Gradebook | UR Courses: Guides (2024)

Gradebook Setup Tab

The gradebook setup tab allows you to view the gradebook in a different format, giving you a visual of all your categories and items, without being cluttered by marks. Here you can also add categories (folders) and grade items (columns in the gradebook) manually for occasions that you need to post a mark for an assignment or activity that is not submitted through UR Courses.

1. Parent Folder: This is usually the name of the course. This folder acts as the parent folder for all other items in the gradebook.
2. Category: This is also called a folder. Categories are used to collect a group of assignments, quizzes, exams or other activities and to distribute weight.
3. Grade Item: A grade item may automatically appear in the gradebook from an item built into the course, or it may be added to the gradebook manually (for items graded outside UR Courses).
4. Category Total: The category total is calculated as per your aggregation settings. The category total can be named or left with the default name of “Total”.
5. Course Total: This is the total that belongs to the parent category for the course (1) and is calculated based on your aggregation settings.
6. Weights/Aggregation: This is where you can adjust the weights for your categories and grade items towards the course total, depending on your aggregation settings.
7. Max Grade: The maximum grade a student can achieve in an assignment (grade item) or category.
8. Actions: Actions include deleting the grade item (this is dependent on how the grade item was set up initially as most assignments require you to delete them from the main course page), hiding/unhiding the grade item, and editing the grade item settings.
9. Move selected items: You can move selected items to another category by choosing a category from this menu.
10. Save changes: Any edits or additions made must be saved via the “Save changes” button for them to be applied to the gradebook.
11. Add grade item/Add category: clicking on their specific button will allow for a grade item to be manually entered, or for a category to be created.

Adding a Grade Item

There are two ways to add grade items (assignment columns) to the gradebook:

1. Build an assignment or quiz into your course. Any activities you build into the main page of your course will automatically appear in the gradebook if the activity has a built- in grade option and you use it. For example, if you use the “Add an activity or resource” on the main page of your course, you will have a corresponding grade item (column) automatically appear in your gradebook.
2. Add a Grade Item manually in the Gradebook.To Add a Grade Item Manually:
   1. Access the Gradebook.
   2. Click the Setup tab and then the Gradebook setup tab.
   3. Click Add grade item at the bottom of the page.
   4. Set your settings appropriately.
      1. Item name: The item name should be descriptive and meaningful for students (Midterm Essay, for example).
      2. Grade type: Specifies the type of grade used. Types include:
         1. Value – enables the maximum and minimum grade settings.
         2. Scale – enables the scale setting
         3. Text – feedback only.Only value and scale grade types may be aggregated. The grade type for an activity based grade item is set on the update/edit page for that activity.
            3. Scale: You can choose a scale if you are using the scale Grade type.
            4. Maximum grade: The maximum grade allowed for the assignment.
            5. Minimum grade: The minimum grade allow if needed.
            6. Grade to Pass: This setting can be used to set a grade that users must equal or exceed to pass.
            7. Grade display type: Specifies how to display grades in the grader and user reports. Grades may be shown as actual grades, as percentages or as letters.
            8. Overall decimal points: Specifies the number of decimal points to display for each grade. This setting has no effect of grade calculations, which are made with an accuracy of 5 decimal places.
            9. Hidden: Checkbox allows you to hide the assignment column.
            10. Hidden Until: Enables you to enter the date until which the grades will be hidden to participants (usually after the end of the activity and of the grading process).
            11. Locked: Checkbox allows you to lock the grade item. Both whole columns and individual grades can be locked in the gradebook via the locked field. Teachers may want to do this to prevent further changes from the modules or from other teachers. When a grade is locked, any changes that might affect that grade are ignored. When the graded item is unlocked, activities are asked to resend the latest grades. One way to lock is to click the lock icon beside the grade item either in the Categories and Items tab or in the Grader Report.
            12. Locked after: Allows you to specify the date after which the grades will be locked. Usually this date is set to the end of the activity and the beginning of the grading process.
            13. Weight: Set weight of the item relative to the category/course.
            14. Grade category: Select the parent category for the grade item.

