AsULearn Gradebook

For assistance call 266-HELP (4357) or email iDesigner@appstate.edu

The concepts of grades and gradebooks have been completely revisited in AsULearn (Moodle 1.9).  Grades can be calculated, aggregated, and displayed in a number of ways, and a variety of settings exist to meet a range of grading strategies.

Gradebook Tips

• To access the gradebook in your AsULearn course, follow these steps.
  Course > Administration Block > Grades

• Items in the gradebook appear in the order they are created, not in the order they actually appear in the course content blocks.  Items may be reorderd by going to the Items & Categories section.

• Whether students can access the gradebook is determined by the instructor.
  Administration block > Settings  (Show Grades Yes/No)  Even if the gradebook is set to not display, students can still check graded items if they click on the graded course activity.

• Graded items that appear in blocks that are hidden will still appear in the grade book unless the instructor elects to hide them in the gradebook as well.

• If you decide to allow students to view the gradebook, log in as a specific student to view the gradebook as he/she would see it.  Reality Check!

• When you edit a grade directly in the gradebook, an "overridden" flag is set, meaning that the grade can no longer be changed from within the assignment.  The flag can be removed by turning editing on in the grader report, then clicking the edit grade icon, unchecking the overridden box and saving the changes, but it defaults back to zero.  A tan shading of the cell indicates it has been overridden.

 
Turn Editing On


Create a Custom Scale
Teachers may create new custom scales to be used in a course for any graded activities.  The name of the scale should be a phrase that identifies it clearly.  This will appear in scale-selection lists.

The scale itself is defined by an ordered list of values, ranging from negative to positive, separated by commas.

Letters
This is where you enter your overall grading scale for the course.

Course Settings
Key settings here include whether or not to display rankings to students and how the grade is displayed: real, letter or percentage.  

Understanding aggregation strategies and normalization
Most of the aggregation types in the 1.9 gradebook convert a grade to a percentage internally before applying weighting, calculating the category total, and using the category total to calculate the course total.

The different aggregation strategies allow you to choose the way category grades and a participant's overall course grade are calculated. Aggregation strategies can be applied to the overall course and/or to specific categories.

Aggregate only non-empty grades = If this is checked, only graded items are included in the course total. Zeros are graded items; a dash indicates an ungraded item.

Simple weighted mean uses the maximum grade values to weight scores within a category rather than normalizing a grade to 100 percent before weighting. This aggregation type does not allow you to set a weight for items or the categories; it simply uses the inherent weighting you've established by setting different maximum point values.

A1 70/100, A2 20/80, A3 10/10: 70 + 20 + 10 = 100/190

Weighted mean allows you to establish weights for categories and items. These weights influence the overall importance of each item or category. For example, if a category is weighted at 50%, then regardless of the number of items in that category, the overall mean score of those items will be 50% of the student's grade.

A1 70/100 weight 10, A2 20/80 weight 5, A3 10/10 weight 3, category max 100:
(0.7*10 + 0.25*5 + 1.0*3)/18 = 0.625 --> 62.5/100

Mean of grades calculates the score as a percentage of each graded item; adds all the percentages for a category; and divides by the number of graded items.

A1 70/100, A2 20/80, A3 10/10, category max 100:
(0.7 + 0.25 + 1.0)/3 = 0.65 --> 65/100

Deciding which aggregation strategy to use
Find the scenario that applies most closely to your grading philosophy for a particular course.

Scenario 1
IF
I know in advance what all the graded course items are, and the available points per item are in proportion to each other (bigger items are worth more points).

THEN
Use "Simple Weighted Mean of Grades" or "Sum of grades" as your aggregation strategy.  There is no need to establish categories.  Use Sum of Grades if you have extra credit options.

Scenario 2
IF
I know in advance what all the graded course items are, and I use one standard scale to grade my course items. (Points out of five, or out of one hundred, etc.)  But, some things are worth more than others (e.g., a final exam graded out of 100 is worth more than a homework assignment graded out of 100).

THEN
Use "Weighted Mean of Grades."
Assign proportional weights to the ITEMS.

Scenario 3
IF
I want the flexibility to add graded course items (pop quizzes, for example).

THEN
Use "Weighted Mean of Grades."  Add proportional weights to the CATEGORIES of items that you want to be flexible.

Scenario 4
IF
Everything in my course counts the same, regardless of what scale I use to grade it. (A 15 question quiz is worth the same number of points as a 10 question quiz.)

THEN
Use "Mean of Grades."

Establishing grade categories
If you select a strategy above that suggests you should use categories, it is easiest to establish these categories prior to adding assignments or manual grade columns. This gives you the ability to designate the category (exams, quizzes, labs, etc.) when you create the assignment.  Categories simply allow you to group assignments and alter settings to affect these grouped grades.

