This article contains examples of Gradebooks with a Formula Grading System. It can help you better understand the Gradebook setup.
Content
- Before you start
- Example 1: Calculating a final grade where test components’ weights are integrated in the maximum scores
- Example 2: Calculating a final grade by adding weighted scores of each test component.
- Example 3: Including conditions for calculating the final grade
- Example 4: Include conditional requirements in the calculation of the final grade
- Example 5: Conditioning an assignment on receiving a grade on another (final) assignment
Before you start
Make sure you have gone through the Grades Setup Wizard and determined the major settings of the Gradebook. In doing so, you have chosen a Formula Grading System.
You can check if this is the case by going to Grades > Settings (top right) > 'Calculation options' tab. Under Grading System the option 'Formula' should be selected.
To be able to check the result of a formula, you need (fictitious) grades in your Gradebook, in the columns used to calculate the final grade. You can enter these grades for a Dummy student which you can add in your environment. You enter these grades via Enter Grades > Switch to Spreadsheet View.
Example 1: Calculating a final grade where test components’ weights are incorportated in the maximum scores
This example contains the following parts:
For this example, the assessment of a course consists of two components:
- A presentation for which a student can score a maximum of 20 points.
- A final report for which a student can score a maximum of 30 points.
For both products, a resit can be done. In the case of a resit, the highest achieved grade counts.
Thus, in total, the student can score 50 points, and the Final Report has a larger share of that total than the Presentation. This way, the weighting of the two test components is already included in the distribution of points and the scores only need to be added up.
For both test items, a retake can also be taken, with the highest grade counting.
Setting the Final Calculated Grade
- In your course, navigate to Grades. Look for the Final Calculated Grade column and choose edit.
- Click the arrow next to Final Calculated Grade and choose Edit.
- The title doesn't need to be changed and selecting a category isn't necessary because this is the final grade.
- Enter the maximum number of points that the students can achieve with the two assignments.
- Click on Edit Using the Formula Editor to set a formula that:
- on the first and second chance of both test components, first determines the highest score in each case
- and then adds them together.
- You can enter this exact example in the Formula Editor in the following way:
- Function MAX, [START]
- Grade Item ‘Eindrapport’, points received, [INSERT]
- Function MAX, [NEXT TERM]
- Grade Item ‘Eindrapport Herkansing’, points received, [INSERT]
- Function MAX, [END]
- +
- Function MAX, [START]
- Grade Item ‘Presentatie’, points received, [INSERT]
- Function MAX, [NEXT TERM]
- Grade Item ‘Presentatie Herkansing’, points received, [INSERT]
- Function MAX, [END]
- Optionally, first click on Validate to check your formula and then click Preview to preview the results of the calculation.
- Click Insert to save the formula in the Grade Item.
- You can leave the default scheme selected if you want the final grade to be shown as a percentage. If you want to convert this percentage to a grade, you can create and link your own Grade Scheme.
What do you see as a teacher?
As a teacher, you see your students and their grades via Grades on the Enter Grades tab. As you can see in the image below, there is a column (grade item) in the Gradebook for every item that is graded.
Besides these columns, you also see a column with the students' names and at the end (and optionally also at the beginning) there is the Final Calculated Grade. The grade is now calculated automatically based on the available grades of the different test components.
- The calculation gives the above result in the Gradebook. For each test item, the scores are shown (both point numbers and percentages). A final grade is then calculated. In this case, the students respectively scored 41, 35 and 30 out of 50 points. This results in a (rounded) final score of rounded 82%, 70% and 60%.
What does the student see?
- Students also click on Grades to see their grades. As shown below, the students see the amount of points they've received and the final grade.
- For each assignment, they see the number of points earned, followed by their score according to the linked Grade Scheme (here: percentages). At the top (if released) they see the Final Calculated Grade, which shows their final score, with below it the corresponding final grade according to the linked Grade Scheme.
