Grading - Default Grading Scheme

Grading in Course Session

Grading is the mechanism used inside course session, to calculate the progress and completion of each learner. Grading works by having a grading scheme (policy) which defines all the grading criteria and formulae for the points calculations. The grading scheme requires learner's gradable activities as the primary input and produces a final point, percent or labeled grade. Grading scheme consists of following components

  • Max Score: overall max score allowed in the scheme
  • Passing Score: score required for passing the course. If the learner's grade are equal or more than this number, they would be awarded the course. In the auto award course, passing score of grading scheme is not used, rather passing depends on passing all mandatory quizzes in the course (described later on this page)
  • Grading Categories: categories allow you to group related gradable activities, and apply calculation logic on them as a group. E.g. you can have a category each for attendance, projects and assignments, lessons and quizzes and final exam in an instructor led training course. Each category can be allocated a minimum and max points so that overall evaluation of the learners considers their all-round achievements according to the weight of corresponding categories.
    • Rule (calculation): rule allows you to create a formulae which can be applied at a category, and produces the score for that category by taking into account all gradable activities of learner in that category
    • Denominator: Number by which sum of all score is divided in that category
    • Weight (Max Score): Max score possible for a category out of overall max score of the scheme
  • Calculation type: percent or absolute points.
    • Point Calculation: The idea is to provide a weighted total score at the end.  Max score of grading scheme can be less, equal or more than 100. Each category’s max score can also be any value, as long as sum of max scores in all categories equals max score of grading scheme. Each category score is calculated by adding all individual points from grading units corresponding to the same category.
    • Percent Calculation: The idea is to provide a weighted percent score at the end. Max score of the grading scheme equals 100. Sum of all category’s max scores must be 100. Each category score is first calculated as a percent. And then it is scaled as per the max score of category.

The final score is sum of all resulting weighted scores of categories.

  • Display type: the grading scheme allows you to display the final score produced by the scheme as absolute points, percent or as a label (e.g. A, B, C).
  • Labels:  For labeled grading, you can create list pf labels and range of scores for each label. E.g. A: > 80, B : > 70, C: > 60 ...

 

EduBrite provides a default grading scheme for each course sessions, which can be overridden by any customized scheme. Let's look at how the default grading scheme works.

Default Grading Scheme

A course may contain several types of resources which would be viewed or taken by the learners during the course-session. The default grading scheme provides a mechanism to monitor the progress of each learner, by taking into consideration some of the key activities they perform. Since the system captures many more activities than what are used by default grading scheme, you can always extend the default scheme to utilize other activities in your calculation.

Calculation Type: Percent

Display Type: Percent

Categories: Following categories are created based on content in the course

  • LESSON_READ - tracks the number of pages read in the course. This is created if the course has atleast one lesson. Each lesson is assumed to have atleast one page. For lessons having attached document/presentation the actual number of pages are counted. Total page count of the course is sum of page counts in all lessons. Learner's progress is tracked by having one gradable activity (grading unit) corresponding to each lesson. When any lesson is opened, its current page viewed field is updated if it is more than already stored value for the lesson.So if the lesson has 50 pages, and user advanced to page 25, the stored value would be 25. If user navigates back to page 24, 23 ... the stored value would remain unchnaged. It would be advanced to 26 though, if user advances to page 26. Denominator score of the category is equal to total page count in the course.
  • SCORM_ATTEMPT_START - tracks the scorm package launches. Only the start of the attempt is counted. So each scorm package in the course has one gradable activity (grading unit) which is updated when it is launched for the first time. Repeated launches of the scorm in the same course session has no effect on grading data. Denominator score of the category equals number of scorm packages in the course.
  • QUIZ_COMPLETED - tracks the completions of embedded quizzes in the courses. Each quiz can have multiple gradable activities (grading units), each of which represents a completed attempt. The score of each completed attempt is tracked by that unit. Max score of the category equals sum of Denominator score in all quizzes (not the attempts)
  • EXAM_QUIZ_COMPLETED - tracks completions of exams in the course session. One activity is added for each test in an exam conducted in course session.
  • COURSE_COMP_EXAM_QUIZ_COMPLETED - tracks completion of exam which is flagged as end of course exam. One activity is added for each such exam. If any Course completion exam is passed by the learner, they get the course awarded, regardless of the Passing Score set in the grading scheme.

The max score of each category is calculated as follows:
L = Number of lessons
Q = Number of quizzes
S = Number of Scorms

LESSON_READ.maxScore = (L / (L+Q+S) ) * 100
SCORM_ATTEMPT_START.maxScore = (S / (L+Q+S) ) * 100
QUIZ_COMPLETED.maxScore = (Q / (L+Q+S) ) * 100

 

Grade Calculation

Grade calculation works as follows:
Step 1: Category score

  1. Find the units for any given category (units whose category match the category name)
  2. Category Denominator calculation
    1. For system defined grading categories, denominator is pre-calculated (read in default grading section)
    2. For other categories (possible only in custom grading schemes), calculate the category.denominator by summing Max Points of all assignments in that category
  3. Calculate percent score in category by
catPercentScore = (sum of all points in all units) / category.denominator * 100


Step 2: Calculate weighted category score

catScore = catPercentScore / category.denominator * 100

Step 3: Sum scores of all categories

Final score = sum(catScore for all)

Auto Award

Auto award works in following manner:

If the course session's auto grading setting is ON, the grading rule is invoked for the learner's grade each time he or she completes a quiz, or an exam. If the course has ateast one mandatory quiz and its auto grading flag is ON and learner has passed the quiz, the course is awarded to the learner. If the course session has any Course Completion Exam created, then grading rule is invoked each time learner completes the exam. And if the learner passes the exam, they would be awarded the course.

Import example grading schemes

Custom grading schemes can be created, There are some example grading schemes available those can be inported in your site. To import example grading scheme, access Courses -> Grading menu option and click 'Import Example Grading Schemes' button. System will create example grading schemes in your site.

Setting a new Default Grading Scheme

A custom grading scheme can be set as a default grading scheme for the site. When you create a new course-session, if a custom default scheme is set, then it will get linked to the new course sessions created afterwards.  

To set default grading scheme -

  • Access Grading Scheme list page
  • Using the green checkbox in default colum you can set any custom grading scheme as default grading scheme for your site.

 


Rating: