how to grade assignments in moodle

Learning and Teaching

• Assessment & Feedback

How to create an Assignment in Moodle

Published on: 03/08/2023 · Last updated on: 03/09/2024

Before you start

Note: We strongly recommend that you never re-use pre-existing assignments as this can cause lots of problems when it comes to grading, release of grades and grade transfer. Create fresh submission points for each assignment. 

The steps below outline the basic steps to create an  Assignment activity in your unit. Please also see our recommended approaches to creating formative and summative Individual, Group and offline Assignments

If you are instructing your students in how to submit their assignment, you can refer them to this guide: Moodle 4.1 Getting Started: An introductory guide for students

Create an Assignment

• From the relevant Moodle space,  Turn editing on .
• Within each topic or week, click on the  Add an activity or resource  link to display the  Activity Chooser  (see below)
• Select  Assignment  from the menu that appears and click on  Add

You can now give your assignment a clear and meaningful title and description, and modify the settings as appropriate.

How to manage the availability of an Assignment

• Where possible, do create submission points that are open for more than 24 hours.
• The  allow submissions from  setting specifies the date from which Moodle will allow students to submit their assignment
• The  due date  should reflect the assignment deadline
• Ensure that all due times/dates fall between  9am and 5pm BST  during the working week.

Note:   Students will still be able to submit after the due date has passed but these submissions will be clearly labelled as having been submitted late.  If you want to prevent students from submitting after a specific date, you will also need to specify a  cut-off date .  Moodle will not accept submissions made after the  cut-off date.  

How to restrict access to an Assignment

Access restrictions can be used to manage student access to activities and resources including an Assignment. One of the most common restrictions needed is for date/time as shown below:

• In the Assignment settings, expand  Restrict Access.
• Click  Add Restriction

To add a date/time restriction:

• Click on the green  Date  button
• Enter the date and time that you want your Assignment to become visible to students. (In the example shown below, students will only be able to see the Assignment after 12.00pm on the 13th July 2023).

• Scroll to the bottom and click  Save and return to course .
• REMEMBER  to make sure that you then make the Assignment visible using  Availability > Show on course page:
• It is safe to  Show on course page  the Assignment, as visibility is now controlled by the access restriction.

Other settings and considerations

See below for some common queries about Assignment creation.

How to include the Assignment question

• Use the  Description  box to provide details of the assignment question and hand in dates. 
• Take time to make sure the assignment requirements and parameters are clear for students
• Do provide clear guidance to students on what they need to do.
• Do Help Students keep track of Assessments
• Do signpost your students to the support resources (e.g.  Skills Portal ,  Mitigating Circumstances ,  Academic Integrity  and  online resources ).
• Do not assume students will know what to do, and where they can get support and guidance.
• If you already have the assignment details in electronic form, or you have a template that you’d like the students to work with, you can attach the file using the  Additional files  setting: Drag and drop your file onto the blue arrow, or click on it to open your file browser to browse for the file. 

Add a label to describe a ‘hidden’ Assignment

Example paragraph text. Do not amend this font / style unless you are creating an individual exception.

• If you have added a restriction to hide your assignment submission point prior to the assessment window opening, it is good practice to add a label to your Moodle course page to provide your students with summary information for the forthcoming assessment(s).
• Turn editing on  then select  Add an activity or resource  at the bottom of the relevant course topic

• Select  Add  and choose the Text and media area  option under Resources :

• Enter text to provide any summary information 
• You can highlight sections of the text then choose the  Link  button in the toolbar to include hyperlinks to additional guidance (e.g. online submission guidance), or insert media as needed

• Choose  Save and return to course . Your text and media area will appear at the bottom of the relevant topic:

• If you hover your cursor over it an icon of four arrows will appear, indicating that you can hold down the left mouse button to move the text and media area up or down the page.

Information about supported file submission types

• Although Moodle can accept any file type, we recommend PDF submission (which is the default setting) wherever possible. 
• Should it be necessary for students to submit in other formats, you can allow this by adjusting the  accepted file types  setting:
• Under  accepted file types  click the green  Choose  button to select from a long list. Then scroll to the bottom of the list and  Save changes .
• Please note that if you are using  Ouriginal for originality checking, most word-processed files can be checked by  Ouriginal , but some other file types cannot (The Ouriginal FAQ contains guidance on supported file formats).

How to set a word limit

• This is possible only where students are using online text submission (typing directly into the Moodle interface).  It is  strongly advised against  using this submission type for substantive pieces of work (as any unexpected connectivity issues could result in loss of work)
• Instead, we recommend that students manage the word count in their file submission (e.g. using the word count tool in Microsoft Word), before exporting to PDF and uploading the resulting file to Moodle.

How to allow multiple file uploads

• Use the  maximum number of uploaded files  setting to specify how many files students can submit.
• By default, this setting allows each student to submit up to 20 individual files.  Whilst there is no requirement to do so, you can of course reduce this number if you wish

Information about the 50mb maximum file upload size

• This is a global setting and increasing it at a site wide level would have significant implications for the Moodle service.
• Typically, the only files students may wish to upload, which would exceed the 50mb single file limit, would be video files. These should instead be  uploaded to Panopto  which, unlike Moodle, is a dedicated streaming service which can handle large video files. 
• Please go here for instructions on  setting up an assignment folder in Panopto.

