On this page...
This is an element of the gradebook setup for a percentage-based gradebook.
Repeat these steps for each grade category you mention in your syllabus.
Locate the Actions Menu (gear icon) from the top-right corner of the page.
Select the Gradebook Setup option.
Scroll to the bottom of this page.
Click the Add category button.
For Category Name, enter the name of the category for the corresponding category mentioned in your syllabus (preferably named exactly as it is mentioned in your syllabus).
For Aggregation select Simple Weighted Mean of Grades from the drop-down menu.
OPTIONAL: If you want to have grades be accurate to-the-minute, ensure that Exclude empty grades is checked. Otherwise, students will only be capable of getting an accurate score at the very end of the term. If checked, you will need to manually enter values of 0 (zero) for every missed assignment as a student misses it or their grade will appear falsely high.
Expand the Category total section.
For Maximum grade set a value of your syllabus-assigned percent, so 10% becomes 10.00 points, 20% becomes 20.00 points, etc.
Scroll to the bottom of the page.
Click the Save changes button.
NOTE: Consider that the category total has a value even when it’s empty of actual items. Whatever you put in this category will, in terms of the course, take up only the points assigned (which will be X% if you did your math correctly) and will display out of 100 points.
Populate the weighted Gradebook with items
Things to keep in mind as you populate this type of gradebook setup (Simple weighted mean of grades aggregation):
No matter what content is in a Simple weighted mean of grades category, the maximum point value is unchanging. It will remain at the value it’s set at and the points of its contents will scale up or down to match those points.
Ensure each category has at least one grade item in it (or you won’t be able to give students a grade).
- You can create manual grade items if those activities are not going to be done within Moodle.
- Otherwise, check out our article on Introduction to Activities and Resources and assign points and place in categories as is appropriate for what you have in your syllabus.
POINT SCALING EXAMPLE:
In the image, there is a single grade item worth 152 points within the Attendance and Participation category which is worth 10.00 points. Because there is only one item those 152 points are treated as a single unit and will be scaled down to 10 points.
If a student earns 112/152 points on the grade item, their category total would be 7.3/10.0 points.
EQUAL POINTS WEIGHT EXAMPLE:
If every grade item in a category has the same point value, they are all even in their contribution to a course total.
If you have a category worth 40 (percent) points that contains only these three items:
- Homework #1 (worth 20 points)
- Homework #2 (worth 20 points)
- Homework #3 (worth 20 points)
Then the gradebook will recalculate things so that each of the above behaves more like this:
Category is worth 40% of the course total:
- Homework #1 (1 unit)
- 13.33% of course total
- 33.3% of category total
- Homework #2 (1 unit)
- 13.33% of course total
- 33.3% of category total
- Homework #3 (1 unit)
- 13.33% of course total
- 33.3% of category total
MIXED POINTS WEIGHT EXAMPLE:
If one or more grade items in a category has the different point values from their peers, then they will differ in their contribution to a course total.
If you have a category worth 40 (percent) points that contains only these three items:
- Homework #1 (worth 20 points)
- Homework #2 (worth 20 points)
this has the same worth as Homework #1 - Homework #3 (worth 40 points)
this is worth twice as much as its peers #1 and #2
Then the gradebook will recalculate things so that each of the above behaves more like this:
Category is worth 40% of the course total:
- Homework #1 [1 unit]
- 10.00% of course total
- 25% of category total
- Homework #2 [1 unit]
- 10.00% of course total
- 25% of category total
- Homework #3 [2 units]
- 20.00% of course total
- 50% of category total
