Our semesters consist of two 9-week grading periods. Their final course average is either
average(first nine weeks, second nine weeks)
or.375 * first nine wks + .375 * second nine wks + .25 * exam
depending on whether or not the student exempts the final exam based on their grades and attendance.I have attached a screen shot of my current categories below in a demo class I'm using in my workshop.
First Nine Weeks =( .20 * hwk + .30 * quiz + .50 * test ),
Second Nine Weeks = ( .20 * hwk2 + .30 * [[quiz2 + .50 * test2 ),
and
Course Total =( .375 first + .375 * second + .25 exam )
The problem is, I was hoping that Course Total would ignore the exam grade if it wasn't present and average the two nine week grades, but it doesn't. It seems that if the exam grade is empty, the best Course Total a student can hope for is 75%.
A similar situation occurs with the two nine-week averages. If I have no assignments for a category, and thus, no category total, then the average is lowered by the percentage assigned to the empty category. For example, if a student has 100 for a test grade, but no hwk or quiz scores, then their nine-weeks average is 50 since tests count 50% of the total nine week score. It also means that the nine-week average mark is not accurate for the first few weeks of the term until I have given and graded at least one assignment in each category.
I see that if I check "Aggregate only nonempty grades" then assigned but not graded assignments are not counted against the Category total. I'm looking for a similar version of this for my calculated items. Am I missing an aggregation setting here, or trying to do the impossible?
Thanks in advance,
Rob Duncan
