Setting Up Grading in Moodle

§Purpose & Scope

This procedure applies to anyone setting up or maintaining gradebooks on the CampusOS Moodle platform: academic administrators defining a program's grading standard, and instructors configuring an individual course.

Moodle's gradebook is course-scoped — it has no built-in concept of a "degree program." Getting a program's grading consistent across every course requires two deliberate steps, covered in Parts 1 and 2 of this document: setting a shared grading standard once, then applying it the same way in every course.

▶Video Walkthrough

The Gradebook UI This SOP Describes

A short screen-recorded walkthrough of the actual Moodle gradebook — categories, aggregation, and grading a discussion forum inside it. Useful alongside the setup steps in Parts 1–2 below.

Watch on Vimeo →

§Core Concepts

How the gradebook is built

Four building blocks make up every Moodle gradebook. Understanding how they relate is what makes the setup steps in Parts 1–2 make sense.

How categories combine into one number

Every category (including the course total) uses an aggregation method to turn several grade items into one. CampusOS courses use Natural aggregation by default: each item's weight is automatically set to its maximum grade, so a 50-point exam naturally counts twice as much as a 25-point quiz, with no manual weighting required.

1Part 1 — Set the Program-Wide Grading Standard

Do this once per program, before any course is built

A grading standard set at the site level is inherited by every new course automatically. Set it correctly once here, and no individual instructor has to configure it right by hand.

1. Define the letter scale and percentage boundaries Agree the full letter table with the program's academic lead — for a 13-grade scale (A+ through F), every boundary needs sign-off before it's entered anywhere.
2. Enter the boundaries as the site default Set once at the platform level so every new course starts from the correct table instead of the stock 90/80/70/60 breakpoints. Site administration → Grades → Letters
3. Decide how non-numeric outcomes are handled Incomplete, Withdrawal, and Audit have no native slot in a numeric course total. Choose one approach and apply it program-wide: a custom grade scale item in Moodle, or a status field recorded downstream in the student system.
4. Publish the standard course category template Agree a starting set of categories every course will use (e.g. Homework, Quizzes, Exams, Participation) so gradebooks look consistent across the catalog. This becomes the starting point instructors copy in Part 2.

2Part 2 — Configure an Individual Course

Do this for every course, once the program standard exists

1. Open the gradebook setup screen This is where categories and items for the course are created and reordered. Course → Grades → Setup
2. Create the course's grade categories Start from the program's standard template (Part 1, step 4), adding or removing categories only where the course genuinely differs.
3. Set each category's aggregation method Leave Natural selected unless a category has a specific reason to weight differently — e.g. "Exams must always be exactly 40% regardless of point totals" calls for Weighted mean instead.
4. Configure drop-lowest and extra-credit rules, if used Set on the category, not the individual item.
   !

   Drop-lowest and extra credit cannot both be set on the same Natural category. If a course needs both — e.g. drop the lowest of five quizzes, and a separate bonus quiz counts as extra credit — nest two categories: an outer category with the drop-lowest rule, an inner category holding the extra-credit item.

5. Confirm "Exclude empty grades" is enabled On by default. If it's off, every ungraded item counts as a zero, and the whole class shows an artificially low grade for the first weeks of term — the most common new-instructor support request.
6. Set the grade-to-pass value on the course total This is the numeric threshold Moodle treats as passing for this specific course.
7. Preview the grader report before the course goes live Enter a few sample grades and confirm the course total and letter both land where expected before students see the gradebook.

3Part 3 — Finalizing Grades at Term End

Locking, and what happens after

A grade item or the course total can be locked manually, or on a scheduled date. Locking freezes the value — nothing recalculates it further, which is what makes it the "ready" signal for downstream reporting.

Once the course total is locked, the final grade is picked up and written to the student information system. That sync procedure is documented separately — see the companion SOP, Moodle–SIS Grade Sync.

§Appendix

Recommended default settings