I vote on a lot of issues and maintain a low disappointment level by shying away from gradebook issues. A tracker query will tell you there's been some gradebook issues closed over the past months but only one of them had a significant number of votes (29). I actually think votes have little to do with what gets worked on at Moodle but I'd be interested in someone proving me wrong.
VOTE! For ME! Please?
https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-40152
Bumping for good reasons
I like the idea of being able to pull grades from another course into a target course. Would assume:
- code would use the grade calculations in order to do this, referencing the course shortname
- would need to be aware of course permissions
I'd encourage you to organize a discussion on the topic (there've been a few through the years) -- just don't think votes in the tracker (if you're successful in getting them) are going to have much to do with bringing about a successful conclusion. Would reference:
I'd encourage you to organize a discussion on the topic
Uhm, I thought I was doing that right now, but if I am missing some other platform for this discussion please advise me.
We are willing to pay cash, so I have hired programmers do create this for us.
Sometimes I'm just surprised that real basic features are missing in Moodle.
Well, first, I do encourage people to use the tracker - perhaps there is not a lot of activity on the gradebook but without votes, there will not be any attention paid to a feature request.
I started with Moodle originally just for the gradebook and have never come across the need for this feature but I can see that in certain situations it could prove useful.
However, I could see it involving quite a bit of coding as you are expanding outside the course boundaries. If you are getting this done, I would encourage you to create it as a plugin so that others that might need it could benefit.
I don't believe the logical way to proceed on this is through a plugin -- it would require core code changes so the calculating functions in the gradebook would recognize either a course id or course shortname and pull grades from that. Doubtful that its a lot of code that would need to be changed but I don't know that part of the gradebook very well.
I also think this can not be done through a plugin and core change is inevitable.
I am stunningly surprised that no-one ever came across this idea. It's only logical.
What if you have have these courses:
- Science 1
- Science 2
- Science 3
And you want to create an overall science grade in Moodle? There's no way of doing this now.
I still think Moodle is a narrow minded product on this point, to much based on single courses run by one teacher and a students manually enrolling.
Moodle needs to professionalize.
I don't think Moodle is narrow-minded but it has not caught up with the way lower grade levels handle grading.
Whatever you call it, Moodle is to much course-based and too little education-based.
That's what I meant with narrow-minded. Moodle seems to be an ideal instrument for one teacher controlling a course where the students apply for by themselves.
Then after that one course they get a badge for that course. However, if you participate in 10 courses and you want to do some overall actions for those 10 courses (for example making a report about your progress), then it's not possible.
I just can't understand why people would not think this is a nescessary add-on, every other LMS seems to have this functionality.
I posted this in another forum but it is relevant here as well.
You are so right about a consolidated grade book.
Ours is a 7 to 12 school and this would be a great addition to Moodle.
We have used Moodle for 7 years now and I have come to the conclusion that Moodle is a "course centered" rather than "learner centered" program.
In a 7 to 12 environment I want to be able to have a consolidated "student screen". All upcoming events from each course. A tab for all tasks that have been assessed and a tab for overdue or incomplete tasks. Parents would want this too.
Our students do six subjects. To get an overview of how they are going would take at least 30 mouse clicks. (Click on the subject, Click Settings, Grades back to home. Repeat 5 more times) It should be achievable in one click.
No, the overview report does not work for us, as our students don't get one overall grade.
Thanks for the vote Rob.
I couldn't agree more. Our students are participating in up to 40 courses. Getting a general overview of the progress of one student is impossible.
How could Moodle miss this.
I wholeheartedly agree and would dearly love to get back the long, long hours wasted in pulling grades together. What you say of editing grades is equally true of reporting grades - also very important from the perspective of evaluation and learning.
It is frustrating that something so useful and probably so commonly required in a wide range of educational contexts is still not covered by such a mature LN as Moodle. Grade reporting for different types of users - the student, the teacher, peers, mentors, parents etc - is glitchy and cumbersome to say the least, even in 2.6. The plugin "Site-wide user report" partially addresses the issue of institutional reporting. This allows students and teachers to see grades from multiple courses on a single page without having to leave and enter the individual courses. It also allows you to select the courses for which you want to see grades. However, I have to add that it is still very cumbersome, time-consuming and limited in comparison to other reporting environments.
Because the reporting is, amazingly, still so difficult to administer in Moodle, as an organization we decided to move out all grading and administer it elsewhere. We export all grades from whole Moodle sites directly from the MySQL database (with a fairly complex query I have to say) and store them in a data warehouse. We then use a third-party Reporting Services environment to easily (in comparison to Moodle) produce a wide range of reports of all shapes and sizes all available from a web server. In the end it saves us a lot of work, especially on help desk calls and keeps students and teachers much happier. Teachers still use the gradebook to input all grades across the whole site but all reporting is administered externally. The site-wide user report download is at:
https://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=gradereport_sitewideuser
What I see you doing is asking for votes. I disagree with using the Tracker for end-user discussions (most will not partake) and I don't think you have a valid product UNLESS you have end-user discussions. I's turn this topic back to its original intent -- to discuss the idea and some potential paths to resolution.
Nine votes already Bob... how much do I have to pay for yours ;)
https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-40152
I know you want this, I know it!
Good discussion.
It's an important "missing feature" in Moodle (and has been discussed as such for many years) - not being able to consolidate a Students Grades across Courses.
(I'm less worried about being able to "use" a Grade from one Course in a different Course - and anyway that would logically be a secondary exercise after a site Gradebook).
Yes, we can Export Grades to Excel/Calc for analysis, and we can export the database, run MySQL queries, or use plugins, etc.
BUT being able to see a Students Grades across a number of courses is a basic reporting requirement - both for Teachers, and for Students. This would benefit any organisation using Grades extensively.
I've now voted for this, and put a Moodle Partner flag against it.
I guess there will be questions about how best to format this data, and whether it should be all graded activities, or just a Course Grade total - I expect the second will be easiest, and shouldn't be too difficult to implement.
Stuart
I voted for it and appreciate your patience. There are 450 open issues with the gradebook, 50 of which have votes higher than nine (you're up to 14 now). The issues with the most votes has 67 and was filed in January. I raised the question of whether people are turning away from voting on tracker issues because more votes doesn't equal action -- especially with the gradebook. MD replied saying many things were taken into consideration when they decide what to work on including votes. I just don't think the gradebook is treated equally to other modules in Moodle because developers don't like working on it.