More gradebook frustration.
I've managed to figure out workarounds for most of the weirdnesses of Gradebook 1.9, but this one has me stopped.
How do you put in extra credit?
It seems fairly straightforward (well, as straightforward as 1.9 ever seems to get.) You just put a "1" in the extra credit field for that assignment. However, nothing seems to be happening. I have at least a dozen students that should be seeing 110% in one particular category, but it's still showing 100%.
The aggregation method I'm using is "Mean of grades (with extra credit)". I've tried a couple of the others (desperate flailing, I didn't expect them to work) but no go.
What am I doing wrong?
I see that there are third parties working on simplifying the gradebook in 1.9. I'm not sure if they've addressed the extra credit issue (am I the only one this is a problem for?) but I'm hopeful.
In the meantime, is there a way I can handle extra credit other than by hand on paper? Right now it looks like my options are paper, revert to 1.8, or dig through the gradebook code to find where extra credit is being limited. There's no way I'm going to revert to 1.8 in the middle of the term (I'm teaching summer session right now), and because I'm in the middle of a high intensity course, I don't have time to dig through the code.
Does 1.9 have ANY facility that might let me handle extra credit?
In the meantime, is there a way I can handle extra credit other than by hand on paper? Right now it looks like my options are paper, revert to 1.8, or dig through the gradebook code to find where extra credit is being limited. There's no way I'm going to revert to 1.8 in the middle of the term (I'm teaching summer session right now), and because I'm in the middle of a high intensity course, I don't have time to dig through the code.
Does 1.9 have ANY facility that might let me handle extra credit?
Steve:
I am afraid the concept of extra credit was not well understood by the writers of the gradebook. They did eventually add the feature to allow items aggregated under "sum of grades" to be designated as extra credit (you can mark items in that mode under categories and items), but they still don't allow totals to go over 100%.
I have patched it at our school (Seattle Academy) and will share that with any who want it. It gives extra credit using other aggregation methods like weighted mean and simple weighted mean of grades. It is not difficult, although it does require also patching the 100% limitation to work like you want. You can also see my notes in the tracker about how to patch these things and other annoyances of the gradebook
In the mean time, you may just want to create a category called "extra credit" and give it a weight of zero. Explain to students (perhaps by naming it as such) that you will factor in those points at the end of the grading period. This also has the "feature" that students can see their grade without extra-credit, which can be a helpful thing to communicate.
--Gary
I am afraid the concept of extra credit was not well understood by the writers of the gradebook. They did eventually add the feature to allow items aggregated under "sum of grades" to be designated as extra credit (you can mark items in that mode under categories and items), but they still don't allow totals to go over 100%.
I have patched it at our school (Seattle Academy) and will share that with any who want it. It gives extra credit using other aggregation methods like weighted mean and simple weighted mean of grades. It is not difficult, although it does require also patching the 100% limitation to work like you want. You can also see my notes in the tracker about how to patch these things and other annoyances of the gradebook
In the mean time, you may just want to create a category called "extra credit" and give it a weight of zero. Explain to students (perhaps by naming it as such) that you will factor in those points at the end of the grading period. This also has the "feature" that students can see their grade without extra-credit, which can be a helpful thing to communicate.
--Gary
Thanks! I've patched my installation to allow the over 100% limits. We'll see how that works -- right now I'm using the mean with extra credit, so I might not need any more.
That tracker item is still open, but I see no new activity. Do you get the sense that they are going to consider allowing over 100% at some point in the future, or are we going to have to apply these patches externally forever?
That tracker item is still open, but I see no new activity. Do you get the sense that they are going to consider allowing over 100% at some point in the future, or are we going to have to apply these patches externally forever?
Our grade book allows for extra credit in sum and weighted mean.
Those are our only 2 aggregation methods.
We also allow for grade to go above the maximum as well as allow percents to go above 100% and we aggregate category totals above the maximum or 100% appropriately.
We are adding some last minute features to the system (weights calculated as percentages) and had to fix some last minute bugs.
The rest of this week I will be normalizing the system UI so it looks decent on themes other than ours to prepare it for inclusion in contrib.
Those are our only 2 aggregation methods.
We also allow for grade to go above the maximum as well as allow percents to go above 100% and we aggregate category totals above the maximum or 100% appropriately.
We are adding some last minute features to the system (weights calculated as percentages) and had to fix some last minute bugs.
The rest of this week I will be normalizing the system UI so it looks decent on themes other than ours to prepare it for inclusion in contrib.
This sounds very promising. It means I won't have to revert to 1.8 going forward. I have a strict rule about "no upgrades" in the middle of a term, but I'm strongly tempted to break that rule if your system comes out before summer term is over...
No pressure, of course.
As it is, I've pretty much resigned myself to exporting the grades for this quarter and recalculating them manually...
No pressure, of course.
As it is, I've pretty much resigned myself to exporting the grades for this quarter and recalculating them manually...