I finally took the plunge and converted to the 1.9 gradebook and have tried to work through all the docs, all the videos and all the FAQs and I am still asea with regard to how I get the gradebook to show the actual course grade as a letter grade. I have been able to get the various assignments showiong as letter grades (though that is really not what I want) but no matter what I do I only seem to be able to get percentage for categories and course.
Marc,
I am in a similar situation. I hate to be overly critical but the new gradebook seems to have been developed without sufficient feedback from the general Moodle community....?
I have upgraded from 1.8 to 1.9 and thus am forced to use the new gradebook (I think??? or is there a way to use the old one because I'm about ready to give up on this new one) and can't do some of the things that were so easy in 1.8.
1. I had created an offline assignment to record test scores and then used the curve feature to scale the results. So, if we gave a test that had a score range of 200 to 677 but our highest scoring student got a 523 then I would scale (or curve) the test so that everyone was scored based on the highest student's score (523). I have racked my brain and played and played with the new gradebook but cannot get it to perform this simple function...
2. Every one of my offline assignments have to be edited and given a weight (the same as the parent category - don't know why that isn't updated automatically) or the aggregation does not get calculated....meaning that the grade is not factored into the final grade.
I posted a complaint about this new gradebook once before (a couple of months ago) but thought that maybe if I gave it some time I would be able to figure it out.... I still haven't seen the light
Jason
I am in a similar situation. I hate to be overly critical but the new gradebook seems to have been developed without sufficient feedback from the general Moodle community....?
I have upgraded from 1.8 to 1.9 and thus am forced to use the new gradebook (I think??? or is there a way to use the old one because I'm about ready to give up on this new one) and can't do some of the things that were so easy in 1.8.
1. I had created an offline assignment to record test scores and then used the curve feature to scale the results. So, if we gave a test that had a score range of 200 to 677 but our highest scoring student got a 523 then I would scale (or curve) the test so that everyone was scored based on the highest student's score (523). I have racked my brain and played and played with the new gradebook but cannot get it to perform this simple function...
2. Every one of my offline assignments have to be edited and given a weight (the same as the parent category - don't know why that isn't updated automatically) or the aggregation does not get calculated....meaning that the grade is not factored into the final grade.
I posted a complaint about this new gradebook once before (a couple of months ago) but thought that maybe if I gave it some time I would be able to figure it out.... I still haven't seen the light
Jason
I was at least clever enough not to upgrade my moodles until grades were completed. As it turned out, after upgrading the gradebooks that had been completed were a shambles, much I think as you found yours. And like you I used the curving feature, which though not as clever as EGP's was certainly helpful.
Having now spent the better part of an entire day banging around trying to figure out how to do what I think most users want to do, I am nonplussed and frustrated.....
While it does appear that a huge amount of work went into the new gradebook, in order to make it more flexible, that flexibility appears to have made what would be mindless under EGP an Herculean task....
Moreover, I was waiting to upgrade to 1.9 for my productions sites before including gradebook in the Moodle Course I teach, and frankly at this juncture I would almost advise them to export their data to EGP to do grades..... and to think of the time I spent trying to provide tools and docs to help teachers to move from EGP to Moodle ;=}
I am sitting here with a plate of cheese ready to acknowledge how oblivious I have been to what were obvious instructions and choices in order to accomplish this simple task and only wish that someone would embarrass me and put me out of my misery as quickly as possible....
Having now spent the better part of an entire day banging around trying to figure out how to do what I think most users want to do, I am nonplussed and frustrated.....
While it does appear that a huge amount of work went into the new gradebook, in order to make it more flexible, that flexibility appears to have made what would be mindless under EGP an Herculean task....
Moreover, I was waiting to upgrade to 1.9 for my productions sites before including gradebook in the Moodle Course I teach, and frankly at this juncture I would almost advise them to export their data to EGP to do grades..... and to think of the time I spent trying to provide tools and docs to help teachers to move from EGP to Moodle ;=}
I am sitting here with a plate of cheese ready to acknowledge how oblivious I have been to what were obvious instructions and choices in order to accomplish this simple task and only wish that someone would embarrass me and put me out of my misery as quickly as possible....
Marc,
I wish I could embarrass you and put you out of your misery but alas, all I can do is share your frustration.