Example 2: Calculating a final grade by adding weighted scores of each test component
Let's look again at the two assignments Presentation and Final Report. Instead of simply adding the points together, we want the score on the Presentation to count for 30% and the score for the Final Report to count for 70%. Again, only the highest scores from the first and second chance should be added together. That is what we are going to set up with the Formula Editor.
- Again, navigate to Grades. Look for the Final Calculated Grade column and choose edit.
- As Maximum Points, enter the maximum number of points the student can obtain. Note that this is not equal to the sum of the maximum point numbers of the two assignments because weighting applies. In this example, the maximum number of points is 27, because the Presentation counts for 30% (30% of 20 points = 6) and the Final Report counts for 70% (70% of 30 points = 21).
- Via Edit Using Formula Editor, we enter a formula that:
- looks at both test items to see on which chance (first or second) the highest score was obtained
- gives both scores the appropriate weighting (final report 70% and presentation 30%) and then adds them together. In Example 1, we did that by putting a + between the components of the addition. You can use that here too, but in this example we show how you can use the SUM function for this.
- We create a formula again. The formula above shows that the highest grade out of the first and second attempt still counts for the final grade (MAX).
- In this calculation, we do not work with a weight like example 1, as the weight is already defined in the number of achievable points. Every product has a different maximum score, thereby creating a weight.
- You can enter this exact example in the Formula Editor in the following way:
- Function SUM, [START]
- Function MAX, [START]
- Grade Item ‘Presentatie’, points received, [INSERT]
- Function MAX, [NEXT TERM]
- Grade Item ‘Presentatie Herkansing’, points received, [INSERT]
- Function MAX, [END]
- * 0.3
- Function SUM, [NEXT TERM]
- Function MAX, [START]
- Grade Item ‘Eindrapport’, points received, [INSERT]
- Function MAX, [NEXT TERM]
- Grade Item ‘Eindrapport Herkansing’, points received, [INSERT]
- Function MAX, [END]
- * 0.7
- Function SUM, [END]
- Optionally, first click on Validate to check your formula and then click Preview to preview the results of the calculation.
- Click Insert to save the formula in the Grade Item.
- Click on Save and Close to save your changes.
In the above example, the highest ratings for student 1 for the presentation were 17 points and for the Final Report were 24 points. According to the weighting, this results in a final score of 21.9 points, which is just over 81% of the points.
Example 3: Including conditions for calculating the final grade
If you look closely at the results in the Gradebook for examples 1 and 2, you may notice that student 3 failed the retake of the presentation, but still has a passing grade in the Final Calculated Grade column. This is because the student was able to compensate with the score on the Final Report.
If you want to prevent this from happening, you can specify in the formula that the final score should only be calculated if on both test components, the student scored on or above the minimum level that is needed to pass.
This is what we'll show in this example, by including conditions in the calculation of the final grade.
Calculations with conditions can get complicated quickly. Therefore, please ask yourself whether you want to add this to the calculation, or describe in the test information that the final grade will only be valid once these conditions are met. In the Gradebook, you can always see whether this condition is met, even when no formula was added to show this.
Do you want to calculate with conditions anyway? There is an example below that shows how to do this.
Setting the Final Calculated Grade with conditions
Again, we use the Presentation and the Final Report as the test items. As in the previous example, the Presentation counts for 30% and the Final Report counts for 70%. Again, there is a retake on both parts. However, the final grade is not calculated until more than 55% of the points are scored on both parts. So in the case of the Presentation (max 20) this is from 11 points and in the case of the Final Report (max 30) from 17 points.
The formula below is structured in such a way that it first checks if the condition is TRUE that at least the required number of points have been obtained in both parts (underlined in yellow). Only if that is true, the scores are weighted as in Example 2. That is the second part of the formula (green underlined).
At the very end of the formula is indicated what to show if the condition is not met. In this case, the final score will then be 0 points (underlined in red).
