Greetings From Alaska!
I created an offline assignment and created a cutom text scale but this does not appear in the gradebook. I was under the impression it would. I want students to see the proper text: complete, incomplete, in progress when they click on grades.
I searched this and someone said this feature was available in 1.5.2 but we are running the latest version and do not know how to enable this?
Appreciate any input you have.
Thanks!
Hi, Debra. I'm not sure which part of the gradebook is not displaying your custom feedback, but I'll try to take a stab at helping to solve this issue. If you are looking at the gradebook as you (tchr/admin), and you want to categorize this assignment in " set preferences," you are right--it won't show up there. As of 1.5.3, the version I'm currently using with my students, custom scales make an assignment automatically valued at 100 and the gradebook won't let you drop it into a category. It should, though, show up in your "uncategorized" section in "view grades," with the appropriate feedback for each student (if you've already given this feedback). It should also show up if you download your grades in Excel format, with the possible exception of hidden items. Do you "hide" units when students have completed them as I do? That might be the issue for their gradebooks. It isn't an issue for me as my school uses a different central grading system altogether, so I don't even have the central gradebook visible for my students. So far the Moodle gradebook has been handy for me, but I found that it just confused my students to have two different places to go for grades.
Just to check out what would happen if I did have grades visible, though, I took a screen shot of a student's grades-view from my course to show that both numeric and verbal feedback show up for her. If the "hidden" tip isn't your issue, and you still don't see a similar picture as the one I'm attaching, let us know and we'll keep trying to locate the problem.
P.S. FYI: My actual points/weighting isn't as skewed as it looks in the picture
--I just quickly unhid a section that I knew had an activity with verbal feedback in it to see if it would show up.
Just to check out what would happen if I did have grades visible, though, I took a screen shot of a student's grades-view from my course to show that both numeric and verbal feedback show up for her. If the "hidden" tip isn't your issue, and you still don't see a similar picture as the one I'm attaching, let us know and we'll keep trying to locate the problem.
P.S. FYI: My actual points/weighting isn't as skewed as it looks in the picture
--I just quickly unhid a section that I knew had an activity with verbal feedback in it to see if it would show up.
Thank you for your input I really APPRECIATE IT! I did not have the offline assignment hidden but I did have the Uncategorised category hidden so I deselected that and now I see the assignment and catagory but it does not display the custom scale text. It just shows a blank underneath 100. I do not like showing this "100" points - it will confuse students.
So apparently I am still doing something wrong. We are running Moodle 1.5.2+.
I added an offline assignment called: Registration status (no credit/1credit/2credit) and have "graded" each student. I logged in as a student and have attached the student view as well as two instructor view's. This is really a bummer - it would be nice for students to have this info in the gradebook and for me as well.
Sure apprecaite your time and assistance. Let me know if you have any other ideas! Will "hide" it until I can get a more user friendly view.
So apparently I am still doing something wrong. We are running Moodle 1.5.2+.
I added an offline assignment called: Registration status (no credit/1credit/2credit) and have "graded" each student. I logged in as a student and have attached the student view as well as two instructor view's. This is really a bummer - it would be nice for students to have this info in the gradebook and for me as well.
Sure apprecaite your time and assistance. Let me know if you have any other ideas! Will "hide" it until I can get a more user friendly view.
I'm not sure why your scale text isn't showing up. That's really strange. It should show up if you have "graded" that student already and you have it set for the "points" to show. Hmmm.
I don't think you are doing anything wrong, necessarily. I have been following the conversations regarding a "notes to/about students" addition to Moodle with great interest. It seems to me that the problem with most of our current gradebook systems is that we are trying to merge text-based and numeric-based systems, and most programs can't yet accommodate so many varying scenarios. I think that Moodle is really close to making this merge possible, though, which is why I'm so excited about it.
For now, though, here is the rather inelegant workaround that I used for the pictured uncategorized glossary assignment:
1) I went into "set weights" and made sure that I had set the "dropped" number to include the same number of custom scale assignments (in this case, 1) so that the skewed points would not affect their grades, but the info would remain visible. If I had allowed the gradebook to be visible to them, I would have made sure to communicate that the "uncategorized" section was worth a value of "0" no matter what the point total read.
2) Since the glossary entry was part of a two-part assignment, and the other part was an in-class presentation of the assigned word, I made an offline assignment that included both point totals; then I dropped it into my "daily" category so that it would accurately reflect their grades. (In the picture, I changed that numeric grade today to the custom scale to show that the student should be able to see the feedback from the assignments link.)
Hope this makes sense. Of course, in the case of your two scenarios, it sounds as if you would be able to skip #2 altogether as neither sounds like a point-bearing assignment.
