Does QP record a grade for each quiz, or only for the whole unit?

Does QP record a grade for each quiz, or only for the whole unit?

by Gerald Grow -
Number of replies: 10
This question probably has an obvious answer, but I don't know it.

Given a QuizPort that contains 5 Hot Potatoes quizzes, what gets recorded?

Is it possible to choose to have the gradebook record the grade for each quiz in the QuizPort?

Or will the gradebook record only the single cumulative grade for the whole QuizPort (calculated according to the percentages assigned to each quiz)?

Thanks,

Gerald Grow

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Gerald Grow

Re: Does QP record a grade for each quiz, or only for the whole unit?

by Glenys Hanson -
Hi Gerald,

Gordon, of course, will give the authoritative answer to this, but it seems to me that the gradebook only gives the cumulative grade for the whole QuizPort.

This means, if I've understood correctly how the gradebook works, a teacher can choose to adjust manually the score for a whole QuizPort (if they wish to give a score higher or lower than Moodle has calculated) but not not for an individual quiz. I would like to be able to do this at the moment because students have had problems for technical reasons doing certain quizzes and I'd like to give them good scores just to show I realise their poor scores reflect neither their ability nor their investment. I haven't worked out how to do this but maybe I'm missing something.

Cheers,
Glenys
In reply to Glenys Hanson

Re: Does QP record a grade for each quiz, or only for the whole unit?

by Gordon Bateson -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
Hi Gerald, Hi Glenys,

> Given a QuizPort that contains 5 Hot Potatoes quizzes, what gets recorded?

As Glenys says, the Moodle gradebook records only a single grade for each QuizPort. A the calculation of a single QuizPort grade is hierarchical. More details are available in "Grading and Scoring" section of the following webpage:
> Is it possible to choose to have the gradebook record
> the grade for each quiz in the QuizPort?

Only if you put each quiz in a separate QuizPort.

> Or will the gradebook record only the single cumulative grade for the whole QuizPort > (calculated according to the percentages assigned to each quiz)?

Yes. You've got it. If you understand this, then you don't need to read the tutorial.

Glenys, do I understand that you would like to be able to override the automatically calculated quiz scores with scores entered by the teacher? I'll look into it, but at the moment, I feel that this is more the job for the Moodle gradebook than for QuizPort.

all the best
Gordon
In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Does QP record a grade for each quiz, or only for the whole unit?

by Glenys Hanson -
Hi Gordon,

Yes, that's what I want, but don't know how to get at the individual quiz scores in the gradebook. Is this something controlled by the gradebook or by QuizPort? I can can change the grade for a whole QuizPort unit with no problem but the individual quizzes are not visible - or I don't know how to find them. mixed

Cheers,
Glenys
In reply to Glenys Hanson

Re: Does QP record a grade for each quiz, or only for the whole unit?

by Gordon Bateson -
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> Yes, that's what I want, but don't know how to get
> at the individual quiz scores in the gradebook.


You can do any of the following:
  • put each quiz in its own QuizPort activity
  • put each quiz in a HotPot activity
  • override the grade for the QuizPort in the Moodle gradebook
  • add extra grade items in the Moodle gradebook for "effort" or somesuch
> the individual quizzes are not visible - or I don't know how to find them

That's right. The Moodle gradebook does not know about individual quizzes in a QuizPort, in the same way that it does not know about individual questions in a Moodle Quiz, or individual posts in a Forum, or individual entries in a Glossary.

The Moodle gradebook operates at the level of Moodle activities and doesn't know about anything more refined than that.

regards
Gordon
In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Does QP record a grade for each quiz, or only for the whole unit?

by Gordon Bateson -
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It occurred to me this morning in the dreamy haze of dawn, that it might be possible to allow teachers to override scores and grades.

On any of the reports, the scores and grades would have a an edit button which teachers could click and override the automatically calculated score or grade with something they felt was more appropriate.