Managing video/voiceover-based submissions

• Moodle has a 50MB upload limit to keep the platform working smoothly for everyone. Instead of uploading to Moodle, it is better to  create a Panopto Student Assignment Folder .
• Please read the guidance for use as part of a formative workflow or a summative workflow   on how to setup the Panopto submission point and also   student instructions   on preparing a presentation.

About feedback options

• Under the  Feedback types  setting all options are ticked by default.  We recommend that you leave all options ticked to provide yourself with flexibility at the marking st. 

• Under the  Feedback types  setting all options are ticked by default.  We recommend that you leave all options ticked to provide yourself with flexibility at the marking stage.
• Feedback comments  provides a small comment box in the Moodle PDF grading window. This is recommended for short summary feedback comments. The comments box also appears in the  Offline   Grading Worksheet .
• Annotate PDF  refers to Moodle’s built in grading interface. If a student submits a PDF (which is the default setting), you will be able to  read and annotate the file online (without having to download it). 
• Feedback files  allows you to upload comments as a separate file. Typically, many staff ask students to submit files as PDF documents, which can then be downloaded in a zip file, and annotated offline using Word’s comment/review functions. The files can then be added to a new zip folder and re-uploaded into Moodle (provided that the filenames are not changed).
• Offline Grading Worksheet  (and  Bath version ). These are typically used where an internet connection is likely to be unavailable or otherwise unreliable.  They provide a downloadable .csv file (which can be opened and edited with Excel) with student names and grading and feedback columns, allowing for entry of grades and feedback whilst offline. It can then be re-uploaded to Moodle when a network connection is next available, and this will in turn populate all student Grade columns within Moodle. The  Bath version  is almost identical to the  offline grading worksheet  (and works in the same way) and differs only with the inclusion of University of Bath student numbers and the anonymisation of student names, which will be automatically replaced by Moodle with a  Participant number  unique to the assignment. 

Configuring Submission settings

We recommend that you  do not change these settings , as although they can be useful within particular contexts, they aren’t necessary for most assignments.

• Require students to click the submit button.  Not recommended as students can sometimes ‘forget’ to click it, leaving the submission visible to markers, but still in draft.
• Require that students accept the submission statement  means students must agree to a short statement confirming they are submitting their own work etc.  Students will be required to accept a statement confirming that they are submitting their own work when taking Alternative Assessments.  This will be set as the default,  do not change this setting . 
• Attempts reopened.  Recommended setting is  manually  which allows you the discretion to allow another attempt for individual students if necessary.

How to make a Group Assignment

• For Group submissions, ensure you have first  created Groups  in Moodle and allocated students. You can  add students manually  or allow students to allocate themselves with the  Group Choice activity.
• Students submit in groups  If enabled students will be divided into Groups based on the default set of Groups or a custom Grouping. (In most instances you will not need to set up custom Groupings).
• A Group submission will be shared among Group members and all members of the Group will see when one member uploads the submission.

Important:  You  must  set up Groups and allocate students to them before creating a Group assignment. Creation of a Group assignment where no Groups have been defined in Moodle, will allow students in different groups to see / overwrite each other’s submissions.

• Require group to make submission.  If enabled, students not allocated to a Group cannot submit. 
• By default a Group submission made by one member of a group will be placed against all members of the group in the Grading Table. Teachers can mark any member of the group. In the grading page for each student is a tick box allowing grades and feedback to be returned to all members of the group.

Configuring Notification settings

• Notify graders about submissions.  We recommend you set to ‘no’ especially if you have a large cohort.
• Notify graders about late submissions  may be useful to set to ‘yes’
• Default setting for “Notify students”.  If set to ‘yes’ individual students receive a notification as soon as comments are uploaded. We recommend setting to ‘no’ and using  Marking Workflow  to manage feedback notifications en masse for any assignment already created.

About Grading options

Below is a brief overview and comparison of the different grading methods available for Moodle assignment:

About Grading scales vs points

• The default, and simplest option for grading is on a points basis out of 100, however you can also use a Moodle defined grading scale or create your own scale.
• Grading must be done out of 100% if you wish to use  Grade Transfer  to transfer grades to SAMIS
• Please see here for more information on advanced grading methods such as Marking Guides and Rubrics

About Grade Transfer to SAMIS

• It is possible to set up an Assignment in such a way that grades can be transferred into SAMIS by the Unit Convenor (who will have Teacher+ access to the course). Grade Transfer can be setup to take place at a pre-determined time, or alternatively, can be completed with a few clicks once marking and feedback have been released to students in Moodle. 
• Full details on setting up  Grade Transfer to SAMIS can be found here .