To add new categories

1. Select Grades from your course Administration block on the main course page.
2. From the "Choose an action..." dropdown in the top left corner, select Categories and items.
3. Click [Add category] at the bottom of the screen.
4. You need to determine the settings for this particular category:
   1. Give the category a name, i.e., Exams, quizzes, labs...
   2. Determine the aggregation type. Usually set this to the same aggregation type as you have selected for the overall gradebook. However, it is possible to select a different aggregation type for a category.  Just be careful as this can have unexpected results.
   3. Parent category designates the category into which the new category is being added. For most categories this should be the name of the course.
   4. Aggregation coefficient/Item weight: The weight of the category in relation to the other categories.
   5. [Save changes] to return to the grader report.
       

To place assignments into categories after they are created
If assignments are added without a category assigned, they will be assigned to the parent or course category. To assign items to a category, follow these steps.

1. From the "Choose an action..." dropdown in the top left corner, select Categories and items.
2. Notice that categories (designated by a folder) and graded items appear in an outline format. Organize the outline so assignments belonging to a category are indented under the category name. To do this…
3. Click the move arrows of the Category or Grade item to be moved.  This refreshes the screen. Click in the dashed box where the Category or Grade item should be placed.

Adding manually graded items
To add new grade columns to the grader report without adding an activity to the course page:

1. From the "Choose an action..." dropdown in the top left corner of the Grades, select Categories and items.
2. Click [Add grade item] at the bottom of the screen.
3. Give the item a name and grade type and adjust other settings as necessary.
4. [Save changes] to return to the grader report.

Entering/Editing grades
A feature of the new gradebook is the ability to quickly enter or edit grades in a spreadsheet type view.

This also allows you to enter grades with decimal points!

To access this view, go to the grader report by clicking Grades in the "Administration" block for the course and selecting Grader report from the dropdown in the top left corner if necessary.

1. Click [Turn editing on] in the top right corner. This should add text entry boxes for each grade along with editing icons.
2. To enter a grade, click into the box for the student and assignment and enter a score. To enter multiple grades, hit tab to move between text entry boxes. When you finish entering grades, click the [Update] button at the bottom of the screen to save the grades.

Why some cells become shaded
Entering a grade from the grader report causes the grade to be flagged as "Overridden," meaning you have manually entered a grade rather than using the grade sheet for a specific assignment. This is not a problem; it is just an alert that this grade has been manually overwritten.

When you edit a grade directly in the gradebook, an "overridden" flag is set, meaning that the grade can no longer be changed from within the assignment.  The flag can be removed by turning editing on in the grader report, then clicking the edit grade icon, unchecking the overridden box and saving the changes, but it defaults back to zero.  A tan shade of the cell indicates it has been overridden.

Extra credit
The concept of extra credit was not well understood by the writers of the gradebook.  They did eventually add the feature to allow items aggregated under "sum of grades" to be designated as extra credit.  Instructors can mark items in that mode under categories and items, but they still don't allow totals to go over 100%.

Instructors may just want to create a category called "extra credit" and give it a weight of zero.  Explain to students that you will factor in those points at the end of the grading period. This also has the "feature" that students can see their grade without extra-credit, which can be a helpful thing to communicate.

Only two aggregation types allow for extra credit: Sum of grades and Mean of grades (with extra credits).  You will need to change the category Aggregation type to one of these so you are able to specify extra credit.  We recommend using Sum of Grades; it allows you to add an extra credit assignment of any point value.

1. Select the edit icon for the category where you want to apply extra credit.
2. Change the "Aggregation type" to Sum of grades and save the changes on the page.
3. Click the edit icon for the extra credit item within that category.
4. In the section labeled "Parent Category" there should now be a check box or a text field labeled "Extra Credit." Checking the box or entering a value greater than 0 treats this grade item's grade as Extra Credit during aggregation. The number is a factor by which the grade value will be multiplied before it is added to the sum of all grades, but the item itself will not be counted in the division. (So if you set the maximum value of the extra credit assignment to 5 and want it to be worth 5, put 1 in this extra credit field.)
5. Save the changes and return to the Grader report.

To export grades from the gradebook:

1. Choose an export format such as Excel spreadsheet, from the gradebook dropdown menu.
2. Set options as required.
3. If the course uses groups, select whether to export grades for all participants or for a particular group.
4. Select the grade items to be included.
5. Click the submit button.
6. After previewing the data on the following page, click the download button.

Note: Exporting grades is the simplest way to create a printable class roster.

To import grades into the gradebook

1. Decide on an import format – CSV is the most common.  Excel files may be saved as CSV files, but it critical that the file contains values for each cell and not formulas.  Use Paste Special to cut and paste as a value.
2. Edit the export file as appropriate and save it.
3. Select your chosen import format from the gradebook dropdown menu.
4. Browse and upload your previously saved file.
5. Set options as required.
6. Click the "Upload grades" button.
7. CSV import only: Preview the grade import and choose the column mapping then click the "Upload grades" button to complete the grade import.

Adding Calculations to Grade Reporter

1. Go to the Grade Reporter and Turn Editing On.
2. Click the Show Calculations link at the top
3. A calculator icon will appear in the course total column.
4. After clicking the calculator icon, then

Sample formula
=sum([[1]], [[2]], [[3]])

=function ([[ID]], [[ID]], [[ID]])    

Note:  dual brackets around ID, and parentheses enclose ID’s