moodle how to grade assignments

Moodle 101: How Does Moodle Grading Work?

Confused about Moodle Grading? In the teaching and learning process grading is an essential component since it informs both students and teachers of their progress in terms of level and provides feedback on the efficiency of the teaching strategies and study aids employed.

Grading activities is an important part of your job as a teacher, but it may be a time-consuming activity. Making grading easier will help you finish other items on your to-do list and save time so you can focus more on planning for future classroom events.

A variety of Moodle activities can be graded (an activity must first be configured as graded). Once a student submits an assignment, the teacher can immediately enter the marks, assessment, or grade to the student from the same activity, and the result is automatically added to the grade book. A column in the gradebook is automatically created for each activity that has been graded. New columns can be manually created and filled with grades and marks.

If there is one feature that distinguishes Moodle, it is the numerous options for creating tests and assessments. Instead of using a grading method just because it is available, it is important to know why you should choose one over the other. The idea here is to create a plan and implement it in Moodle. The platform serves as a tool to help you meet your learning objectives in this way.

Similarly, Moodle provides an essential set of tools for assessing, grading, and evaluating. This means that there are very few platforms capable of competing with Moodle. So, keep this in mind to ensure that you can apply the strategy that best satisfies your objectives.

The Moodle Gradebook: How to Get Started

Your Moodle course assignments, tasks, and/or manual grades are automatically compiled into a single score and piece of feedback in the Moodle Gradebook. Students can check their grades in personalized reports that safeguard student privacy. The gradebook may be displayed to students at certain times and in certain ways, or the instructor may completely hide it.

It is possible for teachers and teaching assistants to manually input and amend grades in the gradebook, and import grades from external sources such as OWL, iClicker, and Opscan. Or export the gradebook to another software program like Excel.

Moodle keeps track of all gradebook modifications so that instructors can verify who made what changes and when. Based on the instructor’s assigned grading scale, the gradebook keeps track of each student’s overall course grade. 

Setting Up the Moodle Gradebook

The Moodle gradebook offers a number of features and functionalities that will assist you in navigating to the locations where you need to be in order to do the activities you desire. The gradebook offers a variety of choices for calculating and displaying grades. Your gradebook can be set up in advance of the semester or created as you go.

Setup and Organize Grade Items and Categories

The course gradebook in a Moodle course automatically adds matching grade items (columns) when activities like Assignments or Quizzes are uploaded. In order to record more grade components, Moodle also allows you to manually add columns to your gradebook. It is acceptable to create your gradebook as you go in both of these scenarios, but when it comes to determining final grades, the organization of these factors is necessary to guarantee accuracy.

Calculating Grades

Allowing Moodle to handle calculations is the simplest approach to determining grades. If you need subtotals, Moodle includes built-in computations (aggregations) to figure out the grade for the entire course. 

When accrediting grades, Moodle offers three options: 

• Natural –  the total of all grade values.
• Mean of grades – the total of all grades divided by the total number of grades. 
• Custom weights – where weights are assigned as a proportion of the overall grade to certain items or categories.

If you need more operations, you could also make a special formula.

Rubrics and Non-numerical Scales for Grading

Some Moodle activities offer to grade using rubrics and non-numeric scales if you prefer alternate techniques for reviewing student work.

Rubrics are helpful when you want to evaluate student work based on a variety of criteria. When evaluating Assignment activities, you can set a rubric and criteria using advanced grading options, and the rubric will produce an overall grade.

Custom Scales are useful when you want students to view Excellent, Good, Fair, and so on as a grade on an item rather than a numerical number. While non-numeric assessments can be displayed using bespoke scales, the gradebook will still be able to do computations with these items if necessary.

Display Grades in Percentages And Letters

You can choose to display grades to students as a letter, a percentage, or a numeric number by modifying the settings in your gradebook. The Grade type of Points is used by default in Moodle activities, with a maximum grade of 100.

You can alter grade limits on the gradebook Letters tab by matching score ranges to letter grades (e.g., 93.00-100.00 for A). Following that, when grading, input the number that corresponds to the letter grade you want to give (for example, 90 for a B+). Students will see the right letter grade when Moodle generates letter grades since it compares numerical scores to the ranges in the Letters settings.

Although, only numerical scores may be recorded for grade elements connected to Moodle activities. For Moodle in the Cloud, it is no longer possible to manually grade items in Moodle by entering letter grades. Letter grades can be shown to students as a percentage, but instructors must record or import grades as points.

Edit The Activity Name of Every Column In The Gradebook

A new column will be automatically created in the gradebook for a Moodle activity after it has been configured to be graded. The column will have the same name as the activity. If the name is lengthy, only the first 12 characters are shown as the column name. Therefore, it is advised that you give the activities short, distinct titles. 

New columns can be manually created and filled with grades and marks. Instead of establishing a new column and entering the results, if at all possible, think about using an assignment.

As you add the graded activities to the course, columns are created in the gradebook to reflect this. For this reason, it is frequently required to afterward arrange the columns in the proper sequence. It is fair to establish categories (from chosen columns) and sort columns into categories if there are several graded activities in the course.

Setting Up An Automated System To Verify For Passing Grades

The learner’s performance can be automatically checked to see if it complies with standards using the gradebook configuration options. 

For instance, if all of the assignments have been passed (marked on a pass/fail scale) and the average of all quizzes is at least 80%, the course is considered passed if graded using the 10-point scale. Or the course grade is a letter grade determined by the points earned, but it is only considered successful if the learner has passed all non-differentiated examinations. 

A formula can be used to determine the passing grade. The formula is dependent on the display type and the configuration of the course’s total grade

Prepare The Final Grades

You can easily shift grades from the Moodle gradebook to your SPIRE grade roster at the end of the semester. Using a scale of your choice, Moodle will convert numerical grades to letter grades. You can still change grades after importing them into SPIRE before the Registrar approves and receives them.

How Does Grading Work With Moodle?

The gradebook automatically compiles the results of graded Moodle activities. Entries in the gradebook are always numeric so Moodle can simply aggregate grades automatically. 

Although this can be changed in the Assignment options for each activity, the default rating for each activity is 100. The weights of individual assignments or groups of assignments can then be adjusted in the gradebook to get the overall grade for the class.

You can create a grading system and use it to display letter grades to students based on percentage. Grading can be fairly simple if you use Moodle techniques. It is possible to grade using your own procedures, although it can necessitate additional processes and workarounds.

Some tasks, like the Turnitin and Moodle assignments, let you apply a rubric or grading form to determine your grade.

Manually added grade items (with the exception of Moodle activities like quizzes or assignments) can be adjusted to allow you to type or import actual letters if you choose to grade exclusively using letters and do not want to enter numerical values. It should be noted that using this method excludes the use of numerical scores and prevents Moodle from calculating an overall course grade.

You can give feedback on the majority of Moodle activities using a (verbal) Scale that includes terms like “outstanding,” “unsatisfactory,” and “satisfactory.”  It should be noted that each custom scale value has a number associated with it, so you should consider how those numbers will combine to determine a course’s overall grade.

Students can view written feedback next to their grade if you add it. When grading from within the activity, some activities (including Assignments, Turnitin assignments, Quizzes, and Workshops) have a place for writing written feedback. The gradebook also allows you to add comments for graded objects.

How to Grade your Moodle Assignments: 3 Methods

There are three options for grading systems in the Moodle assignment activity in addition to the standard options like points and scales. “Simple direct grading,” “marking guidelines,” and “rubric” are the three options.

Simple Direct Grading

Simple Direct Grading is by far the simplest to implement. When you create an assignment, this is the default setting. You have the choice of giving an overall score and overall feedback when grading a submission. Even though the simple direct way of grading is straightforward, it depends on the feedback remark box as the main tool for informing students of their areas of strength and weakness in the assignment. 

