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Robert Rae
Last seen: 3 months 4 weeks ago
Joined: 08/20/2019 - 16:32
Gradebook Feature Exploration

Folks,

We've had something along these lines on the wish/dream list for a while now, but as the UK regulatory wheel grinds ever onward, it's been moved somewhat up the list by this little gem in our HESES government report requirements going forward:

Sufficient data should be recorded at the module level on the main student record system to allow accurate assessment of a student’s completion status. This should include, but not necessarily be limited to, identifying the final assessment  and the student’s submission to it (this is whether specifically the last assessment for the module was completed) , and the overall outcome for the module. Coding should distinguish between non-submission to an assessment and a very low mark for poor academic performance or misconduct (we have triggers now for malpractice, but not a difference between 0 for poor performance and 0 for non-submission). This level of detail should be readily available to ensure accurate reporting of a student’s completion status.

Essentially, we need to (at a minimum) be able to record and report individual component assessment marks in GNECsis. So, if Class CT4000 has a Book Report worth 10%, an Exam worth 30%, and an Essay worth 60%, we would need to be able to record the marks the students achieved for each of these, which we consider the 'final' assessment, and have a way of noting for a failing grade whether it was for poor performance, or non-submission. Of course, we'd still need a place to calculate the final grade for the transcript!

In an ideal world, I think a Gradebook for UK schools would include the following:

  1. A way to setup each class to indicate how many asssesments and the weightings for each. 
  2. A space to record each raw component mark (what the lecturer marked it as).
  3. A space to record each adjusted component mark (the final mark for each assignment after late penalties, etc).
  4. A space to note how many days late the assignment was.
  5. A final calculated grade.
  6. A space for additional coding - e.g. R (for referred), C (for compensated), etc.
  7. A space for exam grid coding
  8. A general open notes field

Now, something along these lines would allow for opening up discussion of automated integration with MOODLE, which would be a huge win, since it would cut down probably the largest manual-entry job we have going. So, that's another positive, though I recognise it also creates new challenges!

I'd be happy to chat over some ideas - we could do with getting the ball rolling fairly soon, as reporting this information out of manual spreadsheets is going to be a real pain!

Thanks for your input!

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kbible
Last seen: 1 hour 23 min ago
Joined: 01/22/2019 - 10:07
Too many differences between schools

We have explored a gradebook feature in the past, and determined that there are just too many differences between schools to do one adequately.  At this time, this is not something that we feel that we can add well.  Thank you for your input.

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Senior Software Developer
Global Ministry Center - Church of the Nazarene

Robert Rae
Last seen: 3 months 4 weeks ago
Joined: 08/20/2019 - 16:32
Yes, that's understandable. I

Yes, that's understandable. I'd like us to consider keeping it on the development list for the UK schools - we all use MOODLE and a virtually identical assessment setup, so the differences for us at least are minimal. 

What we'll need to think about, bearing that in mind, is what we'll need to achieve our governmental reporting requirements. So, in this case, I think changes to the Class > Grading subsection to take into account multiple assessments as well as a final grade. The HESES guidelines are pretty clear - we'll need a way to differentiate and report out from the GNECsis invidual assessment component grades in addition to the final grade.

Thanks!

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Robert Rae
Admissions
Nazarene Theological College, Manchester (UK)

aschrock
Last seen: 1 month 4 weeks ago
Joined: 01/22/2019 - 10:07
Hi Rob,

Hi Rob,

Trying to sort out the easiest way to implement something like this without a full-blown gradebook which is a much larger task. Getting things to Moodle is always either than getting things from Moodle as well, so we can look at that after looking first at the particulars on what we need.

One first question, do you need to process this grade information or is it just to be able to refer back to at a student level? What I am wondering is if you could export the gradebook from Moodle and upload it as a document in the document management system for the class. This would theoretically  have all of this information that could be referred back to, but not really able to be proceessed further for reporting. I don't know what the reporting looks like so this may not be an option - was just a thought on something that is already available.

How many assignments maximum do you need?

So, for each assignment entered do you need all of the data above? ( raw grade, adjusted grade, days late, final calculated, additional code, exam grid coding, notes)? So, it isn't like a set of 6 fields to give you but more of a matrix of a row for each grade and columns for the various components above)?

Would it be sufficient to have the calcuations all done externally. It seems these woudl be the most variable between institution (how assignment 1 relates to 2, etc.).

It woudl be helpful to see the report that these go onto - hopefully not HESA. :-(

THanks

 

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GNECsis Translation, data import, specialist programmer 

Robert Rae
Last seen: 3 months 4 weeks ago
Joined: 08/20/2019 - 16:32
Alan,

Alan,

Thankfully I don't think we'll need that functionality for reporting purposes. I'll chat over with Dana a bit in person (we're setting a meeting time!) but essentially to meet reporting needs in the short-term, I think we'll just need discrete fields in the 'grading' subsection of each Class to store component grades as well as the final grade, in a way that we can report out easily en masse this information in a way that give us for each student:

1. Overall Mark
2. Component Marks
3. Which of these components was the 'final' assessment, and if it was a failing mark whether that was for poor performance or non-submission. 

So, we won't need any of the other pieces, and we won't need MOODLE integration or internal calcuations - those are on our wish-list for quality-of-life improvements (I'd call it that manual entry and cross-checking the single biggest time-sink for all the UK schools, and that's only going to get worse as we need to store this additional information), but to meet that HESES criteria we just need the above information ... for now!

It woudl be helpful to see the report that these go onto - hopefully not HESA. :-(

Me too! Thankfully not HESA - at the moment it's just this notifier in HESES that we'll need to store this information in an easily-accessible way in our SIS, no hint on whether it will need to be reported more widely, or how.

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Robert Rae
Admissions
Nazarene Theological College, Manchester (UK)

kbible
Last seen: 1 hour 23 min ago
Joined: 01/22/2019 - 10:07
Version 2.75

In the next release, there will be a basic version of this. 

- In instructor portal, there will be an assessment group section

  •  An instructor can set up assessment groups for this class or use a default set of assessment groups (set up in academics administration). 
  • Each assessment group has a name, total points, and weight (percentage of total grade this should count as).  
  • Enter points for each assessment group for each student (who does not yet have a final grade entered)
  • Calculate Grade - if your grade scale has percentages and letter grades, the percent will be calculated and the letter grade determined based on the grade scale.
  • Move Calculated Grade to Instructor Final Grade - if grades open for entry, this will set the instructor final grades with these grades.

- The information entered in instructor portal is also available to be viewed in Class > Grading section.

This should at least be a start, and we can talk through additional enhancements that can be added at a future point.

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Senior Software Developer
Global Ministry Center - Church of the Nazarene