When some sets of grade items are combined differently from others
- Ian Shaw (Unlicensed)
- Natalie Hugo
This support page describes how to use more than one aggregation type, defining the way the grades are combined, inside the same category.
It is possible that you want the grades from some of your assessed activities to be aggregated together in one way, and the grades from others a different way, but all of them to exist in the same category.
For example, let's say your course has a set of four tests, then one big exam at the end. All of them live in the exam category of Standard Activities. The big exam is 60% of the mark and the remaining 40% comes from the tests, so the weighted mean of grades is fine for the category as a whole. However, you don't want to take a weighted mean of all the tests, you just want to take the highest scoring test and use that one for assessment. So there are two aggregations required, one to drop the lowest scoring tests and take only the highest score forward, and another to take a weighted mean of the score from the tests - which we have decided we want to be the highest scoring test - and the big exam.
The solution is to create another nested category, move the tests into it, and apply a suitable aggregation to that.
Instructions
Step 1 - Create a category for each set of grade items
On the gradebook setup page, scroll to the bottom of the screen and click Add category.
Step 2 - Set up the category for the set of grade items
We want this subcategory to hold a subset of our grade items, so here it is names Class Tests and the Aggregation is set to Highest grade. This method will work for any aggregation, or you can supply your own custom calculation, which you can read about on the page Setting up the Gradebook for a Multi-Class Site.
Step 3 - Move the grade items into the new subcategory
When you return to the gradebook setup it should look something like this. If Class Tests is in the wrong place you can move it - you can read about how on the page Moving activities into categories, the same method works for categories themselves.
In the red box you can see that I have checked the four tests I want to move into the Class Tests category.
With the checkboxes checked, at the bottom of the page select the category you want to move this set of grade items into. In this case it's Class Tests. Save changes.
Step 4 - Set the weighting for each grade item or set of grade items
The final step is to weight the grade items. We have decided the final exam is 60% and the highest of the tests is 40% so we will weight accordingly.
Step 5 - Check the grading is correct
This is a grade report like the one the student will see.
The green box shows the grades the student earned.
The red box shows the calculated weight - so Class Test 1 contributes 100% to the Class Tests category, and the others 0%, because that category is calculated by highest mark.
Class Tests total contributes 40% and Final Exam contributes 60%, as required.
The aqua box shows that the 80% score in a 60% weighed grade item results in a contribution of 48% to the total (80% of 60% is 48%).
The blue box shows that the 60% score in a 40% weighted grade item results in a contribution of 24% to the total (60% of 40% is 24%)
The other tests contribute 0% as only the highest one counts.
At the bottom you can see the Examination category total is 72%.
(48% + 24%, as expected).