About Marking Workflow

• If  Marking Workflow  is switched on, it ensures that grades and feedback are not released to students *unless* you set the marking workflow to ‘released’. We recommend that you use it. 
• Marking Workflow  allows individual student submissions to be placed into different stages of the marking process. (These are:  not marked; in marking; marking completed; in review; ready for release;   released ).
• Marking Workflow  may also be a useful tool for keeping track of marking and for managing moderation through Moodle.
• Please  see here for details of how to Release Grades and Feedback using Marking Workflow

Configuring Ouriginal plagiarism detection settings

• Assignments submitted to Moodle can, in turn, be automatically submitted to Ouriginal.
• Ouriginal is an online text-matching service which checks electronic, text based submissions against a large database of material (including journal articles, websites and other student submissions) and produces a scored originality report for each piece of work 
• Originality reports make no judgement regarding plagiarism, they simply highlight matching text fragments, enabling the reviewer to determine whether or not plagiarism has occurred.
• Once an assignment has been uploaded to Ouriginal, the application will produce two things:
• Ouriginal Analysis score  – This number shows how much of a student’s assignment matches content from Ouriginal’s databases.
• Ouriginal Analysis report  – Alongside a copy of the student’s original work, this report gives further detail on the specific sources of matching text.
• Ouriginal is enabled by default. For  further details please see here .

How to grant an assessment extension/allow late submission

• Once the assignment has been created,  clicking on the assignment link  then  View all Submissions  will take you into the  Grading Table  where you will be able to see an overview of all submissions
• By default Moodle will accept submissions after the  due date  up until the (optional)  cut-off date.  (Any submissions received after the  due date  will be clearly marked as late)

To grant an extension for a student, locate the student concerned, and in the edit column adjacent to the student’s name, right click and choose  grant extension  and add the required extra time:

How to apply extensions in an anonymous Assignment

Moodle extensions enable students to submit their assignments after the specified  due date  (without Moodle highlighting the submission as being overdue).  This also enables users to submit files after any  cut-off date  that may have been specified in the assignment.  Combining this feature with Moodle’s  Group  functionality means that staff can apply extensions to select groups of users rather than to individuals – thus retaining the anonymity of the individual.

You should seek to  create and populate a group  within your Moodle course.  This group should contain those individuals who require an extension and will enable you to differentiate them from the rest of the course participants (whilst still retaining anonymity).

Important note on retaining anonymity and maintaining student privacy :  It’s important to avoid calling the group ‘Extensions’ as students can see Groups and their members from the Participants page. Instead use a generic Group A or Group 1 name.  Also, do not put student names in the name of the groups as this obviously breaks anonymity.

To apply the  Group  functionality to the  Assignment  activity, go to the activity settings, scroll to the section entitled  Common module settings  and select  Separate Groups  within the  Group Mode  field. Once you have done this, remember to scroll to the bottom of the page and click on one of the  Save  buttons.

After applying this setting, extensions can be granted to  group  members as appropriate by visiting the  Assignment  submission overview screen, then selecting the  group  name from the top left-hand corner of this interface (as shown below).

Once the participants have been filtered in this way, members of the  group  can then be granted extensions in the usual way:

Note :  If students have been granted different extensions, you will require more than one  group .

Clearly, true anonymity can only take place if more than one student is receiving an extension in this way.

How to tag an Assignment as Formative or Summative

Under the  Tags  setting type Formative or Summative and add the tag.

Related Articles

• Anonymous marking in Moodle
• Advanced Grading in Moodle
• Moodle Group Peer Review for Teachers
• How to mark a Moodle Assignment offline and upload feedback
• Introduction to Ouriginal
• How to release grades and feedback in Moodle

Article Contents

Moodle Help Guide

• What's New in Moodle 4?
• Organize Your Course
• Survey Students for Feedback
• Ensuring Student Success
• Add or Remove Participants
• Guest Access
• Access to Past Courses
• Request a Course Merge
• Release an Activity or Resource to Specific Students
• Accessibility Checklist
• Add Material from Past Courses
• Adding and Organizing Files
• Video Content
• Assignment Basics

Grading Assignments

Provide video or audio feedback, grading with rubrics, ipad grading using a pdf annotation tool.

• Forum Basics
• Grading Forums
• Quiz Basics
• Grading Quizzes
• Using Groups
• Other Options for Coursework
• Gradescope Assignments
• Gradebook Setup
• Import or Export Gradebook Data
• Fine-Tune the Gradebook
• Save Materials to Your Computer
• Resources for Students
• Moodle Policies

If you can't find your answers here, please get in touch with the team at  [email protected]

We respond to questions weekdays, 9 AM - 5 PM. It may take us up to one business day to respond to your request.

We regret that we are unable to answer questions from those who are not affiliated with the Five Colleges.

Once you've accepted an assignment, you need to view the individual submissions and grade them. You can download them all with just a few clicks and grade on your computer, if that would be the best method for your process. Or, you could use Moodle's assignment grading interface. The grading interface has a panel where you can read submissions, and a panel where you can enter grades and feedback.

