Grading Assignments in Moodle

Moodle's Assignment activity provides a variety of options for assigning grades to student submissions. 

This article provides instructions for using the different grading options available for Moodle Assignments.

Accessing the Submissions Table

When creating an assignment, instructors should configure the settings to match the type of grading they intend to use with the assignment.

To access submissions for grading:

1. In the main Moodle course page, locate the Assignment activity.
2. Click on the Assignment to access the Assignment main page.
3. In the Assignment main page, click the "View all submissions" button.

This will open the submissions table, where submissions from users can be viewed.

Quick Grading

Quick grading directly enters grades to the gradebook, bypassing the more detailed grading interface.  It is incompatible with advanced grading methods, such as Rubrics or Marking guides, and is not recommended with multiple graders.

To enable quick grading:

1. At the bottom of the submissions table, open the "Options" settings section.
2. Check the box for "Quick grading".

The page will automatically refresh and place empty boxes next to each submission in the table.

The other options can be configured to change the view:

• Assignments per page
  • Changes the number of submissions available in each page of the submissions table.
• Filter
  • Filters the submissions available according to the state of the submission.
• Show only active enrollments
  • Only shows submissions from users with active enrollments.
• Download submissions in folders
  • When bulk downloading files, this option will place each submission in a different folder. 

After quick grading is enabled, grade the submissions:

1. In the "Grade" column of a submission, enter the score into an empty box.
2. Continue entering scores for each submission.
3. Click the "Save all quick grading changes" button to save the grades.

The grades will be automatically reported to the gradebook.

Important considerations

Quick grading is useful for entering multiple scores all on one screen, but for more detailed grading of an individual submission, use the full grading interface instead.

Do not use "Submission comments" for student feedback, as it is not attached to the student's grade and is solely intended for communicating about the submission.  "Feedback comments" should be used instead.

Using the Individual Grade Menu 

The individual grade menu enables a user to look over a submission in detail and provide a score and feedback.

Accessing the Grade Menu

There are two ways to access the individual Grade menu. 

To access the Grade menu from the main course page:

1. In the main Moodle course page, locate the Assignment activity.
2. Click on the Assignment to access the Assignment main page.
3. In the Assignment main page, click the "Grade" button.

To access the Grade menu from the grading table, click the red "Grade" button in a student's row to access their individual Grade menu.

Grading Individual Submissions

In the grade menu, the instructor can assess the student submission in a variety of ways, based on how the Assignment settings are configured.

These are the different parts of this view:

• Annotation window
  • The left side of the screen displays the student’s file or online text submission as a PDF file that can be annotated directly using the annotation toolbar at the top. Annotation tools include a comment tool for providing inline comments, as well as a pen tool and various other shapes, colors, and stamps.
  • If annotating with comments, instructors can use the "Search comments" tool to display a list of comments that have been used previously. This helps when the same comment needs to be used repeatedly across multiple students’ submissions.
• Submission Menu
  • The right side of the screen displays the submission status, submitted online text (if applicable), submission comments, a field to enter the student’s grade, and an editor window to enter feedback comments. A grade entered here is sent to the Moodle gradebook automatically.

The size of the left and right panels can be adjusted by dragging the border between them, or by using the controls at the bottom right.

To finish grading a submission, click the "Save and show next" button at the bottom of the screen.

The "Notify students" checkbox determines whether a student will be notified that their submission has been graded (see “Notifying students of graded work” below).

Notifying students of graded work

The "Notify students" checkbox determines whether a student will be notified that their submission has been graded. If a student shouldn't be notified of their grade at time of grading, then uncheck the "Notify students" checkbox before saving. Review the "Creating Assignments in Moodle" article for details on how to change the default setting for "Notify students".

To keep all assignment grades hidden until all of them have been graded:

• Hide the assignment's grade item in the gradebook. This prevents any students from seeing their assignment grade until you unhide the grade item, which releases all of them.
• Enable "Use marking workflow" in the Assignment's settings. This method might be used when there are multiple graders working separately, but all grades should be released at once.

Assignment Grade Settings

The grade settings for an Assignment are available in the "Grade" section of the "Settings" page of the Assignment.

Grade

This setting determines the overall type of grading for the assignment. The most common selection is "Point," which means to grade the submissions by assigning some number of points.

• None
  • The assignment is not graded and does not appear in the gradebook.
• Scale
  • The assignment is graded according to a custom scale created by the instructor. If selected, the instructor can select from existing scales.
• Point
  • The assignment is graded according to a range of points. If selected, the instructor can use the default value of 100 for the assignment's maximum score, or can change the maximum score.

Scale grading is nuanced and requires a more in-depth explanation.  Contact the DELTA LearnTech Help Desk for more information.

Grading method

There are three options available for grading methods:

• Simple direct grading:
  • The grader assigns an overall score for each student submission.
• Grading guide: (Advanced grading)
  • The instructor creates a set of criteria, and then the grader enters a numerical score and a comment for each criterion.
  • To create and configure the grading guide, locate the horizontal assignment menu on the main Assignment screen, click "Advanced grading" and then select Grading Guide from the dropdown menu.
• Rubric: (Advanced grading)
  • The instructor creates a rubric with multiple criteria and defines multiple levels of achievement for each criterion, and then when grading, the grader selects the level of achievement for each criterion.
  • To create and configure the rubric, review the instructions in the "Using Rubrics to Grade Assignments in Moodle" article.

Additional Settings

Additional settings are available and can modify the way that the Assignment is graded, especially with regards to the usage of additional graders in providing scores to students.

• Grade category
  • This optional setting determines which if any gradebook category the associated grade item will be organized into. This can also be set in the gradebook through the Gradebook Setup screen.
• Grade to pass
  • This optional setting determines the minimum required to be considered a passing grade. The value is used in Moodle's activity completion and course completion features, and in the gradebook, where passing grades are highlighted in green and failing grades are highlighted in red.
• Blind grading
  • This optional setting hides the identities of students from graders. If selected, this setting cannot be changed once there are any submissions or grades.
• Hide grader identity from students
  • This optional setting allows anonymous grading and can be useful if multiple TAs are grading student submissions.
• Grading workflow
  • This optional setting allows for submissions to be assessed in a series of steps; for example, multiple graders can assess the submissions, and then the instructor can approve the scores, and then all grades can be released back to students at the same time.
• Use grade allocation
  • This optional setting is used with grading workflow and allows graders to be allocated to particular students.

Additional Resources

Grading Quick Guide (MoodleDocs)

Using Assignment - Grading and Feedback (MoodleDocs)

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