Note: Grade items added manually to the Gradebook will not appear as “clickable” links. Grade items that appear in the Gradebook automatically as a result of an activity added to the course, will appear as a green “clickable” link that will take you directly to that assignment, exam or activity.

Adding a Category

Categories act as folders to group similar grade items in the gradebook (“Essays” for example). Using categories enables you to have totals for groups of assignments and otherwise manage assignments as a group.

To add a category:

1. Access the Gradebook.
2. Click the Setup tab and then the Gradebook setup tab.
3. Click Add category at the bottom of the page
4. Set your Grade category settings appropriately.
   1. Category name: Should be descriptive and meaningful to students (“Essays” for example).
   2. Aggregation: The way grades will be totaled for a category. See Aggregation section for more information.
   3. Exclude empty grades: If checked, any grade items that do not have a mark for a student will not be included when calculating the category total.
   4. Include outcomes in aggregation: If enabled, outcomes are included in the aggregation. This may result in unexpected category totals.
   5. Drop the lowest: Enables you to automatically drop the lowest x number of grades within a category.
5. Set your Grade item (Category Total) settings.
   1. Category total name: The grade item here is the Category total column. The item name should be meaningful and reflect this (“Essays Total” for example). If you do not give the totals column a name, the default will be “Total” which can be confusing especially if you have a number of categories. This feature is accessed by clicking the “Show more…”.
   2. Set other settings according to Adding a Grade Item section instructions.
6. Click Save changes. The category will now appear in your gradebook.

Note: The category (column) will expand as you add grade items to it.

Moving Categories and Items

Now that you have your categories and items created in the gradebook, you may want to move some items around. For example, if you create a category after you have created all the grade items you need, you will have to move the grade items into the category folder.

To move items in the gradebook:

1. Access the Gradebook.
2. Click the Setup tab.
3. Click the “Move” icon next to the item you would like to move.
4. A series of blocks will appear. Click the block between the items where you want the item to go.
5. Click Save changes.

To move several grade items at the same time:

1. Access the gradebook.
2. Click the Setup tab.
3. Click the checkbox to the right of any items you want to move in the Select column.
4. At the bottom, the Move selected items to box should now be enabled.
5. Click on the box and choose the category you would like to move the items to.
6. The items should now appear in the chosen category.
7. Click Save changes.

Editing a Category or an Item

If you need to, you can easily go back and edit a category or item using the edit/update icons beside the item in the Setup tab.

To edit a category or grade item click on the Edit menu in the Actions column. Then click on Edit Settings.

Aggregation

The aggregation is the way in which the grades will be totaled for a category.

To Adjust Aggregation:

1. Access the gradebook via the Navigation block.
2. Click the Setup tab.
3. Click on Edit button in the Actions column for the course and the Edit settings option in the menu that appears.
4. Select Aggregation type from the drop-down menu.

Aggregation Types:

Mean of Grades

The sum of all grades divided by the total number of grades

A1 70/100, A2 20/80, A3 10/10, category max 100:
(0.7 + 0.25 + 1.0)/3 = 0.65 → 65/100

• Setting the Course aggregation to Mean of Grades gives everything in the gradebook equal weight in the course total, even if the marks are different for each assignment. For example, if one essay out of 10 would have the same weight as an essay out of 20.

Weighted Mean of Grades

Each grade item can be given a weight, which is then used in the arithmetic mean aggregation to influence the importance of each item in the overall mean. In simple terms, the category total will be equal to the sum of the scores in each grade item, these scores being multiplied by the grade items’ weights, and that sum being finally divided by the sum of the weights.