The rubric is precisely what it says it is. In your course, you can create a rubric that you can use to grade tasks in Moodle. You will be taken to a screen where you can either start generating a rubric from the beginning or modify the one you have already established as a template once you choose the rubric technique and save your assignment.

When using a rubric to grade work, you can enter feedback at the appropriate criterion level by clicking on the level the student has achieved. If you want to have an area for feedback on the entire assignment or remarks not covered by the rubric, there is also a spot for an overall feedback comment.

Marking Guide

The Marking Guide functions as a halfway point between the rubric and simple direct grading. The marking guide approach enables the mark to be broken up into criteria while still providing direct grading boxes for each criterion, as opposed to having the criteria and levels of the rubric method.

There is a feedback box for each requirement in your marking guide, as well as a direct grading box that allows you to enter the student’s level and your chosen point total.

Final Thoughts On Moodle Grading

Moodle is an extremely adaptable learning platform that lets you select or combine several grading techniques. Grading can be quite simple if you follow the Moodle guidelines. It is feasible to grade using your own procedures, although it can necessitate extra steps and hacks. As you grade on Moodle, we hope that some of these thoughts will be helpful.

Looking to take your Moodle course to the next level? Whether you need some help selecting and configuring new plugins, designing your site or something more complicated, our team of Moodle experts is here to help.

Don't forget to share this post!

Elena Gutierrez

Everything You Need To Know About Membership Pricing Strategy

The secret to better course content: Integrating H5P with your WordPress LMS

Here’s How You Can Prevent Cheating In Your Online Courses

Cancel reply, download e-book.

Making the most of Moodle’s Assignments for formative and summative assessment

Moodle’s assignment activities are easy to set up and offer many possibilities to create unique learning experiences for your students.

The Assignment activity in Moodle allows students to submit work for their teachers to grade or assess. The learners’ submissions may be text typed online or uploaded files of any format that the teachers specify. While creating an Assignment is quite straightforward, this activity has several settings that educators can combine to create unique experiences for their learners. 

Moodle Assignment for formative and summative assessment

Because it has so many combinations of configuration, the Assignment activity can be used both for formative assessment and summative evaluation. The table below outlines the goals and characteristics of each type of assessment: 

In formative assessment the goal is to monitor student learning therefore the assignments should be set to be always available, without necessarily being graded, allowing additional attempts, with no pass grade required (if it is graded). The  activity completion is usually set to “view” or “submit”. An formative assignment such as this often gets a 0% weight in the gradebook. 

In summative assessment, the goal is to evaluate student learning via assessment, thus a summative assignment is usually  set up with clear start, end and cut-off dates. It will be graded, with additional attempts to re-open the assessment set manually. Summative assessments are usually set with a required pass grade and the activity completion linked to requiring a “grade”. Summative assignments often have a weight higher than 20% in the gradebook.

Moodle Assignment submissions

There are many ways to combine submission types and settings in Assignment activity to achieve your teaching and learning goals or simply streamline your class management:

Assignments with no submission required These are assignments where learners don’t have to submit anything to complete the assessment. While this may sound counterintuitive, this type of Assignment can be used, for instance, for offline assessment -use it as an attendance sheet on a field trip- or for example, to assess a face-to-face speaking Assignment where learners really don’t have anything to submit. 

Assignments with online text submission With this type of Assignment submissions, learners add their work directly into the Assignment activity using the Atto editor, a rich text editor that allows learners to write text, add images and even record audio or video files. For this and for all other submission types, you can enable an option to allow learners to work in draft versions of their Assignment before sending the final submission.

Assignments with file submission This type of submission for Assignments requires learners to submit a file -teachers can define its format and size- for teachers to evaluate. To streamline the grading process, teachers can download all submissions at once, including a grading worksheet that displays the user name, email and submission status and allows teachers to add a grade and feedback in comments – and then bulk-upload all assessments back to Moodle, including a separate feedback file for each submission.

Group assignments in Moodle Collaborative learning is at the heart of Moodle LMS, so Moodle Assignments can easily be set up to be submitted as a group. Teachers can set these Assignments up so that only one of the group members has to submit the file, or make it mandatory for each team member to make the submission. Favourite tip: Our Moodle Academy team recommends combining this type of Assignment with a peer evaluation to know how the experience was for each of the group members.

Grading Moodle Assignments

Moodle Assignments support two main types of grading: simple direct grading and advanced grading. The first group includes grading done through numerical scales, custom scales (for example, stars or words like weak , satisfactory , strong , etc) or no grading at all. Advanced grading methods in Moodle include rubrics and marking guides, and we’ll look at them in more detail:

Moodle Assignment: assessment with marking guides In this type of grading, the teacher defines a series of criteria and assigns a maximum amount of marking points to each. When assessing learners’ assignments, the teachers provide both a numerical mark and a comment for each of the criteria. For this type of grading, you can make the criteria and maximum marking points available for learners to see – this helps them know what’s expected from them and what they need to cover in their submission. Favourite tip: Use ‘frequently used comments’ to speed up your grading process and to ensure that your grading is consistent.

Moodle Assignment: assessment with rubrics For grading with rubrics, teachers create a set of criteria with several levels of achievement, all displayed on a table. Sharing the rubric with learners is important, as it lets learners know how they’ll be assessed. For each submission, the rubric will be displayed to teachers, who then can select the level of accomplishment for each of the criteria just by clicking on it, as well as leave written feedback if necessary.

Moodle Assignment: assessment with marking workflow When you set up a marking workflow for an Assignment, it means that learners’ work can be assessed by several teachers. You can manually design the workflow and define the sequence of states (eg not marked , in marking , marked ), as well as allocate marking to another teacher.

This content has been extracted from the Moodle Academy webinar Assessment: exploring Assignments, facilitated by Moodle Education Advisor Anna Krassa. Watch the full webinar on our Moodle Academy site to see 7 real life examples on how you can combine submission types and grading types with availability and different types of feedback to create the right Assignment for your teaching and learning goals .

Buen Data achieves Moodle Premium Certified Partner status in Colombia

How Unió Consorci Formació is transforming healthcare training in Catalonia with Moodle Workplace

How to show LMS ROI after 12 months of use

TinyMCE joins MoodleMoot Global 2024 as a Gold Sponsor!

Learning and Teaching

• Assessment & Feedback

How to mark an Assignment online in Moodle

Preparing to grade an assignment.

Before beginning marking it’s important to understand how your assignment has been setup, so that you can ensure that you are not showing marks and feedback to students before you are ready for them to see them .

By default, Moodle assignments hide grades and feedback from students through the ‘Marking Workflow’ option.

When you create an Assignment, the ‘Marking Workflow’ setting will be enabled. This automatically hides any marks and feedback that you upload for students until you take specific steps to release the marks and feedback. This is a ‘safer’ option for the requirements of most Teachers .

Guidance on  releasing Marks and Feedback, and sending a notification to students  with a few clicks, using marking workflow can be found below.

If you prefer instead to turn off the marking workflow option you can do so within the Assignment’s settings, under the ‘Grade’ settings.  Note that doing this will mean that any marks and feedback added to Moodle will be immediately visible to students!

If you have turned off Marking Workflow, but you  also  don’t want students to see marks and feedback as soon as they are uploaded, you will need to hide the Assignment link and Gradebook item until you are ready to reveal the marks and feedback.

The guidance below shows how to turn off Marking Workflow (if you wish) and how to hide the Assignment link and Gradebook item:

• Find your Assignment and select Settings

• Scroll down to ‘ Grade ’ settings and expand them
• Set  use marking workflow  to  no
• Save changes

Note: Any marks and feedback you add will now be immediately visible to students!

To manually hide marks and feedback from students you will need to hide the Assignment’s  Gradebook item  and the  Assignment link  (which is often not practical where there are late submissions)

To hide the Gradebook item:

• Go to the  Course Homepage  and choose the Grades tab
• From the Grader Report drop-down menu, choose Gradebook Setup .