Luckily I too waited to upgrade until after the end of the semester. What a nightmare it would have been to make sense out of our gradebook right before it was time to submit grades to the admin office!!!
I agree that it appears a ton of work has gone into the new development but the end result seems to have ignored the average end user. The level of complexity of the new gradebook makes me feel like it was designed by a mathematics PhD student as a dissertation project.
Jason
P.S. We needed to upgrade to 1.9 for some other packages and features that were only available in 1.9 but I'm starting to wonder if the trade-off was worth it.
I wish I could embarrass you and put you out of your misery but alas, all I can do is share your frustration.
Luckily I too waited to upgrade until after the end of the semester. What a nightmare it would have been to make sense out of our gradebook right before it was time to submit grades to the admin office!!!
I agree that it appears a ton of work has gone into the new development but the end result seems to have ignored the average end user. The level of complexity of the new gradebook makes me feel like it was designed by a mathematics PhD student as a dissertation project.
Jason
P.S. We needed to upgrade to 1.9 for some other packages and features that were only available in 1.9 but I'm starting to wonder if the trade-off was worth it.
One more thing I wanted to add here.
When I navigate to an item that I want to curve by selecting "Edit categories and items" from the pulldown menu inside the grader and then click on the edit icon for the item I want to cure I see the maximum score. It is not the maximum number of the scale that I have selected (nor the minimum) and if I click on the question mark to read the documentation file I get what is displayed in the screen shot below.
But I cannot change the maximum grade from the "update activity page". Or maybe I can....what is the "update activity page"? Isn't that just the update page for the item? There is no option to change the maximum score there.....
Jason
When I navigate to an item that I want to curve by selecting "Edit categories and items" from the pulldown menu inside the grader and then click on the edit icon for the item I want to cure I see the maximum score. It is not the maximum number of the scale that I have selected (nor the minimum) and if I click on the question mark to read the documentation file I get what is displayed in the screen shot below.
But I cannot change the maximum grade from the "update activity page". Or maybe I can....what is the "update activity page"? Isn't that just the update page for the item? There is no option to change the maximum score there.....
Jason
I agree that the 1.9 gradebook management is hopeless.
I am bearing the responsibility of naively moving ahead to the newer version assuming they wouldn't ruin a good thing, but this is ridiculous to put every last setting for every test and assignment behind its own little icon.
The manual assignment of id's to quizzes makes no sense whatsoever and the mathematical calculations although flexible, are very cumbersome. I've given up and am downloading the entire gradebook into excel to be able to do my weightings.
My guess is that this was done by a summer-of-code student who is now working for Microsoft as a key developer on Windows 7.
I am bearing the responsibility of naively moving ahead to the newer version assuming they wouldn't ruin a good thing, but this is ridiculous to put every last setting for every test and assignment behind its own little icon.
The manual assignment of id's to quizzes makes no sense whatsoever and the mathematical calculations although flexible, are very cumbersome. I've given up and am downloading the entire gradebook into excel to be able to do my weightings.
My guess is that this was done by a summer-of-code student who is now working for Microsoft as a key developer on Windows 7.
The update activity page refers to the activity module to which this grade item is linked. Currently, grade items that are linked to an activity module have several settings only changeable from within the activity module's interface. Maximum grade is one of them. So if your grade item is linked to an assignment, you must go to the assignment update page and change the maximum grade there. If it is a quiz, you must go to the quiz update page and change the maximum grade (in the questions section).
Jason said:
>>I hate to be overly critical but the new gradebook seems to have been developed without sufficient feedback from the general Moodle community....?
Well, I don't hate to be overly critical.
While this new gradebook has many exceptional mathematical features, and an amazing ability to calculate really outstanding statistical data that I have no use for, it is a poor gradebook for actual everyday teachers.
I used to be able to easily and simply use extra credit with assignments. I used to be able to easily and simply hide certain assignments using categories. I used to easily and simply be able to scale an assignment to, say, 58 out of 60 points AFTER I finished grading without changing the original scale (ie: scale or "curve" individual assignments).
All of this functionality is now hidden under layers of menus and clicks now. Complexity has rendered this gradebook fairly useless to me. I may simply quit using it, which is a shame.
Good design helps the user discover and use new features. It does not frustrate the user and hide previously useful features in obscure places and/or remove them.
I honor those that put their time and energy into the gradebook, but beyond that, I'm disappointed.
