Calculating grade-to-date using sum aggregation

Calculating grade-to-date using sum aggregation

由Eric Sakai發表於
Number of replies: 11

I am setting up a grade book in Moodle 1.9. I have categories (e.g., quizzes, assignments, discussions, final exam), but I don't want to weight categories. I just want to assign various points to each item within each category. Is there a way to set up the grade book such that students see their course grade represented as a percentage of points possible at a given point in the course?

For example, the total points for the entire course equal 1,500. Midway through the course, the points possible equal 800, since some quizzes and assignments are not yet completed. If the student has earned 700 points, his course grade at that point would be 700/800 (87.5%), not 700/1,500 (46.7%). The latter is what I get with the aggregation method set to SUM for both categories and the course.

Thanks for any advice you can offer!

In reply to Eric Sakai

Re: Calculating grade-to-date using sum aggregation

由Greg Lunsford發表於

This is a great question, I have been setting up gradebooks using the Sum of Grade as well, so that instructors can offer extra credit to their students and since the only way the extra credit works is by using sum of grade it is a must.  But as Erik stated this is giving the students a false reading of their over all grade.

What can be done so I can use extra credit and still let students know how their doing accurately?

In reply to Eric Sakai

Re: Calculating grade-to-date using sum aggregation

由Bob Puffer發表於

I'm sorry to report that the standard gradebook that comes with versions 1.95 and above (in the 1.9 branch) has these two characteristics that combine to make your objective unobtainable IMO -- it doesn't allow extra credit outside of Sum of grades aggregation and it ignores the setting of "Include only graded items in aggregation".  We fixed the first one when we wrote the CLAMP laegrader report so Simple weighted mean of grades accomplishes this objective for our instructors.

In reply to Bob Puffer

Re: Calculating grade-to-date using sum aggregation

由Greg Lunsford發表於

OK, Thank You, I kind of thought that it wasn't possible.

Does this same problem accure in Moodle 2.0

In reply to Bob Puffer

Re: Calculating grade-to-date using sum aggregation

由Itamar Tzadok發表於

Bob, I'm not sure how "including only graded items in aggregation" would work towards the requirement. If a student didn't submit an assignment his/her grade-to-date would be higher than what it should be since the gradebook would not add the assignment to the to-date sum.

For grade-to-date the gradebook needs to know the due date of activities which doesn't seem practical since there are too many possible scenarios. Perhaps another grade setting for setting the effective date of a grade item could do the trick. 微笑

In reply to Itamar Tzadok

Re: Calculating grade-to-date using sum aggregation

由Tara Bladow發表於

I'm jumping in here, because this is what we would like too!  For students to have a Grade to Date and Overall Grade in Moodle...

Can this somehow be achieved by using manual calculations?  Is there way to add an extra column to the gradebook?

In reply to Tara Bladow

Re: Calculating grade-to-date using sum aggregation

由Itamar Tzadok發表於

Adding extra columns to the gradebook is easy. You can add as many manual grade items or categories as you want, each of which constitute an extra column. Now, you can do "semi-automatic" grade-to-date by adding a manual grade item with a formula which sums the activities. On each due date, you can update the max value of the item to the desired max, and add the respective activity to the sum formula of the "grade-to-date" item. Can something like that work for you? 微笑

In reply to Tara Bladow

Re: Calculating grade-to-date using sum aggregation

由Marylan Hightree發表於

You could nest one category within another.  The inner category would contain those items that have been graded (Grade to Date).  The outer category would contain everything (Overall Grade).

In reply to Marylan Hightree

Re: Calculating grade-to-date using sum aggregation

由Itamar Tzadok發表於

This could definitely work for simple (flat) grading schemes. However, if activities are divided to categories in a non-chronological order (e.g. Essays: mid-term, final; Weekly exercises: week1, week2, ...; etc.) This approach won't work. Also, if students use the grade report to track their grades I prefer not to move items/categories on an ongoing basis so as not to create unnecessary confusion. But again, for simple schemes moving items shouldn't be a problem since the same order may still be preserved.  微笑

In reply to Itamar Tzadok

Re: Calculating grade-to-date using sum aggregation

由Bob Puffer發表於

This scheme requires one to give zeroes to non-completed items for which the student isn't exempt.  We have a "zero-fill" icon that fills all empty grades  with zeroes in the laegrader report for facilitating this with large classes.

In reply to Bob Puffer

Re: Calculating grade-to-date using sum aggregation

由Eric Sakai發表於

Bob--Thanks. I should have checked to see what CLAMP was doing. For my simple-minded purposes--providing a way for faculty to set up the grade book without using weighted categories--I've found that the easiest thing to do is to set it up with no categories and Simple weighted mean as the aggregation method and Aggregate only non-empty grades checked. That gives students an accurate course grade-to-date (points earned as a percentage of points possible) based only on graded items. I gather it doesn't address the extra credit issue, however.

In reply to Eric Sakai

Re: Calculating grade-to-date using sum aggregation

由Bob Puffer發表於

The extra credit issue is only addressed if you use the laegrader report from CLAMP which calculates extra credit correctly whatever the aggregation method is.