Moodle: Setting up the Gradebook

Overview

All the grades for each student in a course can be found in the course gradebook, or Grader report, accessed from the Grades tab of the course navigation.

Accessing the Gradebook setup menu

The Gradebook setup menu is used to organize the graded activities of your course. To access this menu, follow the steps below.

1. Click the Grades tab at the top of the course page
2. Click the drop-down on the top left of the screen
3. Scroll down and click Gradebook setup

Creating Grade Categories

A grade category is useful to help organize similar items in the gradebook, such as quizzes, assignments, journals, etc., for easy viewing. Follow the steps below to set up grade categories in your gradebook.

1. Click on the Add drop-down and choose the Add category option.
2. Enter a name for your category. (e.g., "Quizzes")
3. Optional settings:
   • Keep the highest: Selects a number of the highest grades in the category to be included in the calculation, dropping the rest.
   • Drop the lowest: Selects a number of the lowest grades in the category to be excluded from the calculation.
   • Hidden: Hides the grades for this category from students.
   • Locked: Prevents grades in the category from being automatically updated by related activities.
   • Parent category: Selects an existing category to place this new category under, creating a subcategory.
4. Click Save at the bottom of the screen.

Creating Grade Items

Activities that receive grades, such as assignments, quizzes and forums, are automatically added to the gradebook. Manual grade items are meant to include activities that happen outside of Moodle, such as class participation or oral exams. Follow the steps below to add manual grade items to your gradebook.

1. Click on the Add drop-down and choose the Add grade item option.
2. Enter the item name. (e.g., "Participation")
3. Choose the grade type from the following options:
   1. Value: a numerical grading system, defaulted to a 0-100 range.
   2. Scale: a grade selected from a list of items, such as letter grades (A-F) or range of Outstanding, Satisfactory, and Not Satisfactory.
   3. Text: only written feedback.
4. Optional settings: 
   1. Maximum/Minimum grade: The lowest and highest possible scores. This is only available using Value grades.
   2. Grade to pass: the minimum score to pass the assignment.
   3. Grade category: Selects an existing category to place this under. (e.g., "Quizzes")
5. Click Save at the bottom of the screen.

Moving grade items into categories

If grade items, such as Moodle activities, were created before grade categories, the items can still be moved into those categories afterward. Follow the steps below to move grade item(s) to specific categories.

1. Select the left-most checkbox of any grade item(s) you wish to move.
2. Select the Move option located at the bottom of the screen.
3. Select the desired category to move the item(s) to. Then, the page will reload with the changes made.

Assigning weights

The gradebook will automatically calculate relative grade weights based on the maximum grade values of each grade item, but you can override those weights and enter your own on either categories or individual grade items.

1. Select the checkbox next to the percentage of any desired categories and/or grade items.
2. Enter the relative weight out of 100.
   • Grade categories are weighted 100% of the course total.
   • Grade items are weighted 100% of the category total.
   • Example: Quizzes are worth 30% of a course and consists of 2 quiz activities. The ‘Quizzes’ category = 30% while quiz activity 1 and 2 = 50% each.
3. When all weights are assigned, scroll to the bottom of the screen and click the Save changes button.

Gradebook Appearance

By default, the gradebook displays both point values and percentages of any graded item to both students and teachers of a course. However, you can customize this display for both yourself and students. Read about the settings below to customize the appearance of your gradebook.

Changing the Grade Display Type

This setting is used to change the way students view their grades. Follow the steps below to customize the grade display type.

1. From the Grade report page, click on the drop-down and choose the Course grade settings option.
2. Under the Grade item settings heading, change the Grade display type to a single or combination of the following options:
   • Letter: Letters or words are used to represent a range of grades.
   • Percentage: Relative to maximum and minimum grades.
   • Real: Actual points or scale values.
3. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Save changes.

[For Metacourses] View One Section at a Time

If your Moodle course contains multiple sections, you can add a filter to your Gradebook to view and grade one course section at a time. Follow the steps below to enable this filter.

1. From the top course navigation tabs, select the Settings tab.
2. Expand the Groups section and select either Separate groups or Visible groups. For the purpose of the gradebook, it does not matter which one you choose, both will work.
3. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Save changes.

Then, the Grader report (and the Single view page) will include the filter to select one of your course sections.

Questions?

If you need further assistance or have specific questions that aren't covered in this article, please don't hesitate to reach out for personalized support by submitting a Moodle Support ticket.

Acknowledgements

Contributions from Carly Born, Em Palencia, Don Vosburg, Aleks Prasolov '24, Sam Johnson-Lacoss ‘24, Paul Claudel Izabayo ‘25 and Mohammed Albarassi ‘28.