Using Grading Guides for Assignments in Moodle

Grading guides are a feature in Moodle that enables instructions to provide quantitative and qualitative feedback on an Assignment using a set of defined criteria.

This article provides instructions on creating and using grading guides in Moodle.

Grading with Grading Guides in Moodle

Grading guides are referred to as an advanced grading method in Moodle, which is any grading method that is not simple direct grading.

First, grading guides need to be enabled as the grading method for the Assignment in the activity settings. Following that, the grading guide can be created and used in that Assignment, and reused in other Assignments.

Enabling Grading Guides

To enable Grading guides on an Assignment:

1. Navigate to the Assignment's activity page.
2. In the activity menu at the top of the Assignment main page, select the Settings tab.
3. In the settings page, find and expand the Grade section.
4. Set Grading method to Grading guide.
5. At the bottom of the page, click the Save and display button.

This will open the Advanced grading page, where a grading guide can be created.

Creating Grading Guides

To create a grading guide:

1. In the Advanced grading tab of the activity, click Define new grading form from scratch.
2. Name the grading guide.
3. In the Grading guide section, click Click to edit criterion name to name the first criterion.
4. Set Description for students to a descriptive explanation of what that criterion is used to evaluate.
5. Set Description for Graders to a descriptive explanation of how the criterion should be evaluated.
6. Set Maximum score to the most points a student could earn on that criterion.
7. Click Add criterion to add any additional criteria.
8. To finish creating the grading guide, at the bottom of the page, click the Save grading guide and make it ready button.

This will create the grading guide and link it to the Assignment activity to be used when grading.

When editing the grading guide, an option to Add frequently used comment is available at the bottom of the criteria table.  This feature enables you add qualitative feedback in the form of comments that you can then apply to any criteria in the grading guide.

Grading using a Grading Guide

To use the Grading guide when grading, follow the instructions in the "Grading Assignments in Moodle" article.

The grading guide will appear in the right-hand menu in the individual grading page.  Set the criteria's remark field to the comment provided for that criterion, and the points out of the maximum score defined in the accompanying grade field.

Reusing a Grading Guide

After the grading guide's been created, follow these instructions to reuse it in another assignment.

1. For the new Assignment, use the "Enabling Grading Guides" section of this article to enable advanced grading.
2. In the Advanced grading page of the Assignment, click Create new grading form from template.
3. In the Grading forms search section, check the box next to include my own forms.
4. Click the Search button.
5. In the list of grading forms that appear, find the grading guide to use.
6. At the bottom of that grading guide, click the Use this form as a template link.
7. In the Confirm page, click the Continue button.

The grading guide has been applied to the activity and can now be used for grading.

Additional Resources

Grading Assignments in Moodle (DELTA Knowledge Base)

Marking guide (MoodleDocs)

For additional assistance, please contact the LearnTech Help Desk at learntech@ncsu.edu or (919) 513-7094, or via the Get Help form on the DELTA Knowledge Base.