Again, if the 100 points part really bothers you, another solution would be this: click the "hidden" box for the uncategorized grades in "set weights" but keep the assignment itself visible on the main page. This should make it possible for students to see the feedback when they click "assignments," but not when they are looking at their grades (see picture). Of course, it will make it invisible to you, too, in the gradebook mode, which means that you'd have to remember to "unhide" it while running your reports, and "hide" it again when you are done reviewing that info.
Lastly, as you said, you could keep these particular "assignments" completely hidden from students, but allow the hidden items to be visible in your gradebook for you, just so you can see these entries on a FYI basis. To recap, in "set weights" you have checked "hidden" for "uncategorized," but in "set preferences" you have clicked "yes" for "show hidden items" in order for you to see the info, while not allowing your students to see it.
None of these options is a perfect solution, I know, but as it always goes--the more options we have, the more we say, "wouldn't it be cool if..."
The great thing I've found here at moodle.org is that the developers are practically genies in terms of coming up with solutions to these "what ifs" as I have more often than not seen most of our wish lists granted within a month or two of making them.
I don't think you are doing anything wrong, necessarily. I have been following the conversations regarding a "notes to/about students" addition to Moodle with great interest. It seems to me that the problem with most of our current gradebook systems is that we are trying to merge text-based and numeric-based systems, and most programs can't yet accommodate so many varying scenarios. I think that Moodle is really close to making this merge possible, though, which is why I'm so excited about it.
For now, though, here is the rather inelegant workaround that I used for the pictured uncategorized glossary assignment:
1) I went into "set weights" and made sure that I had set the "dropped" number to include the same number of custom scale assignments (in this case, 1) so that the skewed points would not affect their grades, but the info would remain visible. If I had allowed the gradebook to be visible to them, I would have made sure to communicate that the "uncategorized" section was worth a value of "0" no matter what the point total read.
2) Since the glossary entry was part of a two-part assignment, and the other part was an in-class presentation of the assigned word, I made an offline assignment that included both point totals; then I dropped it into my "daily" category so that it would accurately reflect their grades. (In the picture, I changed that numeric grade today to the custom scale to show that the student should be able to see the feedback from the assignments link.)
Hope this makes sense. Of course, in the case of your two scenarios, it sounds as if you would be able to skip #2 altogether as neither sounds like a point-bearing assignment.
Again, if the 100 points part really bothers you, another solution would be this: click the "hidden" box for the uncategorized grades in "set weights" but keep the assignment itself visible on the main page. This should make it possible for students to see the feedback when they click "assignments," but not when they are looking at their grades (see picture). Of course, it will make it invisible to you, too, in the gradebook mode, which means that you'd have to remember to "unhide" it while running your reports, and "hide" it again when you are done reviewing that info.
Lastly, as you said, you could keep these particular "assignments" completely hidden from students, but allow the hidden items to be visible in your gradebook for you, just so you can see these entries on a FYI basis. To recap, in "set weights" you have checked "hidden" for "uncategorized," but in "set preferences" you have clicked "yes" for "show hidden items" in order for you to see the info, while not allowing your students to see it.
None of these options is a perfect solution, I know, but as it always goes--the more options we have, the more we say, "wouldn't it be cool if..."
The great thing I've found here at moodle.org is that the developers are practically genies in terms of coming up with solutions to these "what ifs" as I have more often than not seen most of our wish lists granted within a month or two of making them. 
Thank you Leslie!
Well we updated to 1.5.3+ and I can now see the scales but when I sent "drop lowest" to 1 it display's 0's in the uncatagorized column but when students click on uncategorized they can see the custom text but I am going to take your advice and have it hidden for the students but available for me to view. yes you are right I am sure there are some moodle code monkeys out there right now working on this. I really liked being able to add text messages to my students in WebCT (displayed for different percents) and for them to be able to see all of their non-graded but submitted work.
Sure appreciate the help!!!!
Well we updated to 1.5.3+ and I can now see the scales but when I sent "drop lowest" to 1 it display's 0's in the uncatagorized column but when students click on uncategorized they can see the custom text but I am going to take your advice and have it hidden for the students but available for me to view. yes you are right I am sure there are some moodle code monkeys out there right now working on this. I really liked being able to add text messages to my students in WebCT (displayed for different percents) and for them to be able to see all of their non-graded but submitted work.
Sure appreciate the help!!!!
Hi. You wrote:
"...custom scales make an assignment automatically valued at 100..."
Can I change this defauly value? For exmpl, to 10? Default value too big.
It really confused students.
Thanx, Alex.
"...custom scales make an assignment automatically valued at 100..."
Can I change this defauly value? For exmpl, to 10? Default value too big.
It really confused students.
Thanx, Alex.