Weighting Activities Within a Category
- Ian Shaw (Unlicensed)
- Natalie Hugo
This support page describes how to weight activities within a category. This is only necessary if you have more than one activity within a category. It also highlights how categories can be weighted.
Examples on this page
Many of the examples on this page are grade items but it is the same method for any activity which appears in the gradebook.
Key information about weighting in Myplace
Weightings are applied by Myplace as ratios. Therefore, weighting two activities as 0.25 and 0.75 respectively will have the same effect as weighting them 25 and 75, or 1 and 3. As weightings are often expressed as a percentage of the whole class total in other documents, such as class handbooks, you may prefer to use those same whole numbers when applying weightings in the gradebook but it is up to you.
Weightings can be applied at a category and activity level. The weighting applied to any activity will express its contribution to the total of the category it sits within. For example:
There are two assignments within a coursework category (see image on the right). The weightings for 'Test assignment' and 'MindGenius Assignment' only describe how the total for the Coursework category is calculated. The Coursework category total then contributes 50% or half of the Summative category total.
If the two assignments were both given a weight of 1 the same calculation would be performed and the same mark would be produced because all that is being described is that they contribute equal weight to the Coursework total.
Weighting categories within another category
Similarly, the weighting applied to categories will express their contribution to the total of the category they sit within.
The example above shows that the Coursework and Exam category totals contribute 50:50 to the Summative category total.
Instructions
Step 1 - Go to the Gradebook
The weighting of activities is performed in the gradebook.
In the Administration block, click on Gradebook setup.
Step 2 - Check the category's aggregation method
Go to the category you will be working on. Â
In the row that contains the category name, click on Edit and then Edit settings.
Ensure that 'weighted mean of grades' is selected.
Then click 'Save changes'.
Is there more than one activity in the category?
Remember that it is only necessary to weight activities within a category if there is more than one activity.
Step 3 - Apply relative weights to the grade items
Let's say we want to give 60% to class test A, 20% to class test B and 20% to the final exam.
We can quite straightforwardly weight each grade item as a fraction of 1.Â
Equally, it is perfectly possible to express the same weighting as whole numbers.
Sometimes using whole numbers may be more accurate - in the example on the right, all the exams should have equal weighting. You may prefer this to weighting them as 0.33 each.
Mean of grades
It is also possible to equally weight each item in a category equally by selecting 'mean of grades' as the aggregation method for the category.
Remember! Categories can be weighted too!
Please be aware that categories can be weighted too; their weighting appears in the same column.
In the image on the right, the orange group are grade items within a category which are equally weighted.
The blue group shows the weighting of the exam and projects categories which determines how their totals contribute to the Standard Activities total, which is the category they sit within. In the example on the right, exams are worth one third of the Standard Activities total, and projects two thirds.
