Gradebook 2 into Moodle 1.5

Re: Gradebook 2 into Moodle 1.5

by Martin Dougiamas -
Number of replies: 11
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
I'm sorry I've been absent on the recent gradebook discussions. sad

First thing is that a central database is not only necessary for simple display of grades to people, but an essential step towards conditional activities (making access to activities dependent on grades from other activities). Because these things will be used every time course pages are displayed, they need to be pre-calculated and simple to access.

Secondly, we want to add manual columns, calculated columns etc ... which are not related to external modules. It makes it all easier to keep everything consistently central.

Has anyone been using the Jason Cole Gradebook? I would like to get this rolling in CVS ... I haven't tried it yet - can anyone give me/us a quick summary of where it's at, what it does well and what it needs still?
In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Gradebook 2 into Moodle 1.5

by Jason Cole -
The gradebook is nearing readiness...

I tried posting the most recent code to CVS, but I was having problems that day, so the most recent code is in this forum in a zip file..

The new code has better code / interface seperation, better commenting, and better use of Moodle functions.

It works and it has some nice features (manual columns, calculated columns, catagory weighting, stats, etc). Currently, the interface is ugly, ugly though. We're working on that part right now. Making it much more "Moodle-y" and reorganizing some of the workflow.

I'm hoping to get a test version up and running this weekend so everyone can come check it out.

Jason
In reply to Jason Cole

Re: Gradebook 2 into Moodle 1.5

by Michael Penney -

How about the questions wrt to module grades vs. gradebook grades?

Eg I finish a quiz and it tells me I get 80 points. The instructor changes this grade in the gradebook to 85. I look at the quiz review and it still says 80 or does quiz query the gradebook for the new grade? Will quizzes still handle the review stats or will these be handled by the gradebook, or will they be kept in both places?

Second, how well tested is running the calcs on submit? One of the biggest problems we have with Blackboard is dropping students at the submit phase of a quiz (a heartrending time to get dropped). This has approached %10 in some classes. Moodle is currently running well below .1% (in a class with 56 timed single attempt lessons, we've had to reset 4 students so far due to ISP failures during the lesson.

So I'm pretty concerned that running alot of math on the submit function may decrease Moodle's high degree of stability at the grade submit phase.

IMO, this big of change in the way the modules work is a good thing in the long run for the reasons Martin lays out, but needs extensive testing to get the interfacing of grades between gradebook and modules right & it will need a new (and hopefully well documented) method for the modules to handle grades, that all grade producing modules will have to implement and stick to.

In reply to Michael Penney

Re: Gradebook 2 into Moodle 1.5

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
1)  I think the modules should always be displaying grades from the central gradebook store, so that they are consistent even if manually altered.

2) The amount of maths done on a quiz submit shouldn't be much different from what it does now.  The only difference is that the final result is written to a central table.
In reply to Jason Cole

Re: Gradebook 2 into Moodle 1.5

by W Page -

Hi Jason!

Can you point out the post with the "ZIP" file for the most recent GradeBook2 is in this forum.

Do you mean?
http://moodle.org/download.php/modules/gradebook2.zip

Is it at all possible to

  • Add the ability to sort categories into groups and have grades calculated for each group displayed so a teacher can see what the grades are for an activity for all the students at one look?
  • Get GradeBook2 to work with Zbigniew's code [checked into CVS]??
    Grade distribution statistics and graphing
    http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=12747 
  • Have "printer-friendly" page and PDF page generation?

WP1

In reply to W Page

Re: Gradebook 2 into Moodle 1.5

by Jason Cole -
Here's the latest gradebook2 (with centeralized tables) code. There has been a lot of interface work and some new features..

  1. Drop lowest grade
  2. Add extra credit
Still has grade scales, weighting, calculated columns, etc. I'm trying to get it to work with the latest 1.4 build right now for a public demo. At the moment weighting isn't working for some reason. Hope to have that fixed soon.

You can see the interface at

http://ilearn.sfsu.edu/moodledev/course/gradebook/index.php?id=2

Login as Teacherdemo  password abc123
In reply to Jason Cole

Re: Gradebook 2 into Moodle 1.5

by Michael Penney -
Hi Jason, I just see the standard Gradebook there?
In reply to Michael Penney

Re: Gradebook 2 into Moodle 1.5

by Jason Cole -
Are you going to the right URL? Don't click on the grades link.. use the URL in the link. Put gradebook inbetween course and index

course/gradebook/index.php?id=2
In reply to Jason Cole

Re: Gradebook 2 into Moodle 1.5

by Jason Cole -
I've updated the database for the demo... Everything is working except the calculation of final grades. I'm sure I'm just missing a field or something. That's what I get for moving from Postgres to MySQL...

J
In reply to Jason Cole

Re: Gradebook 2 into Moodle 1.5

by Michael Penney -

Hi Jason, I created an assignment and graded it from the module. The grades came out multiplied by 100?

I changes Harry Potter's grade from 8700 to 90, then went back to the assignment module where the grade was still reported as 87. I think that for this to be less confusing, grades changed manually would have to update the module's grades.

Catgories still appear odd, the gradebook doesn't have a way to just show the catagories? This will get pretty long when folks have a few dozen assignments in the homework catagory. I thought I added an (moodle) assignment to a catagory, but it appears that this is no longer working?

When I click enlarge, I get this error:

<>Warning>: Missing argument 4 for calculatepoints() in /www/htdocs/moodledev/course/gradebook/grades_library.php on line 646

General things:

The interface still appears very complicated, why are the category, coursework, and grades drop downs above the header?

On IE6/XP the columns and Go button wrap to a second line & the javascript navigator jumps several columns/rows each time it's clicked.

Mac IE 5.2, its totally wacked (big suprisesmile. Mac Netscape it works fine though.

It still seems not to really work with Moodle activities very well. In our experience here, anyway, most of the grade for Moodle courses originate with Moodle activities, but this gradebook seems to me more (currently) designed to work with external activities than with Moodle activities?

Thanks for setting up this test site!

In reply to Michael Penney

Re: Gradebook 2 into Moodle 1.5

by Jason Cole -
Ah... so you're the one messing about with this.. thanks for the feedback..

I change.... grades changed manually would have to update the module's grades.
- Agreed... I'll pass that on..


Catgories still appear odd, .. This will get pretty long when folks have a few dozen assignments in the homework catagory.
Most instructors I work with want to see all of the individual assignments...which is why we went with the scroll bar the way we did. I'll see how hard it would be to have a display by catagory option

I thought I added an (moodle) assignment to a catagory, but it appears that this is no longer working?

That should be working... I think it's a porting bug (we're moving the code from 1.2 to 1.4 and trying to get MySQL working at the same time). I know it works on the developers reference version.

When I click enlarge, I get this error:

Warning: Missing argument 4 for calculatepoints() in /www/htdocs/moodledev/course/gradebook/grades_library.php on line 646

This I KNOW is a porting bug. Will have that fixed soon.

General things:

The interface still appears very complicated..

There are a lot of features... Any suggestions?

why are the category, coursework, and grades drop downs above the header?

It has to do with the way 1.4 handles the headers vs l.2. I just tracked that down and hope to have it fixed tonight.

On IE6/XP the columns and Go button wrap to a second line & the javascript navigator jumps several columns/rows each time it's clicked.

I think that's simply a setting in the JS. Let me check.

Mac IE 5.2, its totally wacked (big suprisesmile. Mac Netscape it works fine though.

It still seems not to really work with Moodle activities very well.... designed to work with external activities than with Moodle activities?

Except for not reporting changed scores back to the activity, how could we improve it? The activities report themselves to the gradebook and update when the score changes... There isn't a clean way to automatically assign a activity to a category (and therefore a weight), unless we assume that all activities of a certain type are in the same catagory...


Thanks for setting up this test site!

Thanks for testing the test site!