Category Archives: Moodle

4. Grading Turnitin Assignments

InformationIn addition to giving you a report on the originality of student papers, Turnitin also features a powerful grading and commenting tool. As well as allowing you to give numerical feedback on a student submission, you can also directly enter your comments into specific parts of the paper.

  1. From your course page, click on the Turnitin assignment (2014-02-28 08_46_26-Course_ Matt Wright) to go to its summary page (if you are not there already).
  2. Click on the Submission Inbox tab to see all of the student submissions.
  3. You will see a listing of all of the students in the course and their submissions (if they’ve submitted anything yet). Click the Pencil icon in the Grade column for the submission you want to grade.
  4. The student’s paper will appear in a new window. You can click or highlight anywhere in this paper to add a comment. Click anywhere on the paper or on text you’ve highlighted so that the Word balloon box appears, enter your comment, and click Save.
  5. You can use QuickMarks to insert canned comments quickly. There are some stock Turnitin marks you can use (Citation Needed, Run-on, etc.) by clicking and dragging them from the panel on the right. If you want to create your own, click on the paper to create a new comment and click Save as new QuickMark. Enter a TITLE and choose a SET and click Save so that you can use it again in the future.
  6. Click the grade field in the far upper right (next to the similarity percentage) and replace the -- with the grade you want to give the paper. Press Enter to save.
  7. Close the window when done, or click the Left arrow or Right arrow buttons in the upper-right to quickly go to other submissions.

3. Viewing Originality Reports

InformationOne of Turnitin’s most useful functionalities is its ability to gauge a student paper’s originality. Turnitin will compare student submissions to website contents, scholarly articles, and papers submitted by other students to check for plagiarism. The Originality report will tell you how much of a student’s paper is similar to other content.

  1. From your course page, click on the Turnitin assignment (2014-02-28 08_46_26-Course_ Matt Wright) to go to its summary page (if you are not there already).
  2. Click on the Submission Inbox tab to see all of the student submissions.
  3. You will see a listing of all of the students in the course and their submissions (if they’ve submitted anything yet). The Similarity column contains similarity scores (e.g. 10%). The higher the percentage, the more similar the paper is to other documents. Click the percentage to see the report.
    Note: Originality reports take time to generate. If the Similarity for a submission reads Pending, it still needs time to process.
  4. The student’s paper will appear in a new window. You can see the sources that the paper is most similar (and percentage scores of how much of the paper resembles the source) to on the right in the Match Overview pane. Click any source to be taken to the part of the paper that most resembles that source.
  5. Click the highlighted text in the paper or the arrow icon that appears next to a source to see a pop-up containing the similar text as it appears in the source material.
  6. Close the window when done.

2. Setting Dates

InformationJust as with any other Moodle assignment, you can specify start and due dates for Turnitin assignments. Those dates, however, are not set when you first create the Turnitin assignment; they are set on a separate page. There are also Turnitin-specific behaviors you should be aware of.

  1. From your course page, click on the Turnitin assignment (2014-02-28 08_46_26-Course_ Matt Wright) to go to its summary page (if you are not there already).
  2. In the table that appears on this screen, click the pencil icon on the far right.
  3. You’ll be taken to a page where you can specify the Start Date, Due Date, and Post Date. Be advised that like other Moodle activities, Turnitin’s dates function on a 24-hour clock.
    The Start Date specifies when the assignment will start taking student submissions. You must set the Start Date to at least 24 hours before you intend to start receiving submissions.
    The Due Date specifies when the assignment will stop taking student submissions (unless you allowed for late submissions, in which case this will determine when student submissions are marked late).
    The Post Date specifies when grades on the assignment will be made visible to students.
  4. When your dates are set, click the Submit button to save your changes.

1. Creating Turnitin Assignments

InformationTurnitin is an online software Butler has purchased for use with Moodle. Turnitin allows you to check submitted student papers for plagiarism and provides you with access to advanced grading/commenting tools for giving your students feedback. To use Turnitin, you must first create a Turnitin assignment that your students will submit their papers to.

  1. From your course’s main page, click the Turn Editing On button in the upper-right.
  2. With editing turned on, click Add an Activity or Resource in the section where you want to add the Turnitin assignment.
  3. From the menu that appears, click the Radio Button next to Turnitin Assignment and click the Add button at the bottom of the menu.
  4. Enter a Turnitin Assignment Name and a Summary. The assignment name is how the assignment will be displayed on the course page, in the gradebook, etc. The summary is what the students will see before they submit a paper, and is useful for providing prompts or instructions.
  5. Specify a Submission Type. In most cases, you’ll want to set this to File Upload so that students can upload Word documents, PDFs, etc.
  6. Use Turnitin Advanced Options to specify whether students can submit papers after the due date as well as specify what sorts of sources student papers are checked against for originality reports.
  7. Click the Grade section to expand it. Set the Grade drop-down to the number of points you want this assignment to be worth and specify which Grade category it will go in (if any).
  8. Click Save and display. Don’t be concerned that you haven’t set a due date yet; this occurs on a subsequent page (see the next step in the sidebar). Do not use Restrict access to set due dates! You may accidentally lock your students out of the assignment!

5. Viewing Grades

InformationGrades in Moodle are visible through the Grader Report, the same place that you enter manual grades for manual grade items. However, if you want to see a more simple display of a given student’s grades, you can use the User Report.