>>I hate to be overly critical but the new gradebook seems to have been developed without sufficient feedback from the general Moodle community....?
Well, I don't hate to be overly critical.
While this new gradebook has many exceptional mathematical features, and an amazing ability to calculate really outstanding statistical data that I have no use for, it is a poor gradebook for actual everyday teachers.
I used to be able to easily and simply use extra credit with assignments. I used to be able to easily and simply hide certain assignments using categories. I used to easily and simply be able to scale an assignment to, say, 58 out of 60 points AFTER I finished grading without changing the original scale (ie: scale or "curve" individual assignments).
All of this functionality is now hidden under layers of menus and clicks now. Complexity has rendered this gradebook fairly useless to me. I may simply quit using it, which is a shame.
Good design helps the user discover and use new features. It does not frustrate the user and hide previously useful features in obscure places and/or remove them.
I honor those that put their time and energy into the gradebook, but beyond that, I'm disappointed.
I think that is one reason AT was looking at exploring further "tutorial scenarios" that might address typical teacher usage, which scenarios might eventually be applied via template so that GB is not the reason one abandons Moodle.
On the other hand, I think as Jason pointed out, with all the features it does have it apparently does not make it easy to do some things that apps like EGP do, like curving grades (and I am not talking about just lowering points possible so scores rise....... but changing the break off points for grades by being able to visually distribute the grades in changing cut-off points by quiz/assignment/test/etc.)
On the other hand, I think as Jason pointed out, with all the features it does have it apparently does not make it easy to do some things that apps like EGP do, like curving grades (and I am not talking about just lowering points possible so scores rise....... but changing the break off points for grades by being able to visually distribute the grades in changing cut-off points by quiz/assignment/test/etc.)
Several interface improvements are in the works, you may want to follow this conversation
To answer your original question:
Yes you can show the course grade as a grade letter. If you look at the screenshot I just added, you will see the edit icon for the course grade. You must click on "Turn editing on" before this icon will appear. Click that icon, then select "Letter" in the "Grade display type" dropdown. Save, then click "Turn editing off" to see the result.
Yes you can show the course grade as a grade letter. If you look at the screenshot I just added, you will see the edit icon for the course grade. You must click on "Turn editing on" before this icon will appear. Click that icon, then select "Letter" in the "Grade display type" dropdown. Save, then click "Turn editing off" to see the result.
Aloha,
I am new to Moodle but have taught and used several other on-line courses/gradebooks. Currently I have 9.2.2. I have assignments that I am writing and adding into the course, but thie quarter students are not required to do them.
I have spent hours and hours trying to figure out a way to leave them in the course but not have them be part of the gradebook (or students' grades now) to no avail.
I have searched every document, FAQ, help that I could find; purchased three books, and still nothing. I was hoping I could use the curve feature, but that is no where to be found. I then thought I might try setting the assignment to zero and that is not an option. So I thought I would try to put it in a category that uses text for the grade, but that didn't work either.
None of the advanced gradebook options show up, i.e. "offset" in the gradebook. I am super frustrated and do not know how to make this work!
I thought about moving to the 9.3 version, but since I had major headaches getting this version on the server, there is no way I want to attempt upgrading. It was so bad, I actually paid a company to get it loaded on the server since none of the installation instructions worked!
Anyone who can help me figure out how to add/keep assignments in the course without it changing the current students' grade would be a Godsend!
Mahalo,
Kelly
There are a couple of ways of achieving this, depending on what you want to achieve. Let me highlight each briefly here:
- Set up the course to aggregate only non-empty grades: assignments not yet graded will not affect the course total. Also, optionally, you may want to hide these new assignments from students.
- Create a category with "Grade type" set to "None", and put each new assignment inside of it. None of its results, graded or not, will affect the course total. You can also hide the entire category from students.
OK, I tried that and it took me several hours to get it to function properly. I had to go to several places to get all the settings inputted correctly. Plus, I had to create a folder for the "2nd quarter" assignments, do the settings for that folder, and then drag each assignment in it, one-by-one. It seems like there should be an easier way to handle the gradebook.
After all that, I cannot figure out how to get the gradebook to calculate the total points without me adding them together and inputting the total points. This is not convenient, especially if I add or take away assignments.
