Moodle 6.3
Students on my course take an external exam at one of our Universities that certifies the course. I would like to capture those results in my course in Moodle. Firstly need to tick off that a module exam has been done, and secondly capture the results per module. What would be the best way to set this up? I would like to view the grades as per the Moodle grading system. Any suggestions?
Chris
You can add extra Grade items to your course for any purpose you like... see Grade_items and look for "Manual grade items".
I would have thought that the item having been given a grade would show that it has been done but you could also add an additional item and give it a custom scale (e.g. 'completed', 'not completed')... see Scales
Howard, thx. The completed/not completed part was for students to tick off whether they have done the activity or not and I'll just set up a normal activity for this.
Going with the manual grade option, how do I prevent the grade of the exam to impact on the weighting of the course? Preferably I would not want it to impact weighting. We assess students at two levels. (1) Being participation in the course, grades achieved via quizzes, etc. and then (2) a formal exam which gets recognised by official university certification. For the first part a certificate of good conduct is issued, and this is based on the overall weighting - I use Open Badges to recognise performance in the first part.
I trust my explanation makes sense? In essence, I don't want the grade item (exam) to impact weighting.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "weighting". That has quite a specific meaning in the Moodle gradebook which doesn't really fit with what you are saying. However... assuming you mean what Moodle calls 'aggregation'...
If you want the students to indicate they have completed it you could simply use a Choice activity. Or you could set up some other activity and set up Activity_completion such that they mark it complete themselves.
You can organise grades into categories and control how those categories are aggregated. See Grade_categories and Grade_aggregation
Thx Howard. Yes, I was referring to weighting in relation to aggregation. I have set up a new category and removed the weighting contribution to aggregate totals and then set up new grade item under the category with weighting and it seems to achieve what I had in mind.
Thanks for the help.
Hi Chris, I will try to add a few more perspectives about how I am interpreting your need (in addition to the guidance that Howard has provided.)
If you happen to include the grade in the student's grade book by importing these external results, wouldn't the student know that they have completed the activity by seeing a grade in their grade book?
Well, if you really want student's to "check off" something, yes, you can still do this in Moodle. Enable "Activity Completion", then create a "Label" resource, and turn on activity completion for this label. Then the students can check it off. I mocked this up in my attached graphic.
If you find yourself doing this for a lot of items, you might want to take a look at the "checklist" plugin. I've been using this plugin along with activity completion. Some students like one tool, others the other tool. In my screenshot, I am showing you part of this checklist plugin, as I see it as the administrator.
Relative to Moodle's grade book and weighting, Moodle's grade book is powerful and can handle almost anything that you want to throw at it. But, it does take some time to master it. The grade book can be simple or complex. The best way to explore this is to first, grab a cup of coffee (or favorite beverage), relax, and spend some time with the grade book documentation and experimenting. Do a lot of testing, if grades are important. Put some "bogus" students in your course, give them grades on items, and see if the grade book is producing your desired results. I can't stress enough that this will take some time, and don't let it frustrate you, learn.
It is always difficult to communicate one's exact needs and desires about grading. You might try mocking this up in a spreadsheet program like Excel, and then asking "How would you do this in Moodle?" Many years ago I believed that my grading scheme could only be done in Excel. But then I spent time with the Moodle grade book and have not used Excel for grading for 10 years.
Rick thank you so much for the valuable feedback.
I need to explain why is it important for learners to be able to tick off work/assignments as done. I work in resource-poor communities in southern-Africa and most of my learners are computer illiterate. My main course (the one I have been referring to) is actually on Digital Citizenship in a Connected World and teaches eSkills! For most of them this course is their first ever encounter with a computer and instead of doing a lot of classroom-based, theoretical training, we place them in a computer lab and have them take the course in a full online environment - this reduces the fear of working on a computer. The Moodle mobile app works excellent in this setting, as learners can do most of the lessons and theoretical work outside of class and then once a week do the practicals in the lab. The results are amazing.
Learners however do not always remember where they have left off and what works they have already done and completed. I have just moved the full course over to Moodle from another platform. The migration meant that they have already completed work on the previous platform and this is confusing for them.
Long story, but is should clarify my need somewhat.
I'll definitely follow the route of creating a Label resource to achieve this.
Thanks for the advice on the Gradebook, I think with what Howard and you have told me, I have set up a Grade Category and Grade Items to deal with exams and the exam results that keeps it separate from the other course grades and where the exam grade items do not have an impact in the aggregated weighting.
Thanks again.
Thanks for your update.
Yes, I think that the Label and Activity Completion is simplest. Activity Completion is not enabled in a default installation of Moodle, so you might need to enable it. Activity Completion is also linked to the dashboard's Percent Complete system, which could help your students.
There is another plugin that can show % Complete that is popular, but I cannot remember its name right now. You might want to browse the plugin library.
In general, if you can accomplish an objective without a plugin, I think this is always best.
Some possibilities are the Progress Bar, Completion Progress, and NED - My Progress.