Ratings

It is possible to rate glossary entries, forum posts and database records within Moodle. These ratings are then aggregated to produce a grade for that activity for the student being rated. For example a student's forum posts may be rated by their fellow students with those ratings being averaged and that grade then contributing to the students overall course grade. You can choose whether ratings can be submitted by students and/or by teachers.

Enabling ratings

Here is the process to enable ratings within an activity:

1. Go to the activity settings and select the aggregation method you want applied. Average is typically the most useful.
2. Choose a scale. The scale you select determines the list of options raters can choose from. Choosing a number, 10 for example, means that raters can choose any number from 0 to 10. Custom non-numeric scales can also be defined. To create a site wide custom scale go to Administration > Site Administration > Grades > Scales. To create a course specific custom scale go to the gradebook and select "Scales - View".
3. Optionally choose to restrict the submission of ratings to within a date range.
4. Save your activity settings.

Once ratings have been enabled within an activity that activity will automatically appear in the gradebook.

Capabilities and roles

Capabilities and roles determine whether a given user can submit ratings, view aggregated ratings or even view the individual ratings that have been submitted. By default students can view the aggregation of all rating on their own items and only teachers can rate items.

The relevant capabilities are:

• moodle/rating:view - allows the user to view aggregated ratings made on their own items
• moodle/rating:viewany - allows the user to view aggregated ratings made on other people's items (but not their own)
• moodle/rating:viewall - allows the user to see individual ratings
• moodle/rating:rate - allows the user to rate other people's items

Module capabilities

Activity modules may define their own set of capabilities. When these exist the user needs BOTH the core capability and the module capability.

Database

• mod/data:rate
• mod/data:viewrating
• mod/data:viewanyrating
• mod/data:viewallratings

Forum

• mod/forum:rate
• mod/forum:viewrating
• mod/forum:viewanyrating
• mod/forum:viewallratings

Glossary

• mod/glossary:rate
• mod/glossary:viewrating
• mod/glossary:viewanyrating
• mod/glossary:viewallratings

Aggregate type

You can set an aggregate type, in other words, decide how all the ratings given are combined to form the final grade (for each entry and for the whole activity). Some scales do not lend themselves to certain types of aggregates. There are five options:

• Average of ratings (default) - This is the mean of all the ratings given. It is especially useful with peer grading when there are a lot of ratings being made.
• Count of ratings - The counts the number of rated entries which becomes the final grade. This is useful when the number of posts is important. Note that the total can not exceed the maximum grade allowed for the forum. A count may be used if the teacher simply wants to acknowledge that a reply was given in the case students being required to make a certain number of posts in a discussion. Note: Count of ratings does not work for the "Separate or Connected Ways of Knowing" scale or custom scales due to the limitation imposed by the max grade.
• Maximum rating - The highest rating is returned as the final grade. This method is useful for emphasising the best work from participants, allowing them to post one high-quality post as well as a number of more casual responses to others.
• Minimum rating - The smallest rating is returned as the final grade. This method promotes a culture of high quality for all entries.
• Sum of ratings - All the ratings for a particular user are added together. Note that the total is not allowed to exceed the maximum grade for the forum. Note: Sum of ratings does not work for the "Separate or Connected Ways of Knowing" scale or custom scales due to the limitation imposed by the max grade.

See also

• Scales
• Blog post by Matt Bury: Implementing star ratings in Moodle