Did you know that you can use built-in recording tools to provide video and/or audio feedback on student assignments? This can not only be a time-saver, it can improve student understanding - your tone and/or body language will convey additional information to them as they seek to improve. When you are in the Feedback section you will click on the Insert drop down and then choose audio or video. 

Moodle gives you the ability to build rubrics, in the Assignment tool, that instructors can use to provide standardized grading. These may be useful to provide consistency in your own grading, to communicate your expectations to your students, or to provide consistency in grading among multiple graders.

When setting up a new Assignment or editing Assignment Settings, under Grade>Grading Method, choose "Rubric" as your grading method. 

Once you have saved changes, if Moodle does not prompt you to define a grading form, click on the Advanced Grading tab at the top of the Assignment .   You will have a choice to create a new one, or work from an existing template. Choose the one that is appropriate for your case.

When writing a new rubric, first give it a title that will indicate to you, later, which assignment or sort of assignment it is for. (Consider whether you may want to reuse the same rubric for multiple similar assignments.) In the table below the title and description, you will see places to click and edit Criteria and places to edit Levels. You may want to define all the criteria on which you'd like to grade the assignment first, and then go back and specify what qualities of the work will merit each level of points. 

Below the space for building the rubric, you'll see a number of checkboxes, all of them checked by default. Consider whether you want all of these options, and modify them as needed. In particular, you may want to keep "Allow users to preview rubric used in the module" checked, as it will let students know what you will be looking for when you grade.

Don't forget to click "Save rubric and make it ready" when you're finished setting up. You can also save it as a draft, but you will have to make it ready to grade, later, before you can grade with it. 

Before you begin:

• Make sure you have an app that allows you to annotate PDF files installed on your device.
• Create your Moodle assignment. In the settings, under "Feedback Types" make sure that "Feedback Files"  and "offline grading worksheet" is checked. Under "Submission Types, uncheck "Online Text".
• Let your students know that they should convert their work to a PDF before submitting.
• For the following instructions, use Moodle in a browser (like Safari, Chrome, or Firefox) on your iPad, NOT the Moodle App. These instructions will not work in the Moodle App.

Downloading:

• When your students have submitted and you're ready to grade, open the assignment and click "View All Submissions".
• Scroll down to the bottom of the page. Uncheck the box for "Download Submissions in Folders".
• Scroll back up to the top of the page. There is a menu called "Grading Action" just below the title of the assignment. In that menu, choose "Download All Submissions".
• After you've downloaded the file, tap "Open in..." and choose "Save to Files". Choose a folder to save the file in; if you see a folder for the PDF annotation app you plan to use, you can choose that folder.
• Go into your Files app. Navigate to the file you just saved from Moodle. It will be a .zip file, so you need to uncompress it before you can work with it. Depending on your system, you may be able to tap once to uncompress the file. Or you can press and hold on the .zip file, and choose "uncompress" from the menu.
• Now you will see a normal folder that contains your students' files. Open the individual files in your PDF annotation app to make your notes.
• When you have made notes on the file, make sure to save it without changing the file name . Moodle uses the file name to match the file back to the correct student.
• In your Files app, you need to compress the folder with your students' work in it. Tap and hold on the folder, and choose "Compress" from the menu.
• Return to Moodle. In the same Grading Action dropdown menu where you choose "Download All Submissions" in Step 3 above, choose "Upload multiple feedback files in a zip"
• Upload the compressed .zip file you just created.
• Choose "Import Feedback File(s)".
• You will see a list of the feedback files you are adding. Choose "Confirm", then "Continue".
• Your students should now be able to see the corrected files under "Feedback" in their assignment.
• << Previous: Assignment Basics
• Next: Forum Basics >>
• Last Updated: Aug 21, 2024 2:54 PM
• URL: https://guides.mtholyoke.edu/moodle

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Swarthmore College – ITS Blog

How to Grade Online Assignments and Exams

An increasing number of Swarthmore faculty are using online grading for assignments and exams.  Since students create most of their work digitally, it makes sense to submit an assignment electronically and avoid the need to print a hard copy.  ITS provides many different ways to collect and grade assignments.

Moodle has several tools for electronic assignments and exams.

Moodle Assignments

The Moodle assignment activity is an easy way to collect assignments from students and simplify the process of setting up due dates, granting individual extensions, and keeping track of any students that did turn in their assignment.  Moodle also provides a basic interface for viewing and grading the assignment.  It is possible to set up more complex grading forms, including rubrics.  The Moodle assignment also works well for courses with student graders because it eliminates the need to deal with stacks of paper assignments and makes it easy for the instructors to see the grading status of each assignment.

Moodle Turnitin Assignments

In addition to the built-in Moodle Assignment, there is a Moodle Turnitin Assignment.  Turnitin is best know for plagiarism detection, but also includes a grading tool that make it easy to mark up papers with frequently used comments, enter text feedback, and even record audio notes to a student.

Moodle Quizzes

The Moodle Quiz activity can be used for an online exam.  Quizzes are set up to be taken within a certain time period.  Students can be prompted to either enter text directly in the quiz, upload a document with their responses, or answer multiple-choice type questions.  This tool is handy for keeping track of a timed exam while allowing for extended time or alternate test days for certain students.  If you dread reading student handwriting in a blue book, this is worth a look.

Other tools

In addition to Moodle, ITS provides a number of other ways to grade assignments electronically.

Academic Technology has been running the Teaching with Tablets  program for several years and has provided many faculty with iPad Pros and Microsoft Surface tablets to facilitate teaching and electronic grading.  The tablets come with a stylus that is perfect for marking up student papers.

Honors Exam Software

If a higher level of security is needed, ITS can set up the same software as used for the Honors Exams for a midterm or final.  This software blocks the use of other applications and connections to the Internet.

Grading Code

The following tools are aimed at assignments and exams that involve programming.

GitHub Enterprise

If you are asking students to submit computer code, Swarthmore has its own installation of GitHub for use by community members available at github.swarthmore.edu .  It is possible to set up and share repositories with students, collect the code, then grader and enter feedback to the repository.  The Computer Science department has done a great job at scripting this workflow to make it easy for faculty and students.

MATLAB Grader

If your students code in MATLAB, the MathWorks has just released  MATLAB Grader to make it possible to assign and collect student work.  This is a new program and if you are interested in trying it out, please email [email protected] and we’ll be in touch.

If you are asking students to code in Python, Swarthmore’s JupyterHub installation could be useful to provide a web-based Python coding environment for students.  ITS is working to set up the nbgrader plugin to facilitate distributing, collecting, and grading assignments.  If you’d like to check it out, contact Andrew Ruether in ITS (aruethe2, x8254).

Featured image: Assignment by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images

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Moodle Gradebook: Basic Setup, Display and Functionality

The Moodle gradebook is a powerful and flexible tool that instructors can use to keep track of their student’s grades and progress in a course. It allows instructors to enter grades for assignments, quizzes, and exams and to view a summary of their students’ grades in one place. The gradebook also allows students to view their own grades, so they can track their progress in the course. Some of the benefits of using the Moodle gradebook include:

• It provides an easy way for teachers to keep track of their student’s grades and progress.
• It provides an easy way for students to view their own grades.
• It allows teachers to see at a glance how their students are doing in the course.
• It can help teachers to identify students who may be struggling, so they can provide additional support.

Setting up your Moodle gradebook before the start of the semester can help reduce confusion about grades and make it easier for students to track their own progress. At the end of the semester, instructors can easily submit their Moodle grades via the Wolfware Grade Submit Tool.

• Weighted Categories Grading

Moodle Gradebook Setup

• Registration
• Moodle Gradebook Basics handout

Weighted Categories: A Common Grading System

One of the most common ways to calculate a course overall grade is through weighted categories. In a weighted categories grading system, the grades for different assignments, quizzes, and exams can be assigned different “weights,” or values, that reflect the relative importance of each component in determining the overall course grade.

An individual’s course grade using a weighted categories system is calculated based on the relative contributions of the categories. For example, a course syllabus might list several categories with each category contributing a percentage “weight” towards the course grade total:

• Assignments 30%
• Participation 10%
• Quizzes 15%
• Project 25%

Moodle calls this grade calculation (or aggregation) method “Weighted Mean of Grades,” and it is the default aggregation method for all new courses created in Moodle.

Category Contribution Calculation

The relative weight of the Assignments category is 30%, or 30, compared to the other categories. In the example below, each assignment has a maximum grade of 100 points. However, it is also possible to have different maximum point values or different individual weights for each assignment. Regardless of how many points each assignment is worth, all assignments together contribute to 30% of the overall grade. This means that even if an item is deleted from or added to the category, the relative impact on the overall grade remains the same.

The calculation for the Assignments category by itself would be the sum of the points earned divided by the sum of possible points. In this example, the Assignments category calculation is (340 ÷ 400) = 0.85 , or 85%.

To determine the contribution of the Assignments category to the overall course grade , Moodle multiplies this category calculation by the category weight:

(Points earned ÷ Possible points) x Category weight = Category contribution to course grade

(340 ÷ 400) x 30 = 25.5

Overall Course Grade Calculation

Add the contributions of each category to determine the overall course grade.

Category Tips

• If you want some activities to not be calculated into the course overall grade (for example, low-stakes practice activities): Create a “Non-graded Items” category with a weight of 0.
• If you want all categories to be weighted equally, enter 1 as the weight for each.

Other Grading Systems

While weighted categories is a common grading system, many instructors like to add up the total points for all items to calculate the overall grade. If you use a total points grading system, you can change the Moodle gradebook aggregation method to “Natural”. Many additional grading systems, including “ungrading” and mastery or competency-based grading, can also be used with the Moodle gradebook but are a bit more complex to set up. Request a consultation at [email protected] for guidance and ideas for using Moodle with these less conventional, innovative grading systems.

Graded activity types in Moodle will automatically be added to your course gradebook regardless of any aggregation method or setup. Graded activities include Assignment, Quiz, Lesson, Workshop, Forum, H5P, and many of our external tools integrated into Moodle, i.e., PlayPosit, Perusall, Yellowdig, Turnitin, Gradescope, and more.