- You can enter this exact example in the Formula Editor in the following way:
- Function IF, [START]
- Function MAX, [START]
- Grade Item ‘Presentatie’, percent, [INSERT]
- Function MAX, [NEXT TERM]
- Grade Item ‘Presentatie Herkansing’, percent, [INSERT]
- Function MAX, [END]
- >= 55
- AND
- Function MAX, [START]
- Grade Item ‘Eindrapport’, percent, [INSERT]
- Function MAX, [NEXT TERM]
- Grade Item ‘Eindrapport Herkansing’, percent, [INSERT]
- Function MAX, [END]
- >= 55
- Function IF, [NEXT TERM]
- Function MAX, [START]
- Grade Item ‘Presentatie’, points received, [INSERT]
- Function MAX, [NEXT TERM]
- Grade Item ‘Presentatie Herkansing’, points received, [INSERT]
- Function MAX, [END]
- * 0.3
- +
- Function MAX, [START]
- Grade Item ‘Eindrapport’, points received, [INSERT]
- Function MAX, [NEXT TERM]
- Grade Item ‘Eindrapport Herkansing’, points received, [INSERT]
- Function MAX, [END]
- * 0.7
- Function IF, [NEXT TERM]
- 0
- Function IF, [END]
- Optionally, first click on Validate to check your formula and then click Preview to preview the results of the calculation.
- Click Insert to save the formula in the Grade Item.
- Click on Save and Close to save your changes.
Example 4: Include conditional requirements in the calculation of the final grade
In Example 3, you use a formula to ensure that the final grade is calculated correctly. You can also use a similar formula to determine whether the conditional requirements have been met. In this example, the conditional requirements are assessed in a separate column. This article describes how to set conditional requirements on an assignment. The preferred method is method 1. However, in some cases you may want to use method 3. In that case you can use the formula below.
The same warning applies as in Example 3:
Calculations with conditions can quickly become complex. Therefore you should ask yourself whether you want to include this in your calculation, or, for example, describe in the test information that the final grade is only valid when the conditions are met. In the Gradebook you can always deduce whether these conditions are indeed met, even without using a calculation.
Add the Final Calculated Grade to the conditional requirements in a separate column
In this example, a Portfolio is handed in. The content rubric assesses 6 criteria for which 30 points can be obtained. According to the conversion table, a score of 66% results in a 6. In the rubric for the conditional requirements, 4 criteria are assessed with a maximum score of 4 points. The conditional requirements rubric is attached to an item in the gradebook.
This looks like this:
- The assignment Portfolio column
- The gradebook item Side Constraints to which the rubric with the conditional requirements is linked
- The gradebook item to which the formula is linked.
Under Manage grades, it looks like this:
The formula below is structured so that it first checks to see if the condition is TRUE that all parts of the conditional rubric have been met (underlined in yellow). Only if that is true, the score on the content-based rubric will be shown. That is the second part of the formula (green underlined).
The third part of the formula specifies what to show if the condition is not met. The final score then becomes 19 points (underlined in red). This point number is based on the corresponding grade 6 (66%), but -1 point because it is just below satisfactory. For the 30-point rubric, this is 19 points. What you are saying with this part of the formula is that if a student achieves 19 points or less the passing grade is shown. If the student scores more than 19 points and therefore has a passing grade on the content it is truncated to a 5 because the requirements have not been met. The student will then be shown a 5.
Example 5: Conditioning an assignment on receiving a grade on another (final) assignment
In this example, students must turn in a professional product with a group, for which they receive a 1 (fulfilled) or 0 (not fulfilled). Getting a fulfilled is conditional to getting a grade in the Final Grade.
You do this by using the IF function (=condition). If the condition is fulfilled, the final grade is calculated (highest grade from the first chance and retake on the individual reflection report.
The formula below has been added to the Final Calculated Grade column for this purpose. You can use this as an example to set this up for your own course.
