How To: Manually Edit Grades in the Grader Report

This page describes how to enter grades directly in the Grader report, how editing grades in this manner causes overrides, and how to enable or disable grade overrides and locks.

If you need help with assistance with Moodle grading or the Moodle gradebook, contact the Office of Instructional Design (InstructionalDesign@northcentral.edu).

Manually Edit and Override Grades in the Grader Report

Moodle allows you to enter or edit grades directly in the Grader report. This method is different than grading submissions from within an activity such as an assignment.

1. Select Course Management, the Course Management panel will open.
2. On the Course Management panel, under Grading, select Grader report. The Grader Report page will open.
3. With the gradebook on the Grader report tab, click Turn editing on.
   Grade cells will change to show an entry field and a message appears at the top of the page explaining that if another grader for this course updates the gradebook while you are editing grades, your changes will be lost.:
4. Search for the column that you want to edit or override. Manually input grades into blank cells in the table, or edit grades already recorded for particular activities (e., quizzes, etc.).
5. To save changes, click Save changes or press Enter on your keyboard. If you have edited grades linked to a Moodle activity, Moodle will highlight the cells in orange to show that the grade has been overridden.

Modify Grades on the Single View Grading Page

1. Select Course Management, the Course Management panel will open.
2. On the Course Management panel, under Grading, select Grader report. The Grader Report page will open.
3. Each column and row heading contains a Single view icon). To view and edit the Single View page:A grading page will open showing all the grades for the student, or all the students for the grade item.
   •  For a student, click the pencil icon to the right of a student's name.
   •  For a grade item, click the pencil icon in the grade item's column heading.
4. In the Override grade column (at left), select the checkboxes for the items you wish to grade. You can select individual boxes, or in the column heading, click All to make all grades editable.
   Note: Manual grade items do not require this step, all others that have Override grade deselected will be skipped.
5. At the bottom of the page, below the table, select the Perform bulk insert checkbox.
6. From the drop-down menu:
   To enter the grade only in cells that are blank, select Empty grades.
   To enter the grade in all cells, select All grades.
7. Enter the grade you wish to give in the Insert value field.
   Note: All entries must be numeric. This function does not work with grade items graded with scales or letters.
8. Click Save to save grade changes. A confirmation message will appear. Click Continue to refresh the Single View grading page.
9. When you return to the Grader report, overridden grade items will be displayed with an orange background and marked “Overridden” to indicate grades have been edited in the gradebook.

Note: If you enter mistaken grades and wish to start over, see Remove Overrides from Grade Items, below.

Working with Multiple Graders

Only one grader (Instructor or TA) can manually enter grades in the gradebook at the same time. Moodle will not allow you to save changes to a gradebook that has been updated by someone else after you opened the page for editing. This is to prevent grading conflicts and unintended overrides if multiple graders use a gradebook at the same time.

To avoid this issue:

• Don't open grading screens in multiple windows on your own computer. For example, don't turn on editing in the gradebook Grader report in one browser window, while entering grades on the Assignment submission screen, or rating Forum posts in another browser window.

• If more than one person will need to manually enter grades in a course gradebook, we recommend you agree on a plan to alert each other when you are entering grades and when you complete a grading session.

Note: More than one grader can safely grade Moodle Assignments at the same time if they work from the Assignment submission page, grade one student at a time, and do not use the Quick grade feature. 

About Grade Overrides

Overrides are triggered when you manually edit grades for Moodle activities such as Quizzes, Forums, Assignments, or Category totals in the gradebook. Once saved, these items become highlighted in orange and will display "Overridden" in red text, indicating that the grade is overridden. The override prevents further updates to the grade from outside the gradebook.

Grade overrides occur with several types of gradebook activity:

• Editing Category or Course Totals in the Gradebook - If you edit cells in a Calculated column, such as a Category total, the calculated column will be overridden and will not recalculate if grade items within the category are changed.
• Manually Grading Moodle Activities from within the Gradebook - If you manually edit grades in the gradebook for an activity such as a Quiz, Assignment, or Forum, grades will be overridden and will no longer automatically update if changed from outside the gradebook (e.g., if a quiz is re-graded or an assignment is graded from the Assignment submission page).
• Changing Grades from the Grade Page - To make changes on the Grade page, users must first select the Override grade checkbox. This page also includes a column of Exclude from totals checkboxes.
• Importing Grades from a Spreadsheet - If you import grades for a Moodle activity or category from a spreadsheet, the grades will be flagged as overridden and will no longer automatically update if grades are changed from outside the gradebook (e.g., if a Quiz is re-graded, or an Assignment is graded from the Assignment submission page).

In all of these cases, overridden grades can still be changed from the Grader report by further manual editing, but will not change if grades are updated somewhere else in the course.

Note: Grades can also be locked, meaning the value cannot be changed even when editing is turned on in the Grader report. Locks are turned on by editing settings in the gradebook (see below) and are not triggered by editing a single grade.

Reasons to Override or Lock Grades

• You no longer want grades to be updated by assignments.
• You want to override a grade received on a quiz.
• You do not want teaching assistants to change grades after a certain deadline.

Potential Issues When Grades Are Overridden or Locked

• Overridden Calculated columns will not automatically update when changes to grade items are made.
• If a grade is overridden in the Grader report, you cannot change a grade or edit comments on the activity grading screen unless you disable the override/unlock the grade.

Lock/Unlock a Grade Column

To prevent further changes for an entire column, you can lock that column and preserve the currently displayed grades.

1. Open the Grader report and click Turn editing on. Grade cells will change to show an entry field and settings icons will appear in the table.
2. In the Controls row, click Edit immediately below the column heading. The Edit grade item screen will open.
3. Under Grade Item, select or deselect Locked, then click Save changes. The Grader report will reload reflecting the changes made (e.g., highlight color or edit fields).

Enable/Disable an Override or Lock for a Single Student's Grade

 If you release an override or remove a lock, grades will revert to the value recorded in the activity or, for a calculated column, the calculated value.

1. Open the Grader report and click Turn editing on.
2. Click Edit next to the overridden grade. The Edit grade page will open.
3. Select or deselect the Overridden box and/or the Locked box, then click Save changes. When the Grader report loads the display will change to indicate the state (i.e., previously overridden grades will not be highlighted, or locked grades will not be editable when editing is on).

Note: To release the override for all grades for a grade item, use the Single View tool.

Exclude Grades from Category Calculations

On the Edit grade page, you can exclude grade items from the grade calculations for particular activities. This can be used to excuse a student from a graded activity, or to show students a grade for an activity (e.g., practice quiz, etc.) that will not count towards their final grade.

If a grade is excluded, it will not be part of the aggregation calculation that you have selected for the category. It will also be excluded from any Drop the lowest category settings you have selected. Once saved, these items become highlighted in orange and will display "Excluded" in red text indicating that the grade is excluded.

Note: A grade item that is excluded from a category calculation is also excluded from the Course Total.

1. Open the Grader report and click Turn editing on.
2. Click Edit next to the grade you wish to exclude. The Edit grade page will open.
3. Select Excluded, then click Save changes. When the Grader report loads the excluded grade will be marked.

Getting assistance with grades

If you need help with assistance with Moodle grading or the Moodle gradebook, contact the Office of Instructional Design (InstructionalDesign@northcentral.edu).