• In the row for the Assignment that you wish to hide, in the  Actions  column, choose  Edit  then  Hide .

• Save Changes .
• The Gradebook item will now appear to be greyed out to show that it is not visible to students.

To hide the Assignment link from students:  

• Navigate to the Assignment and, from its  Edit  drop-down menu, choose  Hide .

• You can now begin marking.

Note : When are ready to release marks and feedback to students, don’t forget that you’ll need to make the  Gradebook item  and  Assignment  link visible again.

Lock submissions to prevent changes

Before you begin marking it’s a good idea to lock submissions. This will prevent students from making any changes to their submissions once marking is underway. To do so, navigate to your Assignment and View all submissions .

• Tick the box at the top of the ‘select’ column to select all user submissions.
• From the ‘ With selected…’ drop-down menu choose Lock Submissions .

Note: If you have a large number of students you will need to select the option under the table to ‘show all students on one page’.

Moodle grading interface overview

Moodle has a built-in grading interface that allows you to annotate student assignments, add summary comments and award marks. Student submissions are displayed in PDF form and include a link to the Ouriginal similarity report (where activated).

The image below gives an overview of the built-in grading interface:

• Use the next and previous arrows to move to the next page of the student’s document or choose a page from the drop-down menu.
• Add an annotation to comment (with option to choose background colour).
• Use the arrow tool to select, move or delete existing annotations.
• Other tools such as the pen (squiggly line) for free form drawing or writing, shape tools, line, highlighter)
• Stamp tool/x tool.
• Anchor for an annotation (if you hover over it, it expands to reveal the annotation)
• An annotation
• Click the sub-menu icon in annotation (top right corner) to delete or add annotation to a ‘quicklist’ for the assignment).
• Use navigation to see Previous/Next student’s assignment or filter.
• Add grade here in the right-hand pane.
• Summary feedback can be entered here
• Don’t forget to save any changes made!
• Click to cycle through the options for screen layout

The video below provides an introduction to the grading interface, shows how to annotate student scripts, view Ouriginal reports and award marks. It also details how you can lift anonymity (where anonymous marking is being used) at the end of the marking process.

Marking Assignments Online

Marking a Group Assignment

Where one student has uploaded a file on behalf of her Group, the file will appear against all Group members, and any of these can be marked. On the individual student grading page, an option to ‘ Apply grade and feedback to all members of group ’ will appear. If ticked the grades and feedback will be applied to all group members. 

Allocate Assignments to another Marker

You can use the  Marking Allocation  feature to assign student submissions to a specific marker in your Moodle space.

• Marking allocation  – this allows allocation of markers to work after the deadline.  Marking allocation  depends on  Marking workflow  being enabled.

Marking Workflow  and  Marking Allocation  must be enabled in your assignment settings.

Once these have been enabled, you can allocate assignments to a marker.

• Click on your Assignment link
• Click on  View all submissions

• Tick the box to the left of the student whose assignment you want to allocate, then choose  Set allocated marker  and click  Go .
• At the prompt click  Ok , then on the next page select your allocated marker from the drop-down menu and click  Save Changes .

How to lift anonymity in an Assignment

If you are using Anonymous Marking (blind marking) in Moodle, once you have completed marking, it is necessary to lift anonymity in order to release grades to the Gradebook. Please note that lifting anonymity can only be done once, (you cannot return the assignment to an anonymous state once it has been lifted), so ensure that you have completed all marking before going ahead. 

To lift anonymity.

• Click on the assignment link, then click on  View all submissions
• From the grading actions menu choose  Reveal student identities:

This video also shows the process for lifting anonymity: https://uniofbath.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=dbdb18a7-e4f2-40af-a7fe-acd800a3803c&start=0

Lifting Anonymity

Related Articles

• Anonymous marking in Moodle
• Advanced Grading in Moodle
• Group Peer Review for Teachers
• How to mark an Assignment offline and upload feedback
• Using Ouriginal
• How to create an Assignment

Article Contents

Moodle Help Guide

• Organize Your Course
• Survey Students for Feedback
• Ensuring Student Success
• Add or Remove Participants
• Guest Access
• Access to Past Courses
• Request a Course Merge
• Release an Activity or Resource to Specific Students
• Accessibility Checklist
• Add Material from Past Courses
• Adding and Organizing Files
• Video Content
• Assignment Basics

Grading Assignments

Provide video or audio feedback, grading with rubrics, ipad grading using a pdf annotation tool.

• Forum Basics
• Grading Forums
• Quiz Basics
• Grading Quizzes
• Using Groups
• Other Options for Coursework
• Gradescope Assignments
• Gradebook Setup
• Import or Export Gradebook Data
• Fine-Tune the Gradebook
• Save Materials to Your Computer
• Resources for Students

If you can't find your answers here, please get in touch with the team at  [email protected]

We respond to questions weekdays, 9 AM - 5 PM. It may take us up to one business day to respond to your request.

We regret that we are unable to answer questions from those who are not affiliated with the Five Colleges.

Once you've accepted an assignment, you need to view the individual submissions and grade them. You can download them all with just a few clicks and grade on your computer, if that would be the best method for your process. Or, you could use Moodle's assignment grading interface. The grading interface has a panel where you can read submissions, and a panel where you can enter grades and feedback.

Did you know that you can use built-in recording tools to provide video and/or audio feedback on student assignments? This can not only be a time-saver, it can improve student understanding - your tone and/or body language will convey additional information to them as they seek to improve. For a quick overview of how to use this feature, check out the video below:

Moodle gives you the ability to build rubrics, in the Assignment tool, that instructors can use to provide standardized grading. These may be useful to provide consistency in your own grading, to communicate your expectations to your students, or to provide consistency in grading among multiple graders.

When setting up a new Assignment or editing Assignment Settings, under Grading, choose "Rubric" as your grading method. 

Once you have saved changes, if Moodle does not prompt you to define a grading form, click on the gear icon and then  Advanced grading > Define rubric  to define one. You will have a choice to create a new one, or work from an existing template. Choose the one that is appropriate for your case.

When writing a new rubric, first give it a title that will indicate to you, later, which assignment or sort of assignment it is for. (Consider whether you may want to reuse the same rubric for multiple similar assignments.) In the table below the title and description, you will see places to click and edit Criteria and places to edit Levels. You may want to define all the criteria on which you'd like to grade the assignment first, and then go back and specify what qualities of the work will merit each level of points. 

Below the space for building the rubric, you'll see a number of checkboxes, all of them checked by default. Consider whether you want all of these options, and modify them as needed. In particular, you may want to keep "Allow users to preview rubric used in the module" checked, as it will let students know what you will be looking for when you grade.

Don't forget to click "Save rubric and make it ready" when you're finished setting up. You can also save it as a draft, but you will have to make it ready to grade, later, before you can grade with it. 

Before you begin:

• Make sure you have an app that allows you to annotate PDF files installed on your device.
• Create your Moodle assignment. In the settings, under "Feedback Types" make sure that "Feedback Files" is checked. Under "Submission Types, uncheck "Online Text".
• Let your students know that they should convert their work to a PDF before submitting.
• For the following instructions, use Moodle in a browser (like Safari, Chrome, or Firefox) on your iPad, NOT the Moodle App. These instructions will not work in the Moodle App.

