Grade categories

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Introduction

On this page, teachers and administrators can:

• Add
  • grade categories
  • grade items
  • outcome items
• Perform the following actions on grade categories and items:
  • Edit
  • Move in and out of categories
  • Hide or show
  • Lock or unlock
  • Delete
• Synchronise legacy grades
• Edit calculation formulas for grade categories

Editing categories and items

Course grade category

The course grade category represents the course as a container for grade categories and grade items. It cannot be deleted or moved, but it can be hidden and locked like other categories and items. When a course is created, this category is automatically created. Its Name value is empty and optional, in which case the category's name is displayed as that of the course it represents. If a name is given manually to this category, that name will be used instead of the course name. See grade categories editing for more information.

Deleting categories

What happens to grade items in a grade category when that category is deleted? They automatically get assigned to the parent category of the deleted category. For example, take the following structure:

 Course (category)
 |_ Semester 1 (category)
    |_ Week 1 (category)
       |_ Quiz 1 (item)
       |_ Assignment 1 (item)
    |_ Week 2 (category) 
       |_ Quiz 2 (item)
       |_ Assignment 2 (item)
    ...

If we delete Week 1, the items within it will be moved up to the Semester 1 category, and we will have the following structure:

 Course (category)
 |_ Semester 1 (category)
    |_ Quiz 1 (item)
    |_ Assignment 1 (item)
    |_ Week 2 (category) 
       |_ Quiz 2 (item)
       |_ Assignment 2 (item)
    ...

As you can see, categories and items can live along-side each other without problems, but the result may look confusing to students and teachers alike.

Moving categories and items

Moving a grade item

Each grade category and grade item has a little up-and-down icon next to it (apart from the course grade category), which triggers the move action when clicked. The page then changes as shown in the screenshot on the right of this section:

• The element to be moved is highlighted and the word (Move) appears next to it
• Rectangular boxes preceded by an arrow appear in places where you can move your selected item or category.
• You can cancel your action at any time using the "Cancel" button at the bottom of the page

Once you have clicked one of the destination rectangles, your item will appear there instead of its original place. If you moved a category that contained items and/or categories, all its contents will also be moved along with it.

Moving items and categories does not affect individual grades. However, it affects the scores aggregated by categories and, if these categories have special calculation formulas in place, also affects the scores aggregated under the course grade category (course totals).

Synchronise legacy grades

All current modules with grading support should be converted to use new gradebook API. Due to performance reasons the grades from legacy modules are not updated automatically, the synchronisation must be done manually by clicking on Synchronise legacy grades button in each course. This action may take a very long time, depending on the number of activities, grades and participants in your course.

Easier editing of categories and items

Edit categories and items simple view in 1.9.5

Combined grade category and grade item editing in 1.9.5

In Moodle 1.9.5 onwards, a new Edit categories and items page, with simple and full view, enables teachers to move multiple items between categories and quickly edit multiple settings.

Categories can only be moved one at a time, but all their contents are moved as well.

Category aggregation type can be changed instantly (without submitting the form) by changing the selected option in the aggregation dropdown menu.

Contrasting colours indicate category nesting. The categories and grade items are also indented with a cell coloured by the parent category's colour, to make the nesting even clearer.

Extra credit and weight appear in two different columns. If none of the categories have an aggregation type that makes use of either extra credit or weights, these columns are omitted.

Forms for editing grade categories and their associated grade items (e.g. course category and course total) have been combined into one form. This also means that there is no edit icon in the grader report for course and category totals. You just edit the category itself instead.

ca:grade/edit/tree/index fr:Modifier les catégories et éléments ru:Редактирование категорий и элементов оценивания Template:Managing grades Grades can be organised into grade categories. A grade category has its own aggregated grade which is calculated from its grade items. There is no limit to the level of nesting of categories (a category may belong to another category). However, each grade item may belong to only one category. Also, all grade items and categories belong to at least one, permanent category: the course category.

Adding a grade category

To add a grade category:

1. Select "Gradebook setup" from the gradebook dropdown menu.
2. Click the "Add category" button near the bottom of the page.
3. Give the grade category a meaningful name.
4. Select grade category settings as appropriate. Advanced settings may be made available by clicking the "Show more" link.
5. Click the "Save changes" button.

Editing a grade category

To edit a grade category:

1. Select "Gradebook setup" from the gradebook dropdown menu.
2. Click the edit icon opposite the grade category you wish to edit.
3. After editing the grade category, click the "Save changes" button.

Editing a grade category

Settings

If any of the following do not appear in your page, it may mean that they are set globally in your site. See Forcing settings for more information.

Aggregation

The dropdown menu allows to select how to obtain the category's aggregated grade from its grade items.

See Grade aggregation for a detailed explanation.

Aggregate only non-empty grades

Non-existent grades are either treated as minimal grades or not included in the aggregation. For example, an assignment graded between 0 and 100 for which only half the students have been graded will either count the non-graded submissions as 0 (option switched off) or will ignore them (option switched on).

Important: An empty grade is simply a missing gradebook entry, and could 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.

Include outcomes in aggregation

Including outcomes in aggregation may not lead to the desired overall grade, so you have the option to include or leave them out.

Drop the lowest

If set, this option will drop the X lowest grades, X being the selected value for this option.

Note: You can only make use of either this option or the option below `Keep Highest`. If you have both set then only `Drop the lowest` will be usable under course categories.

When using natural weighting, drop the lowest is only allowed when:

• all children of the category have equal weights
• all children of the category have equal max grade
• there are no sub categories in the category
• there are no extra credit items in the category

Keep the highest

If set, this option will only retain the X highest grades, X being the selected value for this option.

Note: If you have `Drop the lowest` set to anything other than null then this option will have no effect

Parent Category - Item Weight

If your course is set to use weighted mean of grades, you can assign a weight that the grade for this category will have inside the parent category. Within all of the subcategories of the parent category, the weight values do not need to add up to 100.

If your course is set to use natural grading, you can assign a weight that the grade for this category will have inside the parent category. All other weights will adjust in response to the amount you set here.

Aggregation view

Each category can be displayed in three ways: Full mode (aggregated column and grade item columns), the aggregated column only, or the grade items alone.

See also

• Grade items
• Grade category settings - for administrators