We would need to add the following fields to the database tables that QuizPort uses to store scores and grades:
  • quiz attempts + quiz scores:
    • rawscore
      the raw quiz (attempt) score that is calculated automatically by QuizPort
    • scoretime
      the time, if any, at which the score was manually overridden by a teacher
    • scoreuser
      the teacher, if any, who set the score manually
    • scorecoment
      an optional comment from the teacher about why the raw score was overridden
  • unit attempts + unit grades:
    • rawgrade
      the raw unit (attempt) grade that is calculated automatically by QuizPort
    • gradetime
      the time, if any, at which the grade was manually overridden by a teacher
    • gradeuser
      the teacher, if any, who set the grade manually
    • gradecomment
      an optional comment from the teacher about why the raw grade was overridden

In general, the scores and grades would be the same as the rawscores and rawgrades, but we would allow teachers to override any of the following:
  • quiz attempt score
  • quiz score
  • unit attempt grade
  • unit grade (this is what gets passed to the Moodle gradebook)
While we are at it we could do something similar with the status field:
  • rawstatus
  • statustime
  • statususer
I will not implement this soon, but I think it is the beginning of a solution to this issue, so I will dwell on it during my winter hibernation.

regards
Gordon
In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Does QP record a grade for each quiz, or only for the whole unit?

by Glenys Hanson -
Hi Gordon,

That sounds just perfect! But I'm not in a hurry. My QuizPort course is nearly over and I have no prospect of another "heavy" one in the coming months.

Cheers,
Glenys
In reply to Glenys Hanson

Re: Does QP record a grade for each quiz, or only for the whole unit?

by Gordon Bateson -
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Having slept another night on it, I am more convinced that where it is entirely appropriate for QuizPort to manipulate and allow overriding of its own quiz scores and unit grades, we should *not* add extra entries in the Moodle gradebook to represent individual quizzes within QuizPort activities.

To do so would add extra confusion to the calculation of grades (does the quiz score also count toward the QuizPort grade, and so contribute twice to the course grade?), and furthermore would be considered non-standard behavior for an activity module and would not be well received when QuizPort becomes TaskChain and we ask for it to be considered for inclusion in Moodle 2.0.

Gordon
In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Does QP record a grade for each quiz, or only for the whole unit?

by Glenys Hanson -
Hi Gordon,

That would be fine with me if changes to scores can be overridden by the teacher within QuizPort. I don't know if it would often be necessary. For the moment, I've only wanted to do so when I student has got a low score that's not their responsibility because of:
  1. A QuizPort error (for example, Find-it exercises not working correctly).
  2. Server overload (I'm not sure this has ever happened with QuizPort though it did with Hot Potatoes).
  3. My errors as exercise creator (typos, links to wrong sound files, etc.)
In these cases, I've sent students messages saying they will be credited with a higher score, but I know it doesn't have the same psychological effect as seeing the score actually change. I never manage to get it across to all the students that when I give the final grades I'm not a slave to Moodle calculated scores.

Cheers,
Glenys
In reply to Glenys Hanson

Re: Does QP record a grade for each quiz, or only for the whole unit?

by Jeff Finnan -
<<<Server overload (I'm not sure this has ever happened with QuizPort though it did with Hot Potatoes).>>>

Hey Glenys,

What happens when you get a server overload?

Thanks,
Jeff

PS. Happy Holidays all.

In reply to Jeff Finnan

Re: Does QP record a grade for each quiz, or only for the whole unit?

by Glenys Hanson -
Hi Jeff,

The students get ejected from the course. This kept happening with the Text Reconstruction exercises (WebRhubarb) because they generated so much server traffic in the Hot Pot Module version. This doesn't happen in the QuizPort version to my great relief - at one point I feared I might have to rewrite the course or face a student rebellion. dead

Now, it's all fine thanks to the wonderful QuizPort Module. big grin

Cheers,
Glenys