Moodle Help

Setting up Gradebook

The gradebook feature allows you to grade materials and give feedback to students. It also enables students to keep track of their performance on individual assignments and in the overall course. To set up the gradebook do the following:

1. In the top menu of your course, select grades. Under grader report, select gradebook setup.
2. Most faculty use categories to organize their assignments and activities. For example, you can designate a category for papers (worth 20% of grade), quizzes (40% of grade), etc. At bottom of page, click add category. Choose a name (e.g. Papers), and click save changes. Repeat process for other categories.
3. Once you have created all categories, from the gradebook setup page you can set weights for each category.
4. Any activity (Assignments, Attendance, Quizzes, etc.) will automatically appear within your gradebook. To include an item in a category,  choose the category when creating the item, or move the item so it nests under the category. 
5. You can also add grade items for items that are not submitted within Moodle (e.g. student presentations, items submitted in email or other systems, etc). Click add grade item at the top of the gradebook setup page. Choose a name..
6. Click save changes. 

Organizing Your Gradebook

You should organize like items together in your gradebook. To learn how to do this, watch the video below:

Creating a Rubric

A rubric allows you to set up grading criteria and evaluate student levels of achievement. You can allow students to preview the rubric so they understand how they will be evaluated on the assignment. To create a rubric, do to the following:

1. Begin to set up your assignment.
2. Scroll down to grade. Under grading method, select rubric. Finish setting up your assignment and select save and display.
3. Select either define new grading form from scratch or create new grading form from a template.
4. Add your desired criteria to the rubric if starting from scratch. If not, fill in the template accordingly. Select the other options you want, including whether you want students to be able to preview the rubric before submitting their assignment.  When finished, select save rubric and make it ready. 

Creating a Marking Guide

You can use a marking guide (also known as grading guide) instead of a rubric. Marking guides and rubrics are similar, but grading guides do not have different rankings for the assignment's criteria. This makes marking guides simpler to create than rubrics. You can provide a score and a comment to the student. 

1. Begin to set up your assignment.
2. Scroll down to grade. Under grading method, select marking guide. Finish setting up your assignment and select save and display.
3. Select either define new grading form from scratch or create new grading form from a template.
4. Scroll down to add all criteria to the marking guide. Checking the boxes under "marking guide options" allows you to show it to the students.
5. When finished, select save marking guide and make it ready. 

Anonymous Grading

Anonymous grading (sometimes called blind marking) allows an instructor to grade assignments without knowing the name of the student who submitted the work. For a more detailed explanation, see the Moodle.org help documentation on this topic.

1. Begin to set up your assignment.
2. Scroll down to grade. From the anonymous submissions dropdown, click yes.
3. When finished, click save and display.

Adding Extra Credit

You can utilize several methods to add extra credit to the Moodle gradebook. These include creating an extra credit category for multiple items and adding individual extra credit activities or grade items. To add extra credit, do the following: 

Adding an Extra Credit Category in the Gradebook (For Multiple Items):

1. Go to the Moodle gradebook and select gradebook setup from the grader report dropdown.
2. If you already have an extra credit category, skip to step 3. If you have not created an extra credit category, select add category. Enter in relevant information and select save changes.
3. From the setup tab, select edit, immediately followed by edit settings. (See the image below.) 
4. Go to parent category and select the check by extra credit.
5. Click save changes when finished. 

Adding Individual Extra Credit Activities or Grade Items

1. For extra credit activities, first create and save the activity. For extra credit grade items, choose add grade item within the Moodle gradebook setup.
2. In Gradebook Setup, select edit, immediately followed by edit settings. 
3. Go to the parent category and select the check by extra credit. This is shown below. 
4. Click save changes when finished. 

To learn more about how extra credit is calculated in Moodle, click this link. 

Keeping the Highest or Dropping the Lowest Grade

Many professors prefer to drop the lowest grade or keep the highest grade in a particular category. To set up this feature, do the following:

1. Select grades at the top of your course.
2. Click the words grader report to reveal a gradebook dropdown menu. From this menu, select gradebook setup.
3. Go to the row of the category for which you’d like to apply these settings and select edit, immediately followed by edit settings.
4. In the grade category selection, select show more. You will see boxes across from keep the highest and drop the lowest. Enter in the number of activities you would like to keep or drop. Be sure to select save changes when finished.

Note: If you wish for this setting to function in a category that has natural aggregation, all activities must have the same exact point value. If you apply this setting in a category that has simple weighted mean of grades as an aggregation, the point values of each activity may differ