In 1.8, we can choose to show letter grades along percents. However I am not able to do the same in 1.9. Either all percents or letter grades.
The function in 1.8 is nice to have in 1.9 as well.
Can anyone tell me how to do if I can do it in 1.9. Or it's just not able to do it anymore in 1.9?
Our teachers in using 1.9 this last trimester have requested this feature be returned also.
I would suggest you post the item in the tracker; I will probably write a patch for it and propose it for 1.9.1. It seems like an acceptable solution would be to concatenate the percentage next to the letter grade as an option like B+ (89.23%).
--Gary
I would suggest you post the item in the tracker; I will probably write a patch for it and propose it for 1.9.1. It seems like an acceptable solution would be to concatenate the percentage next to the letter grade as an option like B+ (89.23%).
--Gary
Gary,
I have been wondering how the Real, Percentage, and Letter grade choices play out as well (I won't have students until next month). I prefer showing both as well, as long as we can keep the option to modify the letter grade labels (we don't use A, B, C, etc. here).
I really like it that we can set this latter option at the system level. It used to be a workout to change the settings for EACH course. Thanks for the hard work!
Jay
I have been wondering how the Real, Percentage, and Letter grade choices play out as well (I won't have students until next month). I prefer showing both as well, as long as we can keep the option to modify the letter grade labels (we don't use A, B, C, etc. here).
I really like it that we can set this latter option at the system level. It used to be a workout to change the settings for EACH course. Thanks for the hard work!
Jay
Jay and Elvis,
If you are talking about the student report, it would be easy to add custom columns to show different grade display types at the same time. This can't be done currently through the interface, but a custom report can be written with these extra columns in.
For the grader report, it's a different story: the information is still easy to add, but the report is already fairly bloated as it is, it would be unwieldy to add columns. Gary's idea to concatenate the different grade display types within the same column could work, of course. The work needed to implement this would depend on the desired degree of flexibility.
If you are talking about the student report, it would be easy to add custom columns to show different grade display types at the same time. This can't be done currently through the interface, but a custom report can be written with these extra columns in.
For the grader report, it's a different story: the information is still easy to add, but the report is already fairly bloated as it is, it would be unwieldy to add columns. Gary's idea to concatenate the different grade display types within the same column could work, of course. The work needed to implement this would depend on the desired degree of flexibility.
Can't you just add a new calculated grade item, where the calculation simply copies the value from the other column, but displays it differently?
However, I think eventually we can just make some new display types to go with Real, Percentage and Letter. For example "Percentage (Letter)" that displays both concatenated.
However, I think eventually we can just make some new display types to go with Real, Percentage and Letter. For example "Percentage (Letter)" that displays both concatenated.
The function I need is that I am able to switch the grade to letter in the course total which is at the end of the grade report.
At the moment if I change to letter, all grades switch to letter. I think many school use letter(A, B .. or 1,2,3..) for their final grades.
At the moment if I change to letter, all grades switch to letter. I think many school use letter(A, B .. or 1,2,3..) for their final grades.
Tim:
That is a creative idea on making a calculated field in 1.9 to give the second view of the final grade that is being asked for. I'll put it out as a challenge to my high-school software students this week and see who can be first to come up and post the solution.
--Gary
That is a creative idea on making a calculated field in 1.9 to give the second view of the final grade that is being asked for. I'll put it out as a challenge to my high-school software students this week and see who can be first to come up and post the solution.
--Gary
Tim:
I showed some of my students the post and asked them to work on it. I also suggested that they study http://docs.moodle.org/en/Grade_calculations
But while one of the computations is the inverse hyperbolic cosine function for determining grades, it does not seem to have any "if" statements or other conditionals for such calculations. It seems like this will be needed to convert percentages to grades.
Am I missing something?
--Gary
I showed some of my students the post and asked them to work on it. I also suggested that they study http://docs.moodle.org/en/Grade_calculations
But while one of the computations is the inverse hyperbolic cosine function for determining grades, it does not seem to have any "if" statements or other conditionals for such calculations. It seems like this will be needed to convert percentages to grades.
