FAQ and Other Tips and Tricks

This page is home to our Frequently Asked Questions, where you can find information on all sorts of things, from useful info about using Moodle and Google Docs to how to give someone access to course materials.  If you have any questions you would like to see us add answers to, please email us.

Since we have many questions answered here, we recommend that you either search by entering a keyword or by choosing a category. You may choose to add a focus (second category) to narrow your search.

For more in-depth Moodle FAQs, check out the wiki.

What is the difference between "weighted mean" and "simple weighted mean" in the gradebook?

The Moodle gradebook currently has two options for weighting grades: "weighted mean of grades" and "simple weighted mean of grades."

 

"Weighted mean" allows you to set the weight for each item.

For instance, you can set the weight so that each item in the category has equal weight. With this, if you have two items in a category, one worth 100 points and one worth 5 (neither extra credit), and you give the student a 0/100 and 5/5, the student will get 50%.

One good use of this is weighting categories to match a syllabus. For example, if you have a syllabus like this,

  • Short Essays: 15%
  • Participation: 20%
  • Midterm: 25%
  • Quizzes: 15%
  • Final: 25%

you can set the weighting mode of the entire class to be "weighted mean," then set the weights to be the same as their percentage values.

 

"Simple weighted mean" automatically assigns weights based on point value.

With this method, an item with points out of 100 will be weighted 100 and an item with points out of 5 will be weighted 5. This means that in order to calculate the final grade, Moodle adds up all of the point scores a student received and divides that number by the sum of all the max possible scores.

For example, if a student gets 0/100 on an assignment and 5/5 on an assignment, they will get 5/105, or 4.76%. If another student gets 75/100 and 4/5, they will get 79/105, or 75.2%.

Other FAQs

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