Downloading:

• When your students have submitted and you're ready to grade, open the assignment and click "View All Submissions".
• Scroll down to the bottom of the page. Uncheck the box for "Download Submissions in Folders".
• Scroll back up to the top of the page. There is a menu called "Grading Action" just below the title of the assignment. In that menu, choose "Download All Submissions".
• After you've downloaded the file, tap "Open in..." and choose "Save to Files". Choose a folder to save the file in; if you see a folder for the PDF annotation app you plan to use, you can choose that folder.
• Go into your Files app. Navigate to the file you just saved from Moodle. It will be a .zip file, so you need to uncompress it before you can work with it. Depending on your system, you may be able to tap once to uncompress the file. Or you can press and hold on the .zip file, and choose "uncompress" from the menu.
• Now you will see a normal folder that contains your students' files. Open the individual files in your PDF annotation app to make your notes.
• When you have made notes on the file, make sure to save it without changing the file name . Moodle uses the file name to match the file back to the correct student.
• In your Files app, you need to compress the folder with your students' work in it. Tap and hold on the folder, and choose "Compress" from the menu.
• Return to Moodle. In the same Grading Action dropdown menu where you choose "Download All Submissions" in Step 3 above, choose "Upload multiple feedback files in a zip"
• Upload the compressed .zip file you just created.
• Choose "Import Feedback File(s)".
• You will see a list of the feedback files you are adding. Choose "Confirm", then "Continue".
• Your students should now be able to see the corrected files under "Feedback" in their assignment.
• << Previous: Assignment Basics
• Next: Forum Basics >>
• Last Updated: Jun 14, 2024 9:41 AM
• URL: https://guides.mtholyoke.edu/moodle

Moodle Tutorials: Grading Assignments

• Linking Your Course to Moodle
• Navigating in Moodle
• Beginning of Semester Checklist
• Setting up the Layout of Your Course Site
• Editing Your Moodle Profile
• Copying Course Materials from Another Site
• Using Meta Link (combining enrollments from multiple course sections into one site)
• Quick-Start Video Guides for Moodle 4.2
• Adding an Announcement
• Uploading a File
• Creating and Editing Folders
• Managing Groups: Creating Groups and assigning student to them
• Adding Text and Images to Your Course Home Page
• Adding a Web Link
• Hiding and Revealing Items
• End-of-Term Checklist
• Adding a user to your course
• Setting up a Forum
• Enabling Groups in a Forum
• Setting up Whole Forum Grading
• Creating Assignments

Grading Assignments

• Using Rubrics for Assignments
• Creating a Quiz
• Quiz Settings
• Adding Questions to a Quiz
• Using the Question Bank
• Adding Safe Exam Browser
• Adding a New Column (Grade Item)
• Rearranging Columns (Grade Items)
• Entering and Editing Grades
• Creating Categories in the Grade Book
• Adding Extra Credit
• Exporting Grades Into Excel Spreadsheet
• Importing Grades from an Excel Spreadsheet
• Accessing Moodle
• Taking a Quiz in Moodle
• Uploading an Assignment to Moodle
• Participating in Discussion Forums
• Viewing Grades on Moodle
• Safe Exam Browser
• Adding H5P Interactive Content
• Embedding Google Drive Videos
• Embedding YouTube Videos
• Embedding Box Videos

1. When students have submitted their assignments, the teacher can access the grades by clicking on the assignment link.

2. This takes them to the assignment where they click View all submissions or Grade  to view and grade the work:

3. When students upload their assignments you have to download the students' files to view them. If you click on View  all submissions button, you will see a page with students name and files attached:

4. A grade can be entered by clicking on the Grade button. This will take you to the Grading page where you enter a grade and feedback, and annotate students' assignments on the left-hand side. If you annotate the assignment, Moodle will save it in PDF format keeping all annotations made and will enable students to download the annotated file:

• << Previous: Creating Assignments
• Next: Using Rubrics for Assignments >>
• Last Updated: Jan 2, 2024 9:37 AM
• URL: https://pacificu.libguides.com/moodle

Copyright © Pacific University, all rights reserved

2043 College Way, Forest Grove, Oregon, 97116

[email protected]   |   503-352-1400   |   Staff Directory

Swarthmore College – ITS Blog

How to Grade Online Assignments and Exams

An increasing number of Swarthmore faculty are using online grading for assignments and exams.  Since students create most of their work digitally, it makes sense to submit an assignment electronically and avoid the need to print a hard copy.  ITS provides many different ways to collect and grade assignments.

Moodle has several tools for electronic assignments and exams.

Moodle Assignments

The Moodle assignment activity is an easy way to collect assignments from students and simplify the process of setting up due dates, granting individual extensions, and keeping track of any students that did turn in their assignment.  Moodle also provides a basic interface for viewing and grading the assignment.  It is possible to set up more complex grading forms, including rubrics.  The Moodle assignment also works well for courses with student graders because it eliminates the need to deal with stacks of paper assignments and makes it easy for the instructors to see the grading status of each assignment.

Moodle Turnitin Assignments

In addition to the built-in Moodle Assignment, there is a Moodle Turnitin Assignment.  Turnitin is best know for plagiarism detection, but also includes a grading tool that make it easy to mark up papers with frequently used comments, enter text feedback, and even record audio notes to a student.

Moodle Quizzes

The Moodle Quiz activity can be used for an online exam.  Quizzes are set up to be taken within a certain time period.  Students can be prompted to either enter text directly in the quiz, upload a document with their responses, or answer multiple-choice type questions.  This tool is handy for keeping track of a timed exam while allowing for extended time or alternate test days for certain students.  If you dread reading student handwriting in a blue book, this is worth a look.

Other tools

In addition to Moodle, ITS provides a number of other ways to grade assignments electronically.

Academic Technology has been running the Teaching with Tablets  program for several years and has provided many faculty with iPad Pros and Microsoft Surface tablets to facilitate teaching and electronic grading.  The tablets come with a stylus that is perfect for marking up student papers.

Honors Exam Software

If a higher level of security is needed, ITS can set up the same software as used for the Honors Exams for a midterm or final.  This software blocks the use of other applications and connections to the Internet.

Grading Code

The following tools are aimed at assignments and exams that involve programming.

GitHub Enterprise

If you are asking students to submit computer code, Swarthmore has its own installation of GitHub for use by community members available at github.swarthmore.edu .  It is possible to set up and share repositories with students, collect the code, then grader and enter feedback to the repository.  The Computer Science department has done a great job at scripting this workflow to make it easy for faculty and students.

MATLAB Grader

If your students code in MATLAB, the MathWorks has just released  MATLAB Grader to make it possible to assign and collect student work.  This is a new program and if you are interested in trying it out, please email [email protected] and we’ll be in touch.

If you are asking students to code in Python, Swarthmore’s JupyterHub installation could be useful to provide a web-based Python coding environment for students.  ITS is working to set up the nbgrader plugin to facilitate distributing, collecting, and grading assignments.  If you’d like to check it out, contact Andrew Ruether in ITS (aruethe2, x8254).

Featured image: Assignment by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images

Share this:

• Account creation and closure
• Account management
• Two-factor authentication
• Computers and Phones
• Email and Calendar
• File Storage
• Internet Connections
• Other Tools
• Printing, Copying, & Scanning
• Accessibility
• Devices: College-provided
• Devices: Personal
• Installation
• Microsoft 365
• Off-Campus Access
• Domain of One's Own
• College password: Set up and update
• Getting started at Bryn Mawr
• Leaving Bryn Mawr
• Visitor accounts and access
• Group Manager: Grant and revoke access
• LITS Service Catalog: View project requests
• BIONIC: Data standards for names and more
• BIONIC: User interface guide
• BIONIC: View budget reports
• Encryption: College-Owned Computer (macOS)
• Encryption: Emails in Microsoft 365
• Encryption: External Storage Drives
• CrowdStrike Falcon Antivirus: Overview
• International travel: technology and security
• Malware and spam: Phishing emails
• Malware and spam: Ransomware
• Password managers
• Password safety: Best practices
• Two-Factor: Get started with Duo
• Two-Factor: Methods of Authentication
• College computers: Accessibility settings
• College computers: Replacement
• College Deskphone: Setup & Use
• College Softphone: Setup & Use
• Common hardware issues
• Help Desk tickets
• LITS's Device Support Cycle
• New College computer? Start here!
• Office move requests
• Remote Learning, Teaching, and Work: Suggested Computer Accessories
• Shipping Devices to LITS
• Standard computers and accessories
• Students: Laptop Purchasing Guide
• Students: What tech to bring to College
• Alumnae/i: Email Forwarding
• Microsoft Outlook: create accessible emails
• Mailing Lists: Management
• Mailing Lists: Overview
• Microsoft 365: Overview
• Microsoft 365: Shared Email, Calendars, and Folders
• Microsoft 365: Export Emails
• Calendly: Schedule appointments
• Outlook: Schedule Zoom meetings through Outlook
• Data backup: Why, where, and how
• CrashPlan: disaster recovery
• Data Clean-Up: Email Inbox
• Data Clean-Up: Storage Drives (C:, H:, S:, Q:, and more!)
• Network Drives: Connect from Windows or macOS
• OneDrive: Share files and folders
• Save a file as a pdf
• Eduroam: Connect to College Wifi
• Ivanti Secure VPN: Off-Campus Access
• Gaming Wi-Fi: Connect your devices
• Network Registration
• Moodle: Log in
• Moodle: Courses Not Showing Up
• Moodle: Browse courses during registration
• Moodle: Use the text editor
•  Moodle: Add files and folders to a course
• Moodle: External tool connections
• Moodle: Add course blocks
• Moodle: Manage Class Recordings with Panopto
• Moodle: Schedule class Zoom meetings
• Moodle: Enable students to schedule appointments
•  Moodle: Add JoVE content to a course
• Moodle: Restore recently deleted items from the recycle bin
• Moodle: Link to McGraw-Hill
• Moodle: Link to a Cengage Platform
• Moodle: Customize and organize your course
• Zoom: Schedule course meetings with the Moodle Zoom activity
• Moodle: Hide and unhide courses and course sections
• Moodle: Copy content from another course
• Moodle: Get a merged Moodle site for a multi-section course
• Moodle: Save or export course data and content
• Moodle: Set up a course gradebook
• Moodle: Hide grades from students
• Moodle: Extensions, overrides, and accommodations
• Moodle: Download assignment to grade offline

Moodle: Grade assignments with Annotate PDF

• Moodle: Use grading workflow to manage assignment feedback
• Moodle: Extra credit
• Integrations
• Moodle: Create and manage assignments
• Moodle: Convert documents using Sensus Access
• Moodle: Create and grade Quizzes
• Moodle: Use Question Bank
• Moodle: Forums
• Moodle: Create a questionnaire
• Moodle: Student Journals
• Moodle: Workshop
• Moodle: View Course Evaluation Results
• Moodle: View and create course Calendar events
• Moodle: Add or change your photo
• Moodle: View and submit assignments
• Moodle: Keep organized with Timeline and Calendar
• Moodle: Take online quizzes and exams
• Moodle: Participate in a workshop activity
• Moodle: Export coursework and materials
• Moodle: Complete course evaluations
• Moodle: Instant Messaging
• Moodle: Get accessible alternative formats for course materials
• Moodle: Enroll or unenroll participants
• Moodle: Using Groups
• Moodle: Message course participants
• Moodle: Take attendance
• Moodle: Guest access to courses
• Moodle: View course as a student
• Moodle: Create checklists for students
• Constellate: Log In and Authenticate
• LinkedIn Learning: Overview
• LinkedIn Learning: Create and share playlists
• Macmillan (Achieve, LaunchPad): Link to Moodle
• NameCoach: Overview
• NameCoach: Add name recording to email and social media
• NameCoach: Add to a Moodle course
• NameCoach: Record and listen to names in Moodle
• NameCoach: Name Pages for events
• Perusall: Add social annotation assignments to Moodle
• Piazza: Alternative Discussion Tool for Moodle
•  Posit Cloud: Teaching with Posit Cloud
• Panopto: Get and log into your account
• Panopto: Training and learning resources
• Panopto: Record lecture using desktop app
• Panopto: Record in your browser (Panopto Capture)
•  Panopto: Upload audio or video files
• Panopto: Share recordings
• Panopto: Where are my recordings?
• Panopto: Edit videos
• Panopto: Captions
• Panopto: Add the Panopto block to a Moodle course
• Panopto: Copy recordings to a new course
• Panopto: Collect audiovisual assignments
• Panopto: Student guide to uploading and recording videos
• Panopto: Enable video downloads
• Panopto: Get emailed when videos are posted
• Panopto: Record with multiple video sources
• Panopto: Department folders
• WeVideo: Create an account on Bryn Mawr's license
• WeVideo: Create and add people to projects
• WeVideo: Video and podcast editing basics
• WeVideo: Finish and share videos
• WeVideo: Add subtitles to a video
• WeVideo: Access after you leave BMC
• Remote learning, teaching, and work: Suggested computer accessories
• Remote teaching: Create digitally friendly documents
• Students: Remote learning tools
• Canon supplies: Order, install, and recycle
• HP supplies: Order, install, and disposal
• Making accessible scans
• Office Lens: Scan papers or documents with your smartphone
• Print from a public printer
• Print with a departmental printer
• Scan and copy with printers
• ABBYY Fine Reader: complex OCR
• Adobe Acrobat: Make PDFs accessible
• Sensus Access: Convert documents using Sensus in a Moodle course
• Adobe Creative Cloud: College Computers
• College Computers: Request software changes
• College-provided software Updated
• Adobe Creative Cloud: Personal Devices
• Microsoft Edge: Automatic Sign-in
• Software for Personal Devices
• ChemDraw: Installation
• KaleidaGraph: Installation
• Mathematica and Wolfram|Alpha Pro
• OnBase: Installation
• Software Center: Install Programs
• Microsoft Office: Personal Devices
• Microsoft Office: Public lab computers
• Microsoft Word: Create accessible documents
• Microsoft Outlook: Accessibility features
• Office365: Immersive reader accessibility features
• PowerPoint: Create accessible slides
• PowerPoint: Turning on subtitles
• Apporto: Remotely Connect to a Virtual Lab Computer
• Financial Edge: Off-Campus Access
• LabStats: Remotely Connect to a Lab Computer
• Microphone not working
• Microsoft Teams: Overview
• Microsoft Teams: Accessibility Features
• Zoom: Activate and log into a BMC account
• Zoom: Am I using A Bryn Mawr Zoom account?
• Zoom: Create meetings
• Zoom: Create meetings through Outlook
• Zoom: Create meetings for courses through Moodle
• Zoom: Host a meeting
• Zoom: Participate in a meeting
• Zooming in less-than-ideal circumstances
• Zoom: Security
• Zoom: Use registration to secure meetings
• Zoom: Where are my recordings?
• Zoom: Breakout rooms
• Zoom: Captions
• Zoom: Chat, reactions, and polls
• Zoom: Increase caption and chat font size
• Zoom: Mirror an ipad in a classroom
• Zoom: Multiple cameras
•  Zoom: Use Scheduler for appointment booking New
•  Hosting Large Online or Hybrid Events New
• Domain of One's Own: Get started
• Domain of One's Own: Install applications
• Domain of One's Own: WordPress
• Domain of One's Own: Grav
• Domain of One's Own: Omeka
• Domain of One's Own: Scalar
• Domain of One's Own: Log into and manage applications
• Domain of One's Own: Upload and manage files
• Domain of One's Own: Migrate content when you leave Bryn Mawr
• Domain of One's Own: TRU Collector/Writer Sites
• Drupal - Basic: Drupal Training Videos
• Drupal - Basic: Log in and find content in Drupal
• Drupal - Basic: Announcements in Drupal
• Drupal - Basic: Events in Drupal
• Drupal - Basic: Biography Listings in Drupal
• Drupal - Basic: Edit Biographies in Drupal
• Drupal - Basic: Embed forms and other content in Drupal
• Drupal - Basic: Flexible Content in Drupal
• Drupal - Basic: Flex Basic WYSIWYG
• Drupal - Basic: Flex Basic 2 - Accordion, Carousel and more
• Drupal - Basic: Images in Drupal
• Drupal - Basic: News Articles in Drupal
• Drupal - Basic: Pages in Drupal
• Drupal - Basic: Preparing Images for the Web in Adobe Photoshop
• Drupal - Basic: Preparing Images for the Web in MS Word
• Drupal - Basic: Tables in Drupal
• Drupal - Basic: Upload and Link to Documents in Drupal
• Drupal - Basic: Website Image Size and Format Guide
• Drupal - Basic: What is a Web Steward? Roles and Permissions Explained
• Drupal Basic - Introduction to Drupal Drafts
• Drupal - Intermediate: Flex Intermediate A - Columns, Gallery and more
• Drupal - Intermediate: Flex Intermediate B - People List, Features and more
• Drupal - Intermediate: Videos in Drupal
• Drupal - Advanced: Bulletin in Drupal
• Drupal - Advanced: Flex Advanced - Syndication and Flex Items
• Drupal - Advanced: Flex content for special roles
• Drupal - Advanced: Themes and Theme Switcher
• Drupal Short Sessions - Syndication
• Drupal Short Sessions - Event 3up
• Drupal Short Sessions - Announcement 4up
• Drupal Short Sessions - News 3up and News+Contact
• Drupal Short Sessions - Story 1-up and Story 3-up
• Drupal Short Session: Image-based Features in Flex Content
• Drupal Short Session: Image List
• Drupal - Special Role: Admissions Officers in Drupal
• Drupal - Special Role: Course listings in Drupal
• Drupal - Special Role: CV Upload via Provost in Drupal
• Drupal - Special Role: Homepage content in Drupal
• Drupal - Special Role: Navigation Menus in Drupal
• Drupal - Special Role: Program Descriptions in Drupal
• Drupal - Special Role: EMS
• Drupal - Special Role - Story Editor (Group)
• File Names for Web Pages and Blogs: Best Practices
• Make sure your documents show up correctly in search results
• Web Accessibility Guidelines
• Web Forms (Wufoo)
• WordPress: Adding Users to Your Blog
• WordPress: Basics
• WordPress: Changing the author name displayed on your WordPress posts
• WordPress: Close Comments on Old Posts to Reduce Comment Spam
• WordPress: Embedding videos and other media content in blogs
• WordPress: FontAwesome for WordPress
• WordPress: Logging in & Creating a New Blog
• WordPress: Moderating Comments (and spam) in WordPress
• WordPress: Privacy settings for your blog
• WordPress: Updating Your Alumnae Club Blog
• WordPress: User Roles for Blogs
• WordPress: Working with WordPress themes