Am I missing something?
--Gary
Tim:
Hello, I'm a student of Gary's, and I took a look at this as a possibility.
I created a grade item called "Letter Grade" that was only in the course category, and not in any of the weighted subcategories. I gave it a weight of 0.0000. I have two subcategories with weights of 40.0000 and 60.0000 respectively.
When I try to make an equation in the "Letter Grade" grade item that takes the ID number of the "Grade summary" item, I get errors in both the "Letter Grade" and "Grade summary" fields of the Grader report. I tried as calculations both =gradesummarycourseid and =abs(gradesummarycourseid); neither worked.
It seems that something about the recursive nature of having a grade item refer to the grade that is in turn looking at the grade item, even when giving it no weight, causes the error.
If anyone has any other idea as to what's causing the error, then this might work.
If not, I think that this issue would most easily be fixed as part of 1.9.1. I can't see any other easy "hacks" that might work.
A possible more complicated solution would be to nestle the categories under a parent category that had all of the weight on the final grade, and then have a zero weighted letter grade item outside of this parent category that uses an equation to grab the parent category's number grade. The issue with this is that child categories cannot be given weights, so this would only work if all assignments were weighted equally.
Any other ideas?
--Alex
Hello, I'm a student of Gary's, and I took a look at this as a possibility.
I created a grade item called "Letter Grade" that was only in the course category, and not in any of the weighted subcategories. I gave it a weight of 0.0000. I have two subcategories with weights of 40.0000 and 60.0000 respectively.
When I try to make an equation in the "Letter Grade" grade item that takes the ID number of the "Grade summary" item, I get errors in both the "Letter Grade" and "Grade summary" fields of the Grader report. I tried as calculations both =gradesummarycourseid and =abs(gradesummarycourseid); neither worked.
It seems that something about the recursive nature of having a grade item refer to the grade that is in turn looking at the grade item, even when giving it no weight, causes the error.
If anyone has any other idea as to what's causing the error, then this might work.
If not, I think that this issue would most easily be fixed as part of 1.9.1. I can't see any other easy "hacks" that might work.
A possible more complicated solution would be to nestle the categories under a parent category that had all of the weight on the final grade, and then have a zero weighted letter grade item outside of this parent category that uses an equation to grab the parent category's number grade. The issue with this is that child categories cannot be given weights, so this would only work if all assignments were weighted equally.
Any other ideas?
--Alex
I am pretty sure child categories can have weights. You just have to select the weighted mean of grades or simple weighted means (for their parent category). Each category/ item in the parent category will contribute a total to its parent category (and so on for nested categories) as long as the option for aggregations including subcategories is turned off (gradebook preferences).
Here is one option that works (from memory when doing it in 1.9 beta), but is cumbersome as you state above
Course Total(Grade Letter) (aggregation =weighted mean)
Real Number (weight=100%, aggregation = weighted mean)
Category1 (weight=40%, aggregation= simple weighted mean of grades)
assignments/grade items here
Category 2 (weight=60%, aggregation=simple weighted mean...)
assignments/grade items here.
From memory that is how I got it showing both, but it does mean using superflous categories(used only to show combinations of grade letters, points, %'s) and assigning them as 100% of their parent category.
I posted a request along these lines (asking to be able to toggle grade, points, %, etc) in the tracker just after beta finished. look at: ... wait, can't find it not sure what happened there.
I suspect there is an easier way to do it by using calculated items, but haven't tried it yet...
OK, so it is not as simple as I thought. Drat!
But I'm sure it must be possible somehow.
But I'm sure it must be possible somehow.
Tim:
Gary and I have figured out a workaround. Over the next few days we'll put together a walkthrough for the docs page.
The workaround works without nestling the different categories separate from the Letter Grade calculation.