A1 70/100 weight 10, A2 20/80 weight 5, A3 10/10 weight 3, category max 100:
(0.7 * 10 + 0.25 * 5 + 1.0 * 3 )/18 = 0.625 → 62.5/100

• Once this aggregation is selected, a weight box will appear in the gradebook setup. Enter the weight in the box and press Enter for each item to be weighted.
• Weights may be fractions (.25, .5) or integers (25, 5). However, be consistent in your use of fractions or integers.
• Weights do not have to add up to 100, although they usually will.

Simple Weighted Mean

The difference from Weighted mean is that weight is calculated as Maximum grade – Minimum grade for each item. Such as, 100 point assignment has weight 100, 10 point assignment has weight 10.

A1 70/100, A2 20/80, A3 10/10, category max 100:
(0.7 * 100 + 0.25 * 80 + 1.0 * 10)/190 = 0.526 → 52.6/100

• Weights are determined by the number of possible points in a graded item.
• Similar to Sum of Grades, the difference being that Simple Weighted Mean displays percentages (when the category max is 100) and Sum of Grades displays points.

Lowest Grade

The result is the smallest grade after normalization. It is usually used in combination with Aggregate only non-empty grades.

A1 70/100, A2 20/80, A3 10/10, category max 100:
min(0.7 + 0.25 + 1.0) = 0.25 → 25/100

Highest Grade

The result is the highest grade after normalization.

A1 70/100, A2 20/80, A3 10/10, category max 100:
max(0.7 + 0.25 + 1.0) = 1.0 → 100/100

Mode of Grades

The mode is the grade that occurs most frequently. It is more often used for non-numerical grades. The advantage over the mean is that it is not affected by outliers (grades which are uncommonly far from the mean). However it loses its meaning once there is more than one most frequently occurring grade (only one is kept), or when all the grades are different from each other.

A1 70/100, A2 35/50, A3 20/80, A4 10/10, A5 7/10 category max 100:
mode(0.7; 0.7; 0.25; 1.0; 0.7) = 0.7 → 70/100

Natural

The sum of all grade values, scaled by weight. The Maximum grade of the category is the sum of the maximums of all aggregated items.

A1 70/100, A2 20/80, A3 10/10, without forcing weights:
(70 + 20 + 10)/(100 + 80 + 90) → 100/190

• The gradebook shows point totals, not percent. The student report shows point totals and percent.
• It is not possible to ignore empty grades – an empty grade is counted as zero.

Note: An empty grade is a missing gradebook entry, and can mean different things. For example, it could be a participant who hasn't yet submitted an assignment, an assignment submission not yet graded by the teacher, or a grade that has been manually deleted by the gradebook administrator. Caution in interpreting these "empty grades" is thus advised.

Setting Max Grades

Setting Max Grade and totals:

• Any max grade you set is the maximum grade allowed for that assignment/column.
• Max grades for Extra Credit will not affect category totals.

There are two ways to edit Max grades:

1. For manually added grade items and columns, click Edit and then Edit settings in the Actions column exit to the item in the Setup tab.
2. For items built into your course, on the main page of your course turn Edit Mode on and then find the item on the main page of your course. Then click the Edit icon beside the assignment.

Note: Changing Max Grades after grades have already been entered for students may cause course totals to not calculate appropriately, especially when using Weights. The latest version of UR Courses does recalculate, but we sure to double-check totals.

Extra Credit

The Extra Credit in the Gradebook allows you to assign extra credit to an assignment. An assignment marked Extra credit will not add to the category total, but will allow a student to obtain extra marks up to the category maximum.

To Use the Extra Credit Feature:

1. Access the Gradebook.
2. Click the Setup tab.
3. If you haven’t already, you will need to add a Grade Item for the extra credit.
4. Mark the item Extra Credit by clicking in the checkbox in the edit setting screen of the item.
5. If you have the Extra Credit item inside a category, note that the category total does not change to include the Extra Credit total.

Note: The Extra Credit feature is available only if your main/parent category aggregation is set to Simple Weighted Mean of Grades or Natural.

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