [[Course administration block|course administration block]]. The default report is the grader report and other reports are available by using the "Choose an action.." pulldown menu under View to find:
+* [[Grader report]] - The main teacher view of a course gradebook.
+* [[Outcomes report]]
+* [[Overview report]]
+* [[User report]]
+Additionally on "Choose an action" menu, teachers can find interactive category reports which can alter the way the "View" reports appear. The "[[Grade preferences|My report preferences]]" link (on a tab in earlier versions), enables teachers to change how the grader report is displayed.
+==Grades organisation==
+Teachers may organise grades into [[Grade categories|grade categories]], [[Grade import|import]] and/or [[Grade export|export]] grades, and make [[Grade calculations|grade calculations]].
+Symbols to represent ranges of grades may be set as [[Grade letters|grade letters]].
+Administrators may control the appearance of the gradebook site-wide by adjusting settings available via the grades link in the site administration block:
+*[[General grade settings]]
+*[[Grade category settings]]
+*[[Grade item settings]]
+*[[Gradebook report settings]]
 ==See also==
-*[[Development:Grades]]
+*Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=2122 Gradebook forum]
-*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeUy-_kbvqQ Basic Moodle Gradebook howto video]
+Video tutorials:
+*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeUy-_kbvqQ Basic Moodle Gradebook howto]
+*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hrLNbifiGQ Gradebook reports]
+*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXEefYe3qdk How to use the grade item settings and grade letters at admin level]
+*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUslTuZPu6A Grade category settings]
+*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB58W3KePBc How to set up the gradebook]
+*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmkEGfvjj9U How to use outcomes in Moodle]
+*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZcbN_7p2zI How to export grades from the gradebook]
+*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6zWwJGb9TA How to use gradebook site settings and defaults]
+*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKUGyzAXcyA How to set up calculations in the gradebook (basic)]
+*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBEj8mmu8lM How to set up calculations in the gradebook (advanced)]
+*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWPUEqdhI4A How to change the display of grades in the gradebook]
+[[ca:Qualificacions]]
+[[cs:Známky]]
+[[de:Bewertungen]]
+[[eu:Kalifikazioak]]
 [[fr:Notes]]
+[[es:Calificaciones]]
+[[ru:Оценки]]
+[[ja:評定]]

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