Instructors can mark and  leave digital comments on  Assignment submissions within Moodle by using the Annotate PDF  feedback option. Annotate PDF allows you to   highlight, write or type comments, add stamps, and post notes in PDF documents submitted by students using any device with a web browser.

Before you start , you will need access to the following:

• An Instructor of record , Other editing teacher , or Non-editing teacher role in a Bryn Mawr Moodle course  

Set Up the Assignment

WARNING: Your Assignment must be set up to require PDF file submissions and use the  Annotate PDF feedback type before students start submitting work. (You won't be able to make changes after that point.) 

• Create your Assignment if you haven't already (c lick +Add an activity or resource ; then s elect Assignment ).
• Open the Assignment Settings page (click the Assignment to open it, then click  S ettings in the top menu). 
• Check the File Submissions  box (required).
• Set Maximum number of uploaded files to 1 (recommended).
• Type .pdf in the Accepted file types box (required).

• Under Feedback Types , check Feedback Comments and Annotate PDF.

• Adjust the remaining settings if desired, then click   Save and Display  or  Save and return to course.

Help students submit PDFs

It is increasingly common for students to submit coursework for K-12 courses through Google drive or docs, and some college   students may not know how to save, export, or print files as PDFs. However, it is easy to do using software that is widely available to students and a good skill to learn before entering the workforce!

These Ask Athena articles may help: 

• Save a file as a pdf explains how to save documents as PDF files using commonly used software.
• Scan and copy with printers  explains how to use the multifunction copier/printers in libraries and public spaces on campus . (For Bryn Mawr users, scans are saved as PDFs to their H:// drive by default.) 
• Office Lens: Scan papers or documents with your smartphone explains how to use this free smartphone app to create multi-page PDF documents using the phone’s camera.

Mark using annotate PDF

• Click the Assignment to open it.
• Click Grade .

• Enter the Grade and any overall Feedback comments in the fields provided . (You can include images, files and media clips in you comments, see  Moodle: Use the text editor  for details.)
• If you enabled the Feedback files type in your assignment settings, use the  Feedback files  menu to upload them.

• Click Save Changes as you go and Save and Show Next to finish marking a submission and move on to the next one.

Exporting copies of marked submissions

If you want to keep copies of annotated submission for your records:

• Click the Assignment to open it.  
• Click the titles of PDFs you want to download in the Annotate PDF  column.
• They will download to your browser's default Downloads folder; from there you can move them to a more permanent storage location. 

If you have any additional questions or problems, don't hesitate to reach out to the Help Desk !

Phone: 610-526-7440 | Library and Help Desk hours Email: [email protected] |  Service catalog Location: Canaday Library 1st floor

Related Articles

Thank you! Your feedback has been submitted.

• Library and Help Desk Hours
• Web Accessibility
• Credits and Attributions
• Have feedback?
• © 2021 – Bryn Mawr College. All rights reserved.

Instructional Design & Technology Services, IITS

Haverford College

The Moodle Assignment: Collect and grade submitted work

The Moodle Assignment module lets you collect student assignments—including research papers, spreadsheets, presentations, photographs, and short audio or video recordings—online. The video below is a great resource for seeing how to add an assignment and to understand many of the most useful options. A text version of the information, along with some specific recommendations for Haverford faculty follows the video.

Add the assignment

Configure the assignment.

Now you need to configure assignment settings. By selecting the correct options, you will be able to grade student and give feedback the way you want. You can generally accept the defaults, but we recommend changing a few of the options to make submission easy for students and grading easy for you.

General settings

You must fill in the general setting to give your assignment a name. You need to enter an Assignment name –the name that students see on the main course page.

You can also give an assignment Description to explain the assignment to your student. What are your expectations for the assignment? What file format, if any, should they use? If you are allowing drafts, what do you expect in the drafts and what do you expect in the final project?

You can also upload instructions, templates, or other relevant files in the Additional files area.

Availability

OPTIONAL: Next, you will see an Availability section. Use this to give your students due dates. Date information from your assignments will flow to the Moodle calendar. Students can see upcoming assignments  on their Moodle dashboard.

You can also set a “remind me to grade by” date; this will appear on your dashboard.

Submission types

OPTIONAL:  In the Submission types area, determine what your students will be submitting. If you leave the defaults, students will submit one file, up to 5 MB in size. This works for many types of assignments. However , if you have any of the scenarios below, you will want to change the defaults.

Do you want students to submit a short reading response, or other short entry, directly into the assignment text area? Check the “ online text ” box.

Do you want to set a word limit for online submissions? In addition to checking the “ online text ” box, enable and set a “ Word limit .”

Do you want student to submit draft copies of their submission? Increase the “ maximum number of uploaded files .”

Will students submit documents over 20MB in size? 20MB is a pretty large file. Hopefully, students will be uploading files much smaller, to avoid taxing our system resources. If 20MB is not large enough, contact [email protected] and see if there is a better tool for your needs.