When you have determined a grading system, you are ready to set up your gradebook in Moodle. These two videos provide an overview of the gradebook navigation (3 minutes 13 seconds) and basic setup (5 minutes 35 seconds).

Step-by-Step Basic Gradebook Setup

The Moodle Gradebook Basics document includes step-by-step instructions for the following topics:

• Setting the grade aggregation method
• Adding and editing categories
• Adding Moodle activities to the gradebook
• Adding a manual grade item
• Moving and organizing items in the gradebook
• Viewing grades in the Grader Report view
• Entering grades for manually graded items
• Grading Moodle assignments
• Understanding what students see in the User Report

Gradebook views

• The default view when you select “Grades” is the Grader report in which you can view grades for all students. You can adjust your preferences for how things appear in the Grader report.
• Choose the Single view option from the drop-down menu to enter grades on manually created assignments. You must have Edit mode turned on to enter and edit grades.
• Choose User report from the drop-down menu to view the grades of an individual student. Students are able to view their grades only from the User report. You can adjust the settings to change how students view the User report.

Moodle Gradebook Basics Step-by-Step (Google Doc)

Moodle gradebook articles (DELTA Knowledge Base)

Moodle Gradebook video playlist (DELTA YouTube channel), includes:

• Gradebook Navigation (3:12)
• Basic Setup for Weighted Grades (5:35)
• Manual Entries into the Gradebook (3:59)
• Moodle 4 Gradebook: Extra Credit (10:09)

Make a More Student-Friendly Gradebook (DELTA Teaching Resources article)

Moodle Grade Aggregation Explained  (Moodle.org Docs)

Moodle 101: How Does Moodle Grading Work?

Confused about Moodle Grading? In the teaching and learning process grading is an essential component since it informs both students and teachers of their progress in terms of level and provides feedback on the efficiency of the teaching strategies and study aids employed.

Grading activities is an important part of your job as a teacher, but it may be a time-consuming activity. Making grading easier will help you finish other items on your to-do list and save time so you can focus more on planning for future classroom events.

A variety of Moodle activities can be graded (an activity must first be configured as graded). Once a student submits an assignment, the teacher can immediately enter the marks, assessment, or grade to the student from the same activity, and the result is automatically added to the grade book. A column in the gradebook is automatically created for each activity that has been graded. New columns can be manually created and filled with grades and marks.

If there is one feature that distinguishes Moodle, it is the numerous options for creating tests and assessments. Instead of using a grading method just because it is available, it is important to know why you should choose one over the other. The idea here is to create a plan and implement it in Moodle. The platform serves as a tool to help you meet your learning objectives in this way.

Similarly, Moodle provides an essential set of tools for assessing, grading, and evaluating. This means that there are very few platforms capable of competing with Moodle. So, keep this in mind to ensure that you can apply the strategy that best satisfies your objectives.

The Moodle Gradebook: How to Get Started

Your Moodle course assignments, tasks, and/or manual grades are automatically compiled into a single score and piece of feedback in the Moodle Gradebook. Students can check their grades in personalized reports that safeguard student privacy. The gradebook may be displayed to students at certain times and in certain ways, or the instructor may completely hide it.

It is possible for teachers and teaching assistants to manually input and amend grades in the gradebook, and import grades from external sources such as OWL, iClicker, and Opscan. Or export the gradebook to another software program like Excel.

Moodle keeps track of all gradebook modifications so that instructors can verify who made what changes and when. Based on the instructor’s assigned grading scale, the gradebook keeps track of each student’s overall course grade. 

Setting Up the Moodle Gradebook

The Moodle gradebook offers a number of features and functionalities that will assist you in navigating to the locations where you need to be in order to do the activities you desire. The gradebook offers a variety of choices for calculating and displaying grades. Your gradebook can be set up in advance of the semester or created as you go.

Setup and Organize Grade Items and Categories

The course gradebook in a Moodle course automatically adds matching grade items (columns) when activities like Assignments or Quizzes are uploaded. In order to record more grade components, Moodle also allows you to manually add columns to your gradebook. It is acceptable to create your gradebook as you go in both of these scenarios, but when it comes to determining final grades, the organization of these factors is necessary to guarantee accuracy.

Calculating Grades

Allowing Moodle to handle calculations is the simplest approach to determining grades. If you need subtotals, Moodle includes built-in computations (aggregations) to figure out the grade for the entire course. 

When accrediting grades, Moodle offers three options: 

• Natural –  the total of all grade values.
• Mean of grades – the total of all grades divided by the total number of grades. 
• Custom weights – where weights are assigned as a proportion of the overall grade to certain items or categories.

If you need more operations, you could also make a special formula.

Rubrics and Non-numerical Scales for Grading

Some Moodle activities offer to grade using rubrics and non-numeric scales if you prefer alternate techniques for reviewing student work.

Rubrics are helpful when you want to evaluate student work based on a variety of criteria. When evaluating Assignment activities, you can set a rubric and criteria using advanced grading options, and the rubric will produce an overall grade.

Custom Scales are useful when you want students to view Excellent, Good, Fair, and so on as a grade on an item rather than a numerical number. While non-numeric assessments can be displayed using bespoke scales, the gradebook will still be able to do computations with these items if necessary.

Display Grades in Percentages And Letters

You can choose to display grades to students as a letter, a percentage, or a numeric number by modifying the settings in your gradebook. The Grade type of Points is used by default in Moodle activities, with a maximum grade of 100.

You can alter grade limits on the gradebook Letters tab by matching score ranges to letter grades (e.g., 93.00-100.00 for A). Following that, when grading, input the number that corresponds to the letter grade you want to give (for example, 90 for a B+). Students will see the right letter grade when Moodle generates letter grades since it compares numerical scores to the ranges in the Letters settings.

Although, only numerical scores may be recorded for grade elements connected to Moodle activities. For Moodle in the Cloud, it is no longer possible to manually grade items in Moodle by entering letter grades. Letter grades can be shown to students as a percentage, but instructors must record or import grades as points.

Edit The Activity Name of Every Column In The Gradebook

A new column will be automatically created in the gradebook for a Moodle activity after it has been configured to be graded. The column will have the same name as the activity. If the name is lengthy, only the first 12 characters are shown as the column name. Therefore, it is advised that you give the activities short, distinct titles. 

New columns can be manually created and filled with grades and marks. Instead of establishing a new column and entering the results, if at all possible, think about using an assignment.

As you add the graded activities to the course, columns are created in the gradebook to reflect this. For this reason, it is frequently required to afterward arrange the columns in the proper sequence. It is fair to establish categories (from chosen columns) and sort columns into categories if there are several graded activities in the course.

Setting Up An Automated System To Verify For Passing Grades

The learner’s performance can be automatically checked to see if it complies with standards using the gradebook configuration options. 

For instance, if all of the assignments have been passed (marked on a pass/fail scale) and the average of all quizzes is at least 80%, the course is considered passed if graded using the 10-point scale. Or the course grade is a letter grade determined by the points earned, but it is only considered successful if the learner has passed all non-differentiated examinations. 

A formula can be used to determine the passing grade. The formula is dependent on the display type and the configuration of the course’s total grade

Prepare The Final Grades

You can easily shift grades from the Moodle gradebook to your SPIRE grade roster at the end of the semester. Using a scale of your choice, Moodle will convert numerical grades to letter grades. You can still change grades after importing them into SPIRE before the Registrar approves and receives them.

How Does Grading Work With Moodle?

The gradebook automatically compiles the results of graded Moodle activities. Entries in the gradebook are always numeric so Moodle can simply aggregate grades automatically. 

Although this can be changed in the Assignment options for each activity, the default rating for each activity is 100. The weights of individual assignments or groups of assignments can then be adjusted in the gradebook to get the overall grade for the class.

You can create a grading system and use it to display letter grades to students based on percentage. Grading can be fairly simple if you use Moodle techniques. It is possible to grade using your own procedures, although it can necessitate additional processes and workarounds.

Some tasks, like the Turnitin and Moodle assignments, let you apply a rubric or grading form to determine your grade.

Manually added grade items (with the exception of Moodle activities like quizzes or assignments) can be adjusted to allow you to type or import actual letters if you choose to grade exclusively using letters and do not want to enter numerical values. It should be noted that using this method excludes the use of numerical scores and prevents Moodle from calculating an overall course grade.

You can give feedback on the majority of Moodle activities using a (verbal) Scale that includes terms like “outstanding,” “unsatisfactory,” and “satisfactory.”  It should be noted that each custom scale value has a number associated with it, so you should consider how those numbers will combine to determine a course’s overall grade.

Students can view written feedback next to their grade if you add it. When grading from within the activity, some activities (including Assignments, Turnitin assignments, Quizzes, and Workshops) have a place for writing written feedback. The gradebook also allows you to add comments for graded objects.

How to Grade your Moodle Assignments: 3 Methods

There are three options for grading systems in the Moodle assignment activity in addition to the standard options like points and scales. “Simple direct grading,” “marking guidelines,” and “rubric” are the three options.

Simple Direct Grading

Simple Direct Grading is by far the simplest to implement. When you create an assignment, this is the default setting. You have the choice of giving an overall score and overall feedback when grading a submission. Even though the simple direct way of grading is straightforward, it depends on the feedback remark box as the main tool for informing students of their areas of strength and weakness in the assignment. 

The rubric is precisely what it says it is. In your course, you can create a rubric that you can use to grade tasks in Moodle. You will be taken to a screen where you can either start generating a rubric from the beginning or modify the one you have already established as a template once you choose the rubric technique and save your assignment.

When using a rubric to grade work, you can enter feedback at the appropriate criterion level by clicking on the level the student has achieved. If you want to have an area for feedback on the entire assignment or remarks not covered by the rubric, there is also a spot for an overall feedback comment.

Marking Guide

The Marking Guide functions as a halfway point between the rubric and simple direct grading. The marking guide approach enables the mark to be broken up into criteria while still providing direct grading boxes for each criterion, as opposed to having the criteria and levels of the rubric method.

