Regis MyOnline Moodle Training

The most common way to view a discussion thread is to view replies in nested form. This allows the reader to see every post with its full text while alerting the reader to who began the first thread and who replies to each subsequent post. Keep an eye on yellow text: this is the color used to indicate a new post. If you would like to use this feature, adjust your Forum Notification settings in your Profile.

This style of viewing discussion posts allows the reader to more clearly see who began a discussion and the people who replied. The reader must then click the individual threads to review.

This style of discussion view only affects the initial replies and can be useful to see when students replied compared to others.

How Do I Reply Publicly to a Post?

Any use of the Reply button in a discussion posts a user’s message to the entire online class. If the user wants to format text, insert links, images, or media, they can click the Advanced button. This will allow the use of the standard text editor, and file attachments.

How Do I Reply Privately to a Post?

Any discussion reply can be made private by clicking the Reply Privately checkbox or by clicking Advanced and choosing Reply privately at the bottom. Replying privately should be limited to matters concerning active discussions and not for grading as there’s a separate private feedback area specifically used for grading.

Sometimes a user posts something of value that either a student or instructor wants to share in another part of the course, share in another discussion, or simply quote another user’s response. Click the Permalink button and go to the URL area of your browser and copy the highlighted link. This link can be inserted anywhere and accessed as long as the user has access to where the link originated.

This tool allows users to organize posts of a specific user to make it easier to read and review. Use the pull-down menu to select a student and every post that they made to the forum will appear.

• The Forum Grader sorting system only works in the nested view.
• This tool helps to organize discussions if students posted more than once in different parts of a discussion.
• The grade and feedback are sent directly to the Moodle Gradebook.
• The corner of the Feedback box can be extended to allow for easier text entry.
• The override button is available to ensure only one area of Moodle has the most recent grade. If a grade has already been entered into the Moodle

Gradebook or other place, the user must click “override” to cancel a previous grade and enter a new one.

Steps:

1. Use the pull-down menu above the discussion to select Display replies in nested form.
2. Go to the far-right and select the student you wish to grade from the Forum Grader area.
3. Review the student’s performance. Enter a grade and feedback. If you wish to expand the Feedback area, click the bottom-right corner with your mouse and drag.
4. Click Override if you wish to cancel out a grade in another area of the course.
5. Click Save when complete. All grades and feedback are sent to the Moodle Gradebook.

This tool allows a user to grade all discussion threads on one screen. This tool also incorporates a rubric to simplify grading.

Steps:

1. Click Grade users from the main discussion screen. All discussion threads will be included.
2. From the Grading screen, choose a user by using the left or right buttons or the magnifying glass. The magnifying glass icon allows the grader to see all discussion participants in alphabetical order. The left and right buttons only allow one user to be seen in sequential order.
3. After selecting a user to grade, the grader will use the rubric area to choose the criteria that best matches the student’s performance. The grader can also send a notification to the student alerting them to an impending grade to their Gradebook. The grader can also view the parent post or the entire discussion that a student’s post belongs to. The grade is sent directly to the student’s Gradebook.
   

   Important Note: All criteria feedback is viewed within the discussion rubric and does not transfer to the student’s gradebook. Overall feedback can be entered via the student’s Gradebook column.

   
4. If the grader wants to leave feedback for the user, they are encouraged to comment directly within the student’s Gradebook cell.

At Regis there are discussions that require a few extra steps of evaluation. These discussions require the use of an interactive rubric tool called a Smart Rubric. Only discussions in the MSN program at Regis use the Smart Rubric mode for grading.

Please review the following resource before grading:

1. Links to the homepage of the course, the assignment, and to the list of all submissions.
2. Links to the student profile and contact information page.
3. Allows the user to change the student and to filter the type of assignment: Submitted, Not submitted, Requires grading, and Granted extension.

Use the annotation menu to mark-up a student’s submission. The student will be able to view these annotations once grades have been made and released. The edits do not harm the document and can be deleted at any time simply by clicking the markup and selecting the garbage can icon.

Note: If an instructor does not want to use this feature and prefers to download the student paper and use Track Changes, markup, feedback, or comments via MS Word, they can simply scroll to the right and download the document to their computer.

Document Navigation
Search Comments
Expand / Collapse Comments
Rotate 90 Degrees Left / Right
Make Comment / Comment Color
Drag or Select Document
Organic Line
Straight Line
Boxed Comment
Circled Comment
Highlighter
Change Color
Stamp / Stamp Type

1. Green color indicating a submission that was on-time. Red color would indicate late. This area also indicates if the assignment has been graded.
2. Some assignments allow students to re-submit as long as the due date has not passed.
3. All documents can be manually downloaded to the instructor’s computer for offline grading. Either click the title or right-click and manually download.
4. Turnitin is a plagiarism detection tool used by many institutions. Here the unique document code is revealed as well as the Similarity Index: a percentage that reveals how much of a document has been found from other sources all over the internet. By clicking the pencil icon, the instructor can review the document in more detail and decide further actions.
5. The Comments area gives students a chance to communicate to the instructor details about their submission.
6. This is the grading area. Instructors will enter grades here and the grade will automatically be transferred to the Moodle Gradebook. Keep in mind that a grade can only exist in one spot at a time, meaning the Gradebook can not have a different grade than the Assignment area seen here.

Feedback Comments

1. This area is where instructors can give direct feedback to the student. These feedback comments can be formatted text, images, URLs (links), audio recordings, video recordings, and more.