Do you want students to submit assignments in a particular format, such as a PDF, Microsoft Word format, Microsoft Excel, MP3 audio file, etc.? Click the “ Choose ” button and select your desired file type for student submissions or type the file extension name into the box. Require PDFs (“.pdf”) if you want to mark up assignments directly in the Moodle gradebook.

Feedback types

OPTIONAL:  In the Feedback types area, state what type of feedback you will give students–and how you will give that feedback. All options should be checked by default. However, if any options are unchecked that may prevent you from delivering feedback in your preferred way.

Check the “ Feedback comments ” box to give comments on each submission.

Check the “ Offline grading worksheet ” box, if you want to enter grades in Excel and upload them to Moodle.

Check the “ Feedback files ” box, if you want to return student submissions with your markups, or submit other types of feedback files such as voice comments.

Set “ Comment inline ” to yes , for an easy way to comment on text students submit directly into the assignment tool. This is only useful if you enable the “Online Text” submission type.

More options

In addition to the settings above, many other options are available. A few options:

• group assignments
• blind marking , to hide student identities when you grade
• activity completion tracking, so you can make other activities in your course dependent upon this assignment, or just help students see where they are in the course

Once you have the desired settings, click the button to save and return to course .

Grade submissions and provide feedback

Once you have created your assignment activity and students have submitted work, you will want to collect and grade student submissions. You can either download all the assignments, grade them offline, and then upload feedback files with comments or mark papers directly in Moodle.

Download all submissions and mark papers outside of Moodle

The Moodle Assignment module lets you bulk downloaded student submissions for organization and offline grading. This can be helpful in a number of situations:

• Organize and locally store submitted assignments
• Provide assignments feedback using by marking-up student submissions using tools available in desktop or tablet apps such MS Word, Adobe Acrobat Pro, Explain Everything, etc.
• Efficiently enter grades and general feedback comments using Excel, which can be faster the Moodle online grading interface
• Grade assignments anywhere; internet access is not needed

It’s not hard to use the offline grading option, but it has a number of steps both within Moodle and your local computer operating system. Watch this video on off-line marking for more information.

Mark directly within Moodle

• Enter the student’s grade.
• Type or record feedback comments.
• Download the submission to look at it or annotate it outside of Moodle.
• Mark up a PDF submission.
• Return a file with your annotations or comments.
• Save the grade and continue to the next student.
• Depending upon what the student submitted, you may want to change the layout of your marking window.
• You can also select a different student from the upper right drop-down menu.
• By default, students are notified when you grade, but you can uncheck that option before saving.

Documentation

Note: You are currently viewing documentation for Moodle 1.9. Up-to-date documentation for the latest stable version is available here: Adding/editing an assignment .

• Adding/editing an assignment
• Upload a single file
• Online text
• Offline activity
• Advanced uploading of files (1.7)
• Assignment details (pre-1.7)
• Assignment permissions
• Viewing an assignment
• Assignment submissions
• Assignment FAQ

An Assignment is an activity that a teacher can select by a pull down menu in a course topic or week section. This page is about the Assignment settings, also found with the Update Assignment button.

• 1 Assignment name
• 2 Description
• 4 Available from
• 6 Prevent late submissions
• 7 Settings for specific assignment types (1.7 onwards)
• 8 Assignment type (pre-1.7)
• 9.1 Group mode
• 9.2 Visible
• 9.3 ID number
• 10 Tips and tricks
• 11 See also

Assignment name

Give your assignment a name (e.g. “Report on Topic Content”). The name entered here will be the name that learners see in the course content area. Learners will click on this name to view the details of the assignment and, if applicable, submit their work.

Description

The description of the assignment, which should include precise instructions for students regarding the subject of the assignment, the form, in which it should be submitted, the grading criteria etc.

Use this area to describe the assignment and explain what learners are expected to do to complete this task. The assignment description can be as brief or as expansive as you feel is necessary to meet the needs of your learners. However, it is to your benefit to provide as much detail and information as possible, especially at the start of the course while you are still establishing procedures. Generally, the more information you are able to provide here the fewer questions and problems your learners will have completing the task.

The assignment description field can also be used to provide information or resources related to the assignment. An instructor, for example, could provide some literature, a video clip, an image, or a link to a webpage, and then ask the learners to use these materials in completing the task. (Alternatively, the instructor could post these items using the Resource Module and refer students to them in the assignment details. See the section titled Resource Module for more information.)

Finally, if you are adding rich content, tables, etc. to your description, it is best to expand the HTML editor into full screen mode so you can make your webpage document look nice when participants view it.

The grade for the assignment is specified here. Choosing a number will become the maximum grade for this assignment. Apart from the numbers, one of the descriptive grades which have been defined for this course can also be picked.

If you will not be giving a grade for the assignment, choose No Grade.

Available from

Setting this date prevents students from submitting their assignments before this date.

The Available from date setting allows an instructor to set a day and time at which learners can begin submitting the assignment. This setting does not, however, hide the activity from the learners. Instead, the learner will see the activity, be able to view the instructions and use any materials you have include in the description, but the learner will not be able to submit or complete the assignment until the Available from date.

To activate the Available from date, make sure that the “Disable” checkbox is not marked. Then, use the drop down menus to choose the day, month and year. You can also set a time with the last two fields on the line. Note: the time is based on a 24 hour clock or “military time,” so 14:00 refers to 2:00 p.m.

If you do not wish to use the Available from option, just check the “Disable” checkbox by clicking on it; the rest of the field will turn gray and the date will be ignored.

And this prevents students from submitting their assignments after this date.

The Due date field works in much the same way as the Available from field with a few small differences. Unchecking the “Disable” checkbox activates the Due date option and you have the same ability to select a day, month, year, and time. If the checkbox is checked, then the due date will be not be applied.

As with the Available from setting, the Due date defines when learners are able to submit their assignment. However, with the Due date settings, you also have the Prevent late submissions option (below the date and time fields). Setting Prevent late submissions to Yes will prevent learners from being able to submit this assignment after the Due date. If you set Prevent late submissions to No, then learners can submit the assignment as long as the assignment is visible or accessible to them.

Both the Available from and Due dates are displayed for learners in the assignment details, but the Due date is also marked in the course Calendar as a visible reminder for participants. Furthermore, the indicator on the calendar will actually link learners directly to the activity!

Your use of the Available from and Due date settings will probably be dependent on the overall structure of your course. If you are facilitating an open ended course or a course with rolling enrollment, then you might find it easier to not apply the Available from and Due date settings (leave the boxes checked). This arrangement will allow the learners to access the assignments according to their own schedule and progress within the course. Alternatively, if you are working within a more structured format or adhering to a timeline, the Available from and Due date settings are useful for keeping learners on schedule. Using the Available from setting will make it possible for learners to preview upcoming activities, while at the same time, prevent them from finishing the course in the first week and not returning for additional activities or information. Likewise, the Due dates help keep the learners from lagging too far behind and decrease the likelihood that the learner will become overwhelmed by having to complete several weeks worth of work at once.

Prevent late submissions

Set to "No", assignments submitted after the due date will be marked as late, but students will still be able to submit them. Set to "Yes", assignment submission will be blocked after the due date.

Settings for specific assignment types (1.7 onwards)

Each assignment type, except offline assignment, has further settings which are detailed on the relevant assignment type pages:

• Advanced uploading of files

Assignment type (pre-1.7)

With the Assignment type setting (pre-1.7), you choose the type of assignment which defines how learners will complete the assignment and turn it in to the instructor. Assignments can be set up as offline activity, online text, or upload a single file.

To complete the settings specific to the assignment type, click Next to proceed to the assignment details page.

Common module settings

When course group mode is turned on, the group mode can be one of three levels: no groups, separate groups or visible groups.

Choose whether to Show or Hide the assignment

Setting an ID number provides a way of identifying the assignment for grade calculation purposes. If the activity is not included in any grade calculation then the ID number field can be left blank.

