LSU Scales
Scales are a way of evaluating or rating a students' performance. Moodle offers a standard set of numeric scales. It is also possible to create custom scales which can be available on the site. For example, you can give the student a word or small phrase as a way of rating or giving a student feedback.
Scales may be used in Forums, Glossaries and Assignments for rating and/or grading a student's activity.
LSU's Changes
Depending on your aggregation method, Moodle revalues the lowest value in your scale to either 0 or 1. This was seen as confusing and inconsistent, so a decision was made to treat the lowest value in a scale to 1/n or 1. As there is also a no grade option available, missing 0 was not seen as a problem.
Included non numeric scales
Included in the standard 1.9 Moodle install is a scale called "Separate and Connected ways of knowing". This has 3 elements: "Mostly Separate Knowing", "Separate and Connected", "Mostly Connected Knowing". These phrases relate to a theory about how people approach the world. In edit mode, the teacher or administrator can see the scale description which explains the use of this interesting rating system.
Creating a new scale
New scales can be created by teachers with editing rights or by administrators or by any user with the manage scales role capability Since 1.9 the scales can be edited in the Gradebook Menu Scales. The process is similar for making a new scale for either a course or site.
Creating course scales
- Click on the Grades link in the course Administration block, then select Scales from the Edit section of the gradebook dropdown menu.
- On the Scales page click the "Add a new scale" button.
- On the next page give your scale a name in the Name box (highlighted in red in the screenshot) that will identify it among other scales.
- In the Scale box (highlighted in green), create your scale. Each item in the scale should be separated by a comma. You can use as many options here as you require. You must order the comma separated elements in increasing order of value. For example, an A,B,C,D scale must be entered as D,C,B,A.
- Write a detailed description in the Description box (highlighted in blue) for your scale. Your students will have access to the description, and you can use this to give them additional feedback. The more details you put in the description, the more students will understand what each scale item means.
Using a scale
First the teacher needs to assign a specific scale to the activity using a drop down menu in the activities setting. Then the teacher and/or students can rate an activity element (for example, a post in a forum) with the pre-defined scale.
Editing a scale
If a scale has not yet been used, you will see an edit, move, and delete icon in the edit column.
Once a scale is used for an activity, it is no longer possible to move or delete it, and you can only edit the scale name and description.
Example scales
The LSU scales always start with 1 (the default Moodle scales always start with 0). Here the standard Moodle scales have been edited to reflect this change.
- The Cool Scale - Not cool, Not very cool, Fairly cool, Cool, Very cool, The coolest thing ever!
- (Valued as 1/6, 2/6, 3/6, 4/6, 5/6, and 6/6 respectively in any normalized aggregation method)
- (Valued as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 respectively in the sum aggregation method)
- General Introductions (The Affirmative Scale) - Welcome!, Glad to have you here!, Great post!
- (Valued as 1/3, 2/3, and 3/3 respectively in any normalized aggregation method)
- (Valued as 1, 2, and 3 respectively in the sum aggregation method)
- If you would like two options in your scale (incomplete and complete) type "incomplete, complete" in the scale box.
- (Valued as 1/2 and 2/2 respectively in any normalized aggregation method)
- (Valued as 1 and 2 respectively in the sum aggregation method)
- Generic Social Forum (This scale only worked prior to the averaging function) - Please clarify., I don’t understand., Hmmm. Tell me more., Interesting, Very cool., Awesome!
- (Valued as 1/7, 2/7, 3/7, 4/7, 5/7, 6/7, and 7/7 respectively in any normalized aggregation method)
- (Valued as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 respectively in the sum aggregation method)
- "Refer", pass, merit, distinction
- (Valued as 1/3, 2/3, and 3/3 respectively in any normalized aggregation method)
- (Valued as 1, 2, and 3 respectively in the sum aggregation method)
- "Hesitant" Fail, Acceptable, Average, Excellent
- (Valued as 1/4, 2/4, 3/4, and 4/4 respectively in any normalized aggregation method)
- (Valued as 1, 2, 3, and 4 respectively in the sum aggregation method)
- "Stars" ☆----, ☆☆---, ☆☆☆--, ☆☆☆☆-, ☆☆☆☆☆
- (Valued as 1/5, 2/5, 3/5, 4/5, and 5/5 respectively in any normalized aggregation method)
- (Valued as 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 respectively in the sum aggregation method)
Caveats
Moodle uses the last entry to determine the number of points in the scale for computing percentages. For example, if your scale is 0,5,6,7,8,9,10 then Moodle will use a 1-7 point scale regardless of your chosen aggregation method.
- When using a normalized aggregation method, 0 will become 1/7, 5 will become 2/7, 6 will become 3/7, 7 will become 4/7, 8 will become 5/7, 9 will become 6/7, and 10 will become 7/7 for grade computation, respectively.
- When using the sum aggregation method, 0 will become 1, 5 will become 2, 6 will become 3, 7 will become 4, 8 will become 5, 9 will become 6, and 10 will become 7.
The numbers you enter for your scale are NOT calculated as entered, the system calculates the number of entries and then creates a scale from 1 to the total number of entries (n) with their values calculates as 1/n, 3/n, 4/n, 4/n....
Range
Be aware that Moodle choses the lowest and highest entries within your scale (not their numerical equivalents) and uses those values for the range. Using the star example from above, Moodle will show ☆---- - ☆☆☆☆☆ as the range. Unfortunately, when using an odd numeric scale like 0,5,6,7,8,9,10, the range will be shown as 0-10 when in reality it is 1-7. We are working to resolve this issue.