I also am having problems with this. I attempted to go back in and change the setting in a gradebook I had already set up, but there is no dropdown box for gradetype. How do you get it to show up if you are trying to changing existing settings??
I did check this on every category I had in this particular gradebook. It didn't seem to matter if the category was hidden or not hidden. None of them showed a dropdown box so that I could change the category total's grade type to 'none'.
ps--I am using sum of points for my gradebook, not weighted percentages. I do have categories for managing the grader report screen, however.
Help appreciated!
atw
I did check this on every category I had in this particular gradebook. It didn't seem to matter if the category was hidden or not hidden. None of them showed a dropdown box so that I could change the category total's grade type to 'none'.
ps--I am using sum of points for my gradebook, not weighted percentages. I do have categories for managing the grader report screen, however.
Help appreciated!
atw
AT,
I can confirm that activities moved in to a category have Grade Type which is not editable. I created a category 'Assignments not used' and added a fresh dummy assignment to this category. The Grade type field was not editable. However, the Category total is editable and can be set to None. Surely this is all that you need? If the Category total is type 'None' and all the activities within the category are hidden will this not have the desired effect?
In addition, I would venture to suggest that having created the assignment and set the grading scale you don't want to change it via the back door so to speak in this part of the gradebook. If you want to change the grade of the Activity all you need to do is to Update it and set the Grade to No Grade.
Cheers
M
I can confirm that activities moved in to a category have Grade Type which is not editable. I created a category 'Assignments not used' and added a fresh dummy assignment to this category. The Grade type field was not editable. However, the Category total is editable and can be set to None. Surely this is all that you need? If the Category total is type 'None' and all the activities within the category are hidden will this not have the desired effect?
In addition, I would venture to suggest that having created the assignment and set the grading scale you don't want to change it via the back door so to speak in this part of the gradebook. If you want to change the grade of the Activity all you need to do is to Update it and set the Grade to No Grade.
Cheers
M
The screen capture above (with no drop down box) WAS from editing the category total, not an activity.
It would have been nice to get it all with one click (via the category total) as Nicolas suggested; however, I can't seem to get it to work. I believe I will just go back to not including the affected category in the grade calculation. It is turning out to be easier after all (because I already did it!)
atw
It would have been nice to get it all with one click (via the category total) as Nicolas suggested; however, I can't seem to get it to work. I believe I will just go back to not including the affected category in the grade calculation. It is turning out to be easier after all (because I already did it!)
atw
I just checked the code responsible for freezing the grade type element. It turns out to be because of the "Sum of grades" aggregation type. If you set it to any other type, you will be able to change the grade type. I am not sure why this measure has been implemented, I will have to ask in the HQ chat.
See MDL-17215 for a newly entered tracker issue.
See MDL-17215 for a newly entered tracker issue.
That would be nice. Quite a few of our faculty members (and, of course, myself) do not want to use any other grading scheme. I am glad you figured it out!
atw
atw
Wyatt, I am not sure if this addresses your problem but this is how we handled ours. We have multiple quarters in our grading system. so we must have the main course category and quarter categories(2 per semester) and below that course specific grade categories(like application of knowledge 15%, class participation 20% ..etc.) and under that individual assignments.
You need to make sure that top and lower levels are ok in terms of calculation, in our case we have weighted on top(course level ) and simple weighted at lower levels. We used max grade for course specific grade categories and it works fine.
When Q1 is over we switch its weight to 0 so it does not effect current Q. The collapsing grader report helps to keep the gradebook under control( we wish we could keep them collapsed)
We had the weight not showing problem, we just fixed the weighted simple weighted hierarchy. Hope this helps. Attachment is how it is arranged on category edit page.
You need to make sure that top and lower levels are ok in terms of calculation, in our case we have weighted on top(course level ) and simple weighted at lower levels. We used max grade for course specific grade categories and it works fine.
When Q1 is over we switch its weight to 0 so it does not effect current Q. The collapsing grader report helps to keep the gradebook under control( we wish we could keep them collapsed)
We had the weight not showing problem, we just fixed the weighted simple weighted hierarchy. Hope this helps. Attachment is how it is arranged on category edit page.
Have you tried the following:
- Set up a sub category under the course, example, 1st quarter.
- Move the assignments you want included in that category total under that category.
- Move the assignments you do not want included in the 1st quarter sub category to the uncategorized section
Edwinna