   Besides the traditional formatting tools, here are some of the more useful options available for commenting:

   	Make URL / Break URL	Take internet links and add them to your comments. Don’t forget to choose the “Open in new window” option so that students will see the links open in a new browser tab
   	Import Word file	Allows the user to link to a MS Word document
   	Insert image	Allows the user to insert an image into the comments window
   	Insert media file	Allows the user to insert a video URL or attach a video or audio file from their own computer
   	Record audio / Record video	Allows the user to record a 2:00 minute microphone or webcam recording that attaches to the Feedback area

Feedback Files

2. If you downloaded the student’s submission and added your own TrackChanges, markup, feedback, or Comments directly to the paper, this is the area you can return the file back to the student. This is also an excellent area for instructors to attach other files such as rubrics, and more.

1. Check this box to make sure students get an email message notifying them that their assignment has been returned.
2. Always click Save at the bottom of your screen to ensure students’ grades and feedback are posted to the Gradebook.
3. Moodle offers three views to allow for more screen space when grading.

1. With Turn editing on clicked, the Gradebook is now ready for you to edit. Every column listed in the Gradebook behaves in the same way. They each have the same tools and functions regardless of the activity type.
2. The Edit grade item screen: The gear icon at the top of the activity column edits functions that affect the ENTIRE activity and not just one student. Since the grading schemes and settings for every assignment have been set up by your Boundless Learning instructional designer, it is recommended that you do not make any changes in this column EXCEPT to adjust the Hidden function:
3. The Edit grade screen: The gear icon in the cell of a particular student gives the grader access to a special area to give a grade, override a grade, hide a grade, and give detailed feedback.
   **This area does not allow the grader to return a document to the student. That must be done via the activity grading area, or via email.
4. Quick Grading. Quick Grading is the process where graders don’t leave the Grader Report and prefer to enter grades and feedback directly onto the screen. To do this, simply click in the first cell (1) to enter a grade, or the second cell (2) to enter feedback.

• The main grading screen in the Gradebook is called the Grader Report. When you enter this screen, you’ll see all of your students listed along with columns and cells of their graded activities.
• Most instructors grade as much as they can within the graded activity, i.e., the discussion, the assignment, the quiz; they leave revisions and grading of special components (Participation grades, special projects, etc.) to the Gradebook.
• The Grader Report page contains some very important elements to help you grade efficiently:

1. Turn editing on: You must click Turn editing on in the top-right corner to make any changes in the Gradebook. Without doing so, the Gradebook can only be viewed.
2. Choose report: A pull-down menu that contains all of your other courses that you are teaching. If you select another course from this pull-down menu, you will be taken directly to that course’s Grader Report. This is a very handy tool for instructors teaching multiple sections.
3. Grade administration menu: A pull-down menu that takes the user to other grading areas and screens to help evaluate students. Typically, most instructors do not leave the Grader Report screen.
4. Show Only: A pull-down menu that allows the instructor to view all weeks/modules or only a particular week or module of content. This is essential to avoiding the difficult task of scrolling back and forth using the scrollbars at the bottom of the screen. For many courses, there could be over 30 gradebook entries; this tool allows you to see a single module/week at a time.
5. Student Profile & Single View: Instructors can click the chart to review one student’s total performance and feedback. The Single View allows for easy editing of just one student’s grades. However, both of these options do not contain the full editing capabilities of the Grader Report.

The Overridden box allows the grader to override any grading entered in another area of Moodle. This is important because if a grader overrides a grade in the Gradebook, all rubric or feedback information that was entered in the activity area is now overwritten by whatever is in the Grader Report.

When do you override a grade?

• Adjusting a student grade
• Entering a discussion grade for the first time
• A grader chooses to use the Gradebook as their primary form of grading

The Excluded function will remove a particular item from a student’s final grade.

The Hidden function is very important. This allows graders to hide grades or feedback from all students or individual students. This is especially useful if graders are unable to grade activities within a short time span and would prefer if all students received their grades and feedback at the same time. Don’t forget to return to this screen when you want to release all grades and feedback.

The Feedback area of the Edit grade page is a fully functional text editor much like the one seen in Instructor Announcements, discussions, and assignments.

Moodle allows you to take data from your gradebook and export it to your own computer so you can modify values or input them into your own grading system (e.g., if you use advanced formulas to compute grades and prefer to work in a program like Excel). Moodle exports grades in the following file formats:

• Plain text file .CSV (default)
• Excel Spreadsheet .XLSX
• XML file
• OpenDocument spreadsheet

1. Go to your Gradebook.
2. In the navigation tab (at top-right), click Export and choose the format of your Gradebook file.
3. Under Grade items to be included, select the check boxes for the columns to download.
   Note: By default, every column in your gradebook will be included. At the top or bottom of the list, you can click Select all/none to make selecting columns more efficient.
4. Under Export format options, select the check boxes for the settings you wish to change.
• Include feedback in export: Include a column in the exported file for existing feedback or to add feedback for future upload.
• Require active enrollment: Only include students in the export whose enrollment is active and has not been suspended.
• Export new or updated grades only: Exports only grades that have been changed since the most recent import.
  Note: This option is only available for XML file export.
• Grade export display types: Select which grade format(s) you wish to include in the export. Each format will be in a new column.
• Separator: Select the delimiter for the text. Note: This option is only available for Plain text file export.
5. Click Download to start downloading your file.

If you have grades recorded in a spreadsheet, you can upload grades to the gradebook and specify where in the gradebook you want the grades to go. In order for Moodle to match data from your spreadsheet to students in your class, you need to have a unique identifier for students. If you plan to use this feature often, we suggest exporting a spreadsheet from the gradebook as a way of creating a template for your class.