Scales are used in Moodle to grade individual assignments. Once created, scales can be used for any assignment if desired.

The difference between scales and letter grades is that letter grades can be used for individual assignments and or for determining the overall grade of a course. Scales can only be used for assignments and the results of a using a scale are used to calculate the final grade of a course.

In this post, we will look at how to make a scale in Moodle

Creating a Scale

1. In a Moodle course in which you are the teacher click on “course settings” and then click on “grades”
2. Inside the grades window, click on “scales” you should see something similar to the following.

There are two categories of scales. The first is “custom scales” these are scales that you make as the teacher. The second category is “standard scales” these are made by your site administrator are came with Moodle upon installation.

3. Now, click on “add a new scale” to begin making your own scale. You should see a screen similar to the following.

This is mostly self-explanatory. You need to give the scale a name in the “name” section. The “standard scale” box should only be checked if you want the scale to available all over the Moodle site.

The “scale” section is a little trickier. In this section, we will put all of the levels of our scale. You put the lowest ranking comment first and go in increasing order. We are going to make a scale with three levels as shown below.

Poor, Okay, Excellent

You can copy the text above into the “scale” section

The description section can be left blank. This is useful for telling people or reminding yourself of the traits of the scale and its purpose. Once you provide all the necessary information click “save changes.” Below is a picture of the completed scale with all of the necessary information.

The scale we made is a three point scale. A mark of poor = 1, okay = 2, and excellent = 3. When using the scale, students will see the word of the scale while the gradebook would record the word and points for calculation.

4. Using the Scale

Whenever you make any kind of assignment in Moodle, all you have to do to use the scale is to change the option “grade type” and set it to “scale” as shown in the example below.

All other features can be left only. In a future post, we will look at greater detail how to created assignments.

Conclusion

This post provided explanation into creating scales in Moodle. Scales provide a way to give richer feedback than just giving points and or a letter grade. As such, a combination of points and scale grades can provide students with a multi-faceted feedback experience.