  1. In the Administration block, click Grades to go to the gradebook.
  2. Click the View tab at the top if you’re not there already.
  3. Click the User report link just below the list of tabs.
  4. You’ll be taken to the User Report. This will show you a layout of all of the grade items in your course. Use the Select all or one user drop-down to select a specific student.
  5. Your User Report will change to that student’s report. The information you see is what the student will see when he or she checks his or her grades.

4. Entering Grades

InformationOnce grade items are created in the gradebook, grades must be entered into them for grades to compute. Grades for activities should not be entered through the gradebook, but instead through the activities themselves. For more information, please consult individual articles on grading Discussion Forums, Online Assignments, Online Quizzes, or Turnitin Assignments.

To enter grades for manual grade items:

  1. In the Administration block, click Grades to go to the gradebook.
  2. In the Grader Report, click the Turn Editing On button (if editing isn’t already enabled).
  3. Locate your manual (2014-01-13 14_46_07-Grades_ View) grade item. The cell will now contain an empty text box (2014-01-13 14_52_02-Grades_ View).
  4. Enter numerical grades into the text boxes. You can press the Tab key to move down a row. Be careful to only enter grades for manual items!
  5. Click the Update button at the bottom of the page to save your changes.

6. Specifying Grade Weights

InformationWhen using a Weighted Mean of Grades aggregation, every item and category can be provided a weight. Instead of adding up point totals (as the Natural aggregation method does). Weighted Mean of Grades will calculate a course total by proportions of weights assigned to individual items.  To calculate grades this way, you must fill out weights for items and categories:

  1. In the Administration block, click Grades to go to the gradebook.
  2. From the gradebook, click the Setup tab tab near the top.
  3. You will see a Weight column in the list of grades.
  4. For each graded item (manually entered and activities) Under the Weight column, there will be text boxes next to each grade item and grade category. Change these weights from their current (automatically calculated) weights to the weight you want the item/category to have.
  5. Moodle automatically adjusts the weights for other items so that they add up to 100%.
  6. Click the Save Changes button near the bottom.

2. Adding Grade Categories

InformationA grade category is a gradebook container for one or more grade items. Grades across items inside a category will be aggregated into a Category Total, much the same way that grades across a course will be agregated into a Course Total. Grade categories can use specific aggregations (e.g. Sum of Grades, Weighted Mean of Grades) within themselves to give you more precise control over how grades are calculated. Finally, they are also useful for weighting grades: if, for example, you have multiple quizzes in a course but want them to all together comprise a certain percentage of the overall course grade, you can create a category to hold them.

  1. In the Administration block, click Grades to go to the gradebook.
  2. From the gradebook, click the Setup tab tab near the top.
  3. From the Categories and Items view, click the Add Category button at the bottom of the page.
  4. In the Category Name field, enter a name for this grade category. The name will be visible to both you and your students, so be descriptive.
  5. Click the Save Changesbutton near the bottom. There is no need to change any other options.

07. Creating Groups

InformationMoodle allows you to organize your students into groups. Groups can be useful for having different sets of students work on different assignments, or allowing you to communicate with or grade only certain subsets of students in courses of significant size. Additionally, creating groups will also allow you to define course sections within an umbrellaed course.

  1. From your course page, go to the Administration block and click Edit settings.
  2. Scroll down to the Groups section and click it to expand it.
  3. Change the Group mode drop-down to either Separate groups or Visible groups. In separate groups, each group member can only see their own group. In visible groups, each group member works in their own group, but can also see other groups.
  4. Click Save Changes Button at the bottom of the page.
  5. In the Administration Block, click the Users menu to expand it, and then click Groups.
  6. Click the Create group button.
  7. Enter a Group name and click Save changes.
  8. Select your new group in the Groups column on the left, then click the Add/remove users button.
  9. Click the students you want to add from the Potential members menu on the right and click the Add button. You may have to use the Search field below the student list to find the ones you want. When done, click the Back to groups button.
  10. Repeat steps 6 through 9 for each group you wish to create.

03. Adding Additional Users

InformationSometimes, you may need to add new users to a course that they’re not already present in. For a typical course, enrollment information comes from Registration and Records and is updated automatically; any drops/adds/withdrawals are automatically reflected in Moodle. If you’re managing a community organization page, however, or want to add users to a course in which they’re not officially enrolled, you will need to add them manually:

  1. From within the course to which you want to add new users, go to the Administration block and click Users.
  2. From the expanded Users menu, click Enrolled Users.
  3. You will be taken to a list of all the users currently enrolled in the course. Click the Enroll Users button.
  4. In the window that appears, type the name of the user you want to add in the box at the bottom of the window and click Search.
  5. Select the role you want them to have from the Assign Roles drop-down menu:
    Student will add the user with the same capabilities as students have.
    Course Builder will add the user with the ability to add, remove, and change course content. Course Builders do not have access to grades.
  6. Click the Enroll button next to the user you want to add. The window will stay open, and you can continue to add multiple users this way.
  7. When you’re done, click Finish Enrolling Users.

TelevisionClick here to watch a video tutorial on this subject provided by Atomic Learning. Be sure to log in to Atomic Learning before attempting to view this tutorial.