1. Overview
The Joule gradebook is an alternate grading option to the default Moodle Grader report. You can easily switch back and forth between gradebooks using the jump menu located at the top of the screen. A simplified view displays categories and course totals for each student. You can set up grade categories, move assignments around, and grade activities easier than ever. New column and row actions simplify grading and allow Teachers to perform actions like send messages to students directly from the gradebook and change all of the grades in a column at once.
2. Benefits
New Experience:
- View the gradebook with a simple landing page of gradebook category and course totals.
- See at a glance, whether gradebook categories are weighted in the course total.
- Navigate to other gradebook categories with arrows and a jump-menu.
- Perform actions upon gradebook columns and rows with a simple menu.
More choices:
- Send a message to all students within a column whose grade falls within a specified range.
- Send a message to all students within a