Moodle is used in many areas of education to provide a range of resources and activities to support learning. However, it can also be used to manage learning and record progress.
This book will explain the uses of the Moodle grades area, also known as the Gradebook, where grades for completed work can be recorded and final grades can be calculated. You will also learn the different options for grading work, customizing how the grades appear, and how to view progress through a range of reports. This book is based on Moodle 2.7 and will highlight some of the core features within Moodle that complement the Gradebook.
The book will provide step-by-step instructions with screenshots to take you through setting up the Gradebook, adding tasks with grades, and reporting progress.
This book is an introduction to the Gradebook and explains how it can be used to manage assessments. It does not explain every option possible within the grades area and activities as there are too many. However, it will cover the most common elements that can be used and adapted to meet most course needs.
Chapter 1, Introduction to Gradebook, contains an overview of different elements of the Gradebook and how they apply to an online course. It sets the scene for the practical instructions provided throughout the book.
Chapter 2, Customizing Grades, contains step-by-step instructions on how to create your own custom scale (using statements rather than numbers) and use letter grades (letters or words linked to a percentage). Outcomes are also explained to enable more detailed recording within assessments.
Chapter 3, Adding Graded Activities, teaches you how to add assignments and customize them using the grading options available. Advanced grading methods are outlined to enable easy grading using multiple criteria.
Chapter 4, Assigning Grades, demonstrates the various ways in which assessments can be marked with written feedback and grades. The marking workflow and offline grading are also explained.
Chapter 5, Using Calculations, demonstrates the use of the Gradebook to calculate final grades for the online course. It covers the different options available during calculations and how each one can be used.
Chapter 6, Organizing the Gradebook Using Categories, shows you how to add categories to the Gradebook and move assignments into them. It also covers the ways to use categories to further customize how you use the Gradebook.
Chapter 7, Reporting with the Gradebook, shows you the different reports available to view all grades or individual user information, and explains how to export the Gradebook data.
Chapter 8, Additional Features for Progress Tracking, covers other features within Moodle that complement the Gradebook. We can use the activity and course completion features to provide an overview of student achievement.
Users who are new to Moodle assessments and the Gradebook can read this book from the beginning to the end and follow the instructions to get some practical experience. Users who are already familiar with the basics of the Gradebook can use each chapter individually to customize the Gradebook according to their needs.
If you would like to walk through the instructions in this book, you will need editing access to a course in Moodle 2.7.
You can also use the instructions if you are using an earlier version of Moodle. However, grading with rubrics is only available from Moodle 2.2 onwards, and the marking guide from 2.3. Similarly, the marking workflow is only featured from Moodle 2.6 and above. The Gradebook in Moodle 1.9 is also very similar to Moodle 2.x, so most of the instructions can still be followed if you are using earlier versions.
This book assumes you already know the following topics:
Accessing and navigating Moodle
How to add resources and activities to Moodle
Some of the features and activities explained will need to be turned on within the site administration. Wherever this is required, it will be explained in an information box.
Moodle Gradebook Second Edition is for anyone who uses Moodle as a course instructor or Moodle trainer. You will need to know the basic functions of using and navigating Moodle but no prior knowledge of the grades functions will be required.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and explanations of their meanings.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "For this example, we will call it Core assignment criteria."
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Click on Save changes at the bottom of the screen and go back to the main course screen".
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