Gradebook headaches

Gradebook headaches

by alexis alexander -
Number of replies: 10

Warning: This post is not going to be about php code!

I am offering a course to faculty on how to use Moodle and I absolutely do not like the new gradebook in 1.9. It just will not do what I want, give simple list of points given. This is especially hard because 50% of the final points is for the student's creation of a course shell. There doesn't seem to be a way to have an "offline" assignment that is worth 50% of the total final points given. I haven't been able to figure out any way to have assignment count for a percentage of the total final grade, maybe I am missing something.

I am constantly getting irate or whinging emails from students "why is my grade so and so?" and I can't blame them. It all seems so random and needlessly complicated. I like the old gradebook better.

Is there an alternative? I am just one person here, so I can't call on i.t. to make me a new grade book to drop in.

In reply to alexis alexander

Re: Gradebook headaches

by Steve Garcia -
Well, there is no question that the new gradebook is a lot more painful to use. It has some compensations. I like the ability to set it up so that an empty grade doesn't count against a student, so the students can see their updated score as soon as I grade it, without penalizing those I haven't gotten to yet. On the other hand, extra credit has been scuttled. I have some hope that the "simple grader" discussed here may address some of this...

To set up an assignment that is 50% of the course total, create a category that has 50% weight.

Go to Grades->Edit->Categories and items (that means go to grades and then select the drop down to find "Categories and items.")

Once you have created the category, go back to the tree and select the "edit" icon for the category you just created. Under "parent" you can now set the weight as a percentage.

Now find the assignment that you want to be worth 50%. The easiest way to do this is load the assignment itself and click on "Update this assignment." Down near the bottom there is a drop down labeled "Grade category." Use this to place that assignment in the new category you just created. You may want to create another category (or more) for the other assignments, and make them all sum up to 100%. Place the other assignments in the other category.

There, wasn't that easy? :/
In reply to Steve Garcia

Re: Gradebook headaches

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
Yes the great thing about the new gradebook in 1.9 is that pretty much every feature request we had about Gradebooks before 1.9 is now satisfied and it is now possible to set it up to suit 99% of teaching situations (and the use cases are extremely varied!).

The problem with this is of course increased complexity in the user interface. The standard grader report has to allow access to everything.

If you ever see a better way to improve Gradebook usability please make sure you discuss it in this forum and get it into the Moodle Tracker. That way developers can have some guidance on how to improve it in future releases (or plugins, since the new gradebook supports drop-in interfaces now, such as the one Steve linked to above. Hope we see more of them developed!)
In reply to Steve Garcia

Re: Gradebook headaches

by alexis alexander -

The problem with this solution is that there is no place to change the weight under "parent". There is no dropdown. I have searched all over and tried everything I could think of, it is just not showing up.

Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong?

In reply to alexis alexander

Re: Gradebook headaches

by Gary Anderson -
Alexis:

I wrote this tutorial a while back for how to do weighted grades.

http://docs.moodle.org/en/Gradebook_1.9_Tutorial

Please go through it and see if it solves your problem. It seems like it should. Just give the final project a weight of 50, and put other activities into a separate category that total 50 and you should have what you need.

--Gary
In reply to Gary Anderson

Re: Gradebook headaches

by alexis alexander -

My problem is that I do NOT get the textbox for weight when I make a catagory

I would attach a screen shot, but it seems it is not allowed here.

In reply to alexis alexander

Re: Gradebook headaches

by A. T. Wyatt -
You can attach a screen shot. I do it all the time. Perhaps it is simply too large a file? The limit is 100 kb.

atw
In reply to alexis alexander

Re: Gradebook headaches

by Richard Webb -
You should get a text box for a category (or assignment) weight ONLY if the parent category has aggregation set to "Weighted mean of grades." In that case the parent category box will include "Item weight" with a box for you to enter the weight for the category.

Richard
In reply to Richard Webb

Re: Gradebook headaches

by alexis alexander -

Ok, one final question.

What is the difference between "Simple weighted mean of grades" and "weighted mean of grades?"

I sort of have the gradebook working now but I am not happy with it at tal.

The wording seems obscure to me.

In reply to alexis alexander

Re: Gradebook headaches

by Richard Webb -
Robert Russo explained the three common aggregation methods quite nicely in this post. The short of it is the weight for each assignment is equal to the number of points for that assignment in "Simple weighted mean" but you assign the weights in "Weighted mean."
In reply to alexis alexander

Re: Gradebook headaches

by Michael Penney -
Just an update on this, if there is a calculation in the course total for the gradebook, the Advanced button on the parent category's edit page (for example: http://demo.moodle.org/grade/edit/tree/category.php?courseid=2&id=1&gpr_type=edit&gpr_plugin=tree&gpr_courseid=2)
does not get printed, so you can't change the aggregation.

I've put in a tracker ticket for an informative error report in this case here http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-16162