Moodle's gradebook is a powerful tool for sharing grades and feedback with students and calculating final grades. The gradebook provides several different options for how to calculate and display grades. You may configure your gradebook before the start of the semester or build it as you teach.
This page outlines the major functions involved in configuring the gradebook and provides links to step-by-step instructions. For an overview of how to input and record student grades, see Record Grades in Moodle.
If you need help with assistance with Moodle grading or the Moodle gradebook, contact the Office of Instructional Design (InstructionalDesign@northcentral.edu).
Set Up Your Gradebook
Create and Arrange Grade Items and Categories
When you add activities such as Assignments or Quizzes to a Moodle course, corresponding grade items (columns) are added to the course gradebook. Moodle also lets you manually add columns to your gradebook to record extra grade items (for example, if you administer an offline midterm exam). In both of these cases, it's fine to build your gradebook as you go, but when it's time to calculate final grades, the organization of these items is essential to making sure you get the correct results.
- Create & Organize Items & Categories in the Moodle Gradebook.
- Grade Category Options in Moodle.
Calculate Grades
The simplest way to calculate grades is to let Moodle handle calculations. Moodle has built-in calculations (called aggregations) to compute the score for the entire course (and sub-totals if you need them). Moodle can aggregate grades as Natural (which has replaced Sum of grades), Mean of grades, and Custom weights (where weights are applied to individual items or categories as a percentage of the total grade). You can also create a custom formula if you require additional operations.
- Grade Calculation in Moodle.
- Custom Grade Formulas in the Moodle Gradebook.
Additional Gradebook Options & Grading Methods
Display Grades with Letters and Percentages
By changing settings in your gradebook, you can control how grades are displayed to students, including showing grades as a numeric score (Real), percentage, or letter. By default, Moodle activities use the Grade type of Points, with the maximum points set at 100.
On the Letters tab in the gradebook, you can customize grade boundaries by matching ranges of scores to letter grades (e.g., 93.00-100.00 for A). Then when grading, enter the number that matches the letter grade you want to assign (e.g., 89 for a B+), or upload numeric scores from a spreadsheet. When Moodle generates letter grades, it will match numeric scores to the ranges in the Letters settings and display the correct letter grade to students.
Note: Grade items associated with Moodle activities allow only numeric scores to be entered. Letter grades can be typed directly in the Moodle gradebook or uploaded from a spreadsheet only for manually created grade items that are set to the Letter grade type.
- Advanced Grade Item Options in the Moodle Gradebook.
Grade with Rubrics and Non-numeric Scales
If you want alternative methods for evaluating student work, some Moodle activities support grading with rubrics and non-numeric scales.
- Rubrics are useful when you want to assess student work using multiple criteria. In Assignment activities, you can use advanced grading options to configure a rubric and criteria, and then when grading, the rubric will calculate an overall score.
- Custom Scales are for when you want students to see Excellent, Good, Fair, etc., as a grade on an item instead of a numerical score. While custom scales can be used to display non-numeric assessments (such as ?-, ?, and ?+), the gradebook will still be able to do calculations with these items if needed.
Get Help
If you need help with assistance with Moodle grading or the Moodle gradebook, contact the Office of Instructional Design (InstructionalDesign@northcentral.edu).