So far, we have seen how we can use number, letter, and scale grades and how we can add assignments to courses. We can grade assignments and set up the Gradebook to calculate course totals.
We will now look at how we can view reports for all students as well as for individual students and some of the other ways in which the grade reports can be customized and exported. There are four main reports:
The grader report
The outcomes report
The overview report
The user report
We have already seen the grader report a few times throughout this book, as it is the main screen we see when we go into the Gradebook.
To get to the grader report, we go to the Grades area:
Click on Grades in the Administration block.
If you are using the tabs layout, make sure that the View tab and Grader report are selected. If you are using the drop-down list to navigate the Grades area, ensure that the Grader report option under the View heading is selected.
You can see the tabs and the drop-down menu in the following screenshot:
This report shows you the grades of all the students for each graded activity. This enables the teacher to see the progress of all students in one place.
The report shows you one student per row. For courses with many students, the student rows might appear over two or more pages. In this case, a Next button will appear to move to the next page of students. However, we can change how many students are shown per page within the Gradebook preferences...
The outcomes report is used in courses where outcomes have been added to the course. Details of how to enable and add outcomes are provided in Chapter 2, Customizing Grades. If you have tabs at the top of your screen, click on View and then click on the Outcomes report under the tabs. If you're using the drop-down list, choose Outcomes report under the View heading.
The outcomes report can help the teacher see which outcomes are being achieved and at what level; it also helps them see which ones might require additional support or development.
This previous report lists the three outcomes that have been used within this course. These are shown in the first column with the Short name title.
The second column shows you the average grade for each outcome. This average is based on the grades awarded for the outcome divided by the number of times this outcome has been graded. The average is shown in the same scale, as the outcome is graded but the number in brackets is the equivalent...
The next report that is available is the overview report. (If you have tabs at the top of your screen, click on View and then click on the Overview report under the tabs. If you're using the drop-down list, choose Overview report under the View heading.) This can be accessed from any course, but it enables a teacher to view the current course totals of each student for all the courses in which they are currently enrolled on Moodle.
After clicking on Overview report, a list of courses will appear, but the first step is to choose a user or student for whom we want to see the current course results. This drop-down list appears on the right-hand side next to Select a user.
Once a user has been chosen, the course list will change and display all the courses that the chosen student is enrolled in, and the grade column will show the current grade awarded for each course.
The current grade shows the same grade that appears in the Course total column of the grader report for each individual...
You can access the user report in the same way as the grader and overview reports. If you're using the drop-down list, find the View heading and click on User report. If you're using the tabs menu, click on View, and then click on User report, which is shown under the tabs.
Like the overview report, the user report requires the teacher to choose a user from the drop-down list on the right-hand side (unless the user report is accessed via the overview report or by clicking on the grades icon next to the student's name in the grader report).
The user report will show you each graded activity in the course along with the current grade awarded for each activity and the feedback given. This has the same information as the grader report, but this information is for an individual student. It also presents the information in a portrait rather than landscape format (the following screenshot only has a few activities within the Gradebook, but for courses with a lot of graded activities,...
A student can access the Gradebook in the same way as a teacher. They will click on Grades in the Administration block.
When a student views their grades, it is their own user report that they will see. Students can also view the overview report. Both reports look the same for the students as they do for the teacher. However, they can only see their own reports, whereas a teacher can view the reports for all students in the course.
By default, the Gradebook is available for students to view. If you would like to turn off access to the grades for students, you can do this in the course settings. Go to the Administration block and click on Edit settings under the Course Administration heading. Click on the Appearance title and find the Show gradebook to students option and change it from Yes to No.
We have seen how the grader, outcomes, overview, and user reports can be used and the information that can be shown on each. The information shown in the screenshots used is based on the default settings of each report. However, each of the reports can also be customized to change the information shown.
Within the Grades area of the course, there is a Settings section that can be used to change how each report is viewed in the course.
This is accessed through the Settings tab (if using the tabs layout) or by clicking on the drop-down list. Find the Settings heading and click on Course (if using the drop-down list option).
A range of options are available for each report type, as shown in the following screenshot:
Change the settings to meet your needs and click on Save changes at the bottom of the screen. These settings will be applied to the course rather than the individual user.
Apart from viewing the data within Moodle, it is possible to export the Gradebook data and download it to view and use offline. There are four options that are available to download it:
An OpenDocument spreadsheet
A plain text file
An Excel spreadsheet
An XML file
You access these options from the Grades area in Moodle in the same way as you access the reports. How you access the export options will depend on whether you are using the drop-down menu or tab navigation within the Grades area. Both options are shown in the following screenshot. If you're using the drop-down menu, find the Export heading and click on OpenDocument spreadsheet (you can also choose other export options from here). If you're using the tabs layout, click on the Export tab. Within the export tab, a second row of options appears, which provides you with the export options.
Once you are on the export screen, a range of options are available for you to choose the information to be exported and...
In this chapter, we saw the range of ways in which the Gradebook can be used and customized to display the data required for both teachers and students.
Teachers can see all student grades and individual user data as well as set up groups to aid the marking and review process. Students and teachers can also see an overview of all the courses that a user is enrolled on to see the current final grade for each course.
These reports provide the main options to view grades. However, there are a few further customizations that can aid the progress tracking. The final chapter will outline some of these options to further enable the tracking of students' progress.
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