Tips and tricks

• Want to use an Assignment activity again? Copy the assignment by backing up the course and selecting just the assignment, with or without students and their data. Restore the backup to the same course or to a new course. Move the copied assignment and or edit it.
• Want to use an Assignment activity in another course you teach? Use the import function in the course administration block.
• Peer Review Assignment Type (contributed module)
• Using Moodle How do I make assignments worth more than 100 points? forum discussion

skip to content

Search Google Appliance

Information technology, services at a glance.

• Instructional Technologies
• Network Connectivity
• Online Storage & Collaboration
• Web Hosting
• Classroom Technologies

Article Details

• Grading and Tracking Student Activity

Last Updated:

Why can’t my students see their grades in moodle, we're taking you to an updated version of this article..

UMass Amherst Information Technology support articles are now updated in the new IT Knowledge Base. We found an updated version of this article, so we're sending you there.

Taking you to:

Stay here to view this page in the legacy Support Center . Information may be outdated as these articles are no longer maintained.

Find answers to your tech questions in the new IT Knowledge Base .

UMass Amherst Information Technology support articles are now updated in the new IT Knowledge Base.

This article is part of our archived legacy Support Center and may be outdated or inaccurate . We did not find an updated version of this article. That means this archived content is more likely to be outdated or no longer relevant. Check the new IT Knowledge Base for updated information:

More tech help options

On This Page:

Do students know where to find the gradebook, is the gradebook visible to students, is the graded activity hidden, are restrict access settings used, is the grade from a turnitin assignment, are grade items set to be visible, are category totals or the course total visible.

Are students reporting that they cannot see their grades in Moodle? Depending on the configuration of graded activities or grade columns, there are several possible reasons why a grade is not visible. This page details several troubleshooting steps to make sure that students can see their grades.

If some of your students report being unable to see their grades while others report otherwise, your students may not realize where to find the link that takes them to the gradebook. If possible, give your class a brief orientation on how you have set up the gradebook and how they can find it from your course's main page in Moodle. Alternately, you can direct students to the following help page: View Grades and Track Your Progress in a Moodle Course .

If students are reporting that they cannot see grades for your course at all, then your course settings may be set to prevent students from viewing grades (see Control Gradebook Visibility for Students in Moodle ).

If students report they can see some grades for your course, but not a particular graded activity, check to see if the activity is hidden from students. Hiding a graded activity on your course page also hides its grade from students.

• Locate the graded activity on your course page by opening all sections and scrolling down the page.

• If the activity is hidden, click Show . The link to the activity will no longer be grayed out, indicating the item is visible. The grades for the activity should become visible to students in the gradebook. If not, check the other troubleshooting questions on this page.

Restrict access settings allow you to control when an activity is available to students. When a graded activity is not only unavailable, but also hidden from students using Restrict access settings, students cannot see the grade for the activity. Note: To set a due date or cut-off date, look for Due date , End date , or Cut-off date options on the activity's Settings page. This is a preferred method for ending access.

• Locate the graded activity on your course page and click the Edit link for the activity, then Edit settings . The Edit settings page opens.
• On the Edit settings page, scroll down and click the Restrict access heading to open the Restrict access options.

Turnitin assignments have a setting called Post Date that controls when grades and comments are released to students. Prior to the Post Date , students cannot see the grades you have entered, in either the Turnitin interface or in the Moodle gradebook.

• On your course home page, click on the Turnitin assignment link on your Moodle course page. The assignment opens in Turnitin.

• Change the Post Date to specify the date and time you want students to be able to see their grades and feedback. Note:  If you want the grades to be immediately available, set the Post Date  to today's date (however the Post date cannot be earlier than the Due date ).
• Click outside the date options to save changes.

Instructors can control the visibility of individual grade items by adjusting settings on the Categories and Items page of the gradebook. From here, you can also show or hide category totals and the course total. See Control Visibility of Grade Items in Moodle , or Grade Category Options in the Moodle Gradebook .

If students report that they can see individual grade items but cannot see a category total or the course total grade (and you have confirmed that the totals are set to visible on the Categories and Items page), then it is because the calculation for the totals involved certain grade items that are hidden from students. If you make the hidden items visible, then the total will display. However, if you want these items to remain hidden but still want students to see the totals, then you need to adjust the following gradebook preferences:

• On the Course Management panel, under Grading , select Gradebook Setup . The Gradebook setup page will open. 
• On the Setup sub-tabs, click Course grade settings . The Course grade settings page will open.
• Scroll down the page, under the heading for User report, change the Hide totals if they contain hidden items drop-down menu to Show totals including hidden items to display the total grade including the values from the hidden grades.  Note: Do not select Show totals excluding hidden items as this may result in an inaccurate display to students (e.g., showing category totals out of 15340 points).
• Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save changes .

Get IT Help

Ask an expert at the IT Service Desk.

IT Service Desk Thanksgiving Recess Hours

• Wednesday, 11/22 and Friday, 11/24 : Email/chat, phone, and in-person support available 8:30 a.m. - 5 p.m.
• Thursday, 11/23 : IT Service Desk closed
• Email and Chat Support 8:30 a.m. - 9:45 p.m. Monday - Friday 10 a.m. - 10 p.m. Saturdays & Sunday
• Phone Support | 413-545-9400 8:30 a.m. - 4:45 p.m. Monday - Friday
• In-Person Support ( Campus Center ) 8:30 a.m. - 7:45 p.m. Monday - Friday No appointment necessary. Walk-ins and calls accepted until 15 minutes before closing.
• Computer, Phone & Other Device Repairs

• Online Submission

How to grade submissions under a group assignment in Moodle

Moodle allows you to ask for group submissions (such as essays, presentations, or projects) by using the ‘Assignment’ activity. It also allows you to grade  inside  or  outside  of Moodle and to use different  feedback types .

In this article, we will show you how to mark group submissions by using the blue ‘Grade’ button in Moodle.

How to grade group submissions

To grade group submissions in Moodle, please follow the steps below.

• Sign in to your Moodle account and select the course where you have created the group submission point. Please open the activity on a new page and then navigate to the Grading table by clicking on the ‘View all submissions’ button.
• Once you are there, please select a group from the drop-down list where it says ‘Separate groups (Group Assignment)’. In this case, we have selected ‘Group A’.

• The list will then reload as only those submissions will be shown that are allocated to ‘Group A’ in this case. Please click on the ‘Grade’ next to a submission – it does not matter which you choose specifically as the same submission file will appear next to each group member.

• A new page will open where you can grade the submission in two different ways (this place we call the Grading window), depending on the fact whether you would like all members to receive the same mark or you would like to individually grade them, for example, in case they did not contribute to the group work on the same level.
• If you wish to add the same mark to each member, then please enter the grade in the box where it says ‘Grade out of 100’.

• Please make sure you set to ‘Yes’ the settings ‘Apply grades and feedback to entire group’ that appears at the bottom of the page.

• Lastly, click on the ‘Save changes’ button to finalise your action.
• Please keep in mind that this grade will apply to all members as the same file has been submitted, therefore, you need to enter it once at one of the members only.

• If you wish to add different marks to each or some of the members, then you would need to individually enter grades for each student in the box where it says ‘Grade out of 100’ (as shown above). In this case, before saving the grade (‘Save changes’ button at the bottom of the page), please make sure you set the setting ‘Apply grades and feedback to entire group’ to ‘No’ that appears at the bottom of the page.

• Please keep in mind that you need to repeat the same grading process next to each member, as not the same grade will be given to them, regardless of the fact that the same file has been submitted by the members.

About The Author

Digital Education

Related articles.

• Releasing grades and feedback in Moodle with the Assignment activity
• Binding your Moodle assignments to UNIT-e
• Feedback types in Moodle
• Creating group submissions in Moodle
• Marking offline in Moodle using bulk download and upload
• Creating a Rubric with Moodle