Topics Covered In This Article

Overview

Marking guide is a grading method that allows an instructor to create a set of criteria for a Moodle assignment activity and grade each criterion using a numerical score and feedback. By default, these criteria and criteria descriptions are visible to students at the bottom of the assignment activity. To speed up instructor feedback, instructors may setup lists of frequently used comments that can be quickly added to criteria feedback.

Benefits to using marking guide:

• Grading criteria transparency
• Improved grading consistency
• Reduce time spent grading
• Shorten commenting time

Setting Up The Marking Guide

1. From the Moodle assignment activity, select Advanced grading from the top.

2. Set Change active grading method to to Marking guide.

3. Select the Define new grading form from scratch button.

4. Enter in a Name and a Description for this Marking guide.

5. Enter in the following information for the criterion:

• Criterion name: Title for the criterion (e.g., Quality of references)
• Description for Students: Criterion description that students see along with their assignment description. This can be disabled below.
• Description for Markers: (Optional) This if usually left blank but can include additional instruction for graders.
• Maximum mark: The minimum grade is always zero, and Maximum mark defines the maximum grade.

Click Add criterion to add additional criteria.

6. Enter in any frequently used comments. Click Add frequently used comment to add additional comments. 

7. Set or unset the following options:

• Show guide definition to students: Determine whether students can see the marking guide criteria (criteria names, descriptions, and maximum marks) in the assignment.
• Show marks per criterion to students: Determine whether students can see the maximum marks for the criteria.

8. Click the Save button.

Using The Marking Guide - Grader View

Navigate to the assignment and select the Grade button. Alternatively, you can select the View all submissions button and then select the Grade button next to a specific student.

1. While grading a submission with marking guide, the grader will see the following. This example shows two criteria, but more are usually recommended. 

The grader can:

• Optionally, type in feedback for each criterion.
• Optionally, use the Insert frequently used comment button to insert comments that you repeatedly use (these comments are added during the setup steps above). This can save you a lot of time!
• Enter a score for each criterion.
  
  

2. At the bottom of the criteria, the grader may optionally provide overall feedback and a feedback file.

3. When you've finished grading the current student, at the bottom you can select the Save changes and show next button to move on to the next student.

Using the Marking Guide - Student View

By default, students will see the criteria, criteria descriptions, and criteria Maximum scores in the assignment activity.

Once a student submits their assignment and you grade the assignment, the student's view will look like the following:

Publishing A Marking Guide Form As A Template

Marking guides can be published as templates, making them available for use by anyone on the course site.

1. From the Moodle assignment activity, select Advanced grading from the top.

2. Assuming there is a marking guide form already created and saved, click the Publish the form as a new template button. If you do not see this button then you will need to create and save your marking guide form first.

Read the warning, and if you are comfortable with sharing your template with everyone click the Continue button.

Create New Marking Guide Form From Template

1. From the Moodle assignment activity, select Advanced grading from the top.

Click the Create new grading form from a template button. Note that if you do not see this button then you'll need to delete your current form first by clicking the Delete the currently defined form button.

3. It will show your saved templates. If you'd like to search the saved templates from others, optionally enter in search criteria, and click the Search button.

4. At the bottom of each template are Use this template and Delete buttons. Click the Use this template button to select this template for your own use or click the Delete button if you'd like to permanently delete this template.