There is a feedback box for each requirement in your marking guide, as well as a direct grading box that allows you to enter the student’s level and your chosen point total.

Final Thoughts On Moodle Grading

Moodle is an extremely adaptable learning platform that lets you select or combine several grading techniques. Grading can be quite simple if you follow the Moodle guidelines. It is feasible to grade using your own procedures, although it can necessitate extra steps and hacks. As you grade on Moodle, we hope that some of these thoughts will be helpful.

Looking to take your Moodle course to the next level? Whether you need some help selecting and configuring new plugins, designing your site or something more complicated, our team of Moodle experts is here to help.

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Add an Assignment

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The assignment activity allows teachers to collect work from students, review it, and provide feedback, including grades. The work students submit is visible only to the teacher and not to the other students unless a group assignment is selected. Using Moodle for assignments is a great way to make assigning, collecting, and grading student work more efficient.

An assignment can also be used to remind students of "real-world" assignments they need to complete offline, such as artwork, presentations, and "field" work. In such cases, you can disable all submission types and indicate in the assignment description that students are not expected to upload anything for the assignment. Even if no files are collected, grades and feedback can be given, including advanced grading methods like rubrics.

Make sure to Turn editing on before getting started with this guide.

Video Overview

Part 1 Add the assignment activity

• In the week you want to add the assignment to, click Add an activity or resource .
• From the list of available activities, select Assignment and click Add .

Part 2 Edit the assignment settings

• Enter a "Name" for the assignment and put assignment instructions in the "Description" area. You may also attach any resources for your students in the "Additional files" area.
• In the "Availability" section, set the date you want the assignment to open ("Allow submissions from") and the date you want the assignment to close ("Due date"). Also decide if you will allow late submissions by setting a "Cut-off date." If a cut-off date is enabled, students will not be able to submit after the cut-off date has passed. If you do not enable a cut-off date, students will be able to submit late work indefinitely, although it will be time-stamped and marked as past due.
• In the "Submission types" section, select the kinds of media you want students to submit. The default is a File submissions (Word or PDF document, Powerpoint, spreadsheet, or other digital file). Online PoodLL allows students to submit audio or video recordings. Online text lets students type directly into the Moodle assignment. This is useful if you want students to submit links to their work.
• In the "Grade section," set-up grading for the assignmen. You'll probably want to keep the "Type" setting at the default Point , but change it to None if you are collecting ungraded files like contracts, agreements, or consent forms. In the "Maximum point" filed, add how many points you want the assignment to be worth (the default is 100). You can also choose a "Grade category" for the assignment. If you don't have grade categories set up, this will default to uncategorized.
• Click Save and return to course . You should now see the assignment in your course.

Make assignment annotating and feedback easier to read and access with Moodle 3.3

Teachers, we are pleased to announce that annotating assignments is now enhanced in Moodle 3.3 with the possibility of collapsing and expanding comments!

In previous versions of Moodle, comments teachers provide while annotating assignments would sometimes cover the original text. Of course this makes it hard to read and perhaps also limits how much feedback teachers can provide.

Now, this new (and very useful feature) in Moodle gives teachers the option of writing comprehensive feedback on assignments that can be collapsed so it won’t block over the original text.

This then makes reading feedback easier for students.

Using this new feature is also super simple.

When teachers are grading assignments and are adding comments as feedback for the student, comments are automatically collapsed as they move to a different area.

If they need to see the comments again, the teachers simply need to click on them and the comments enlarge to become readable.

In addition, teachers can also collapse and expand all comments at once through a click of a button.

Thank you to Moodle community member, Tony Butler, for working on this new improvement with us.

Enjoy adding comprehensive comments when annotating assignment submissions and being able to collapse them for greater readability.

Watch our step by step guide to see how the assignment collapsible comments in Moodle 3.3 works.

Assignment collapsible comments

• Download Moodle 3.3 or contact a Moodle Partner for upgrading assistance
• Download the Moodle 3.3 assignment collapsible comments explainer poster
• Read the Moodle 3.3 release notes

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Documentation

Note: You are currently viewing documentation for Moodle 2.2. Up-to-date documentation for the latest stable version is available here: Assignment module .

Assignment module

• Managing activities
• External tool

The assignment module allows teachers to collect work from students, review it and provide feedback including grades. The work a student submits is visible only to the teacher and not to other students.

• Assignment settings
• Using Assignment
• Assignment FAQ

Students can submit any digital content (files), including, for example, word-processed documents, spreadsheets, images, audio and video clips. Assignments don't necessarily have to consist of file uploads. Alternatively, teachers can ask students to type directly into Moodle using an online text assignment. There is also an offline activity assignment which can be used to remind students of 'real-world' assignments they need to complete and to record grades in Moodle for activities that don't have an online component.

Assignment types

There are 4 types of assignments:

• Workshop module allows peer to peer evaluations
• Using Moodle single file upload vs. advanced uploading forum discussion
• Activity modules