Weight the different categories as you would normally. This works in any normal course without changing any current categories.
Create a Grade Item with a name like "Letter Grade." Give it Grade type "Value" and Grade display type "Letter." Make sure the minimum grade is "0.00" (or equivalent) with a maximum grade of "100.00" (or equivalent). Give it an item weight of "0.0000" (or equivalent). For this grade item, edit the calculation. The calculation will be:
=cat1id*cat1weight+cat2id*cat2weight...
Where cat1id is the category id of the category total of one of your categories and cat1weight is the category weight divided by 100. For example, if I had two categories "Tests" and "Daily Work" with id numbers of 777777 and 666666 respectively, and weights 60.0000 and 40.0000 respectively, the calculation would be:
=777777*0.6+666666*0.4
This would appear to work with three or more categories as well, as long as the weights still added up to 100.
The Letter Grade shown would be based off of the "Letters" item viewable and editable under the "view" pulldown menu in the Grader Report.
--Alex
Gary and I have figured out a workaround. Over the next few days we'll put together a walkthrough for the docs page.
The workaround works without nestling the different categories separate from the Letter Grade calculation.
Weight the different categories as you would normally. This works in any normal course without changing any current categories.
Create a Grade Item with a name like "Letter Grade." Give it Grade type "Value" and Grade display type "Letter." Make sure the minimum grade is "0.00" (or equivalent) with a maximum grade of "100.00" (or equivalent). Give it an item weight of "0.0000" (or equivalent). For this grade item, edit the calculation. The calculation will be:
=cat1id*cat1weight+cat2id*cat2weight...
Where cat1id is the category id of the category total of one of your categories and cat1weight is the category weight divided by 100. For example, if I had two categories "Tests" and "Daily Work" with id numbers of 777777 and 666666 respectively, and weights 60.0000 and 40.0000 respectively, the calculation would be:
=777777*0.6+666666*0.4
This would appear to work with three or more categories as well, as long as the weights still added up to 100.
The Letter Grade shown would be based off of the "Letters" item viewable and editable under the "view" pulldown menu in the Grader Report.
--Alex
Here is a screen shot of the calculation combined with a screen shot of the course Grader report from a test course.
Good job, Alex. I appreciate your persistence on this.
I think it would be a good idea run a draft set of instructions by some of our faculty who have been asking for this feature (I will be one of your first customers), and once you are satisfied that the directions are clear enough, then let's post it as part of a larger grade settings tutorial in docs.moodle.org. I am sure this question will come up in the future.
I was pretty sure that this was going to require some changes in the core code and you have found a method so that is not needed. Nice work.
--Gary
I think it would be a good idea run a draft set of instructions by some of our faculty who have been asking for this feature (I will be one of your first customers), and once you are satisfied that the directions are clear enough, then let's post it as part of a larger grade settings tutorial in docs.moodle.org. I am sure this question will come up in the future.
I was pretty sure that this was going to require some changes in the core code and you have found a method so that is not needed. Nice work.
--Gary
Great job - thanks for getting this worked out.
I've been thinking about this (have not done it yet), and it works, but I am concerned that this is more of a workaround than a solution. I think the biggest issue is that the calculations won't update when weightings are changed.
I think an easily selected option(s) to choose what combination of points / grade letter / % is still the best solution in the long term.
my 2c.
lael
I think an easily selected option(s) to choose what combination of points / grade letter / % is still the best solution in the long term.
my 2c.
lael
From usability point of view, I strongly request to be fixed for the next update.
The work around is great, but Moodle's need to be usable for normal users as well.
Thanks for your great work everone.
Cheers.
The work around is great, but Moodle's need to be usable for normal users as well.
Thanks for your great work everone.
Cheers.
My problem is different, I am trying to make students see only letter grades without percent , is it possible
i tried but failed
and if possible please, can I have the letters calculation edited at site level
please help....
i tried but failed
and if possible please, can I have the letters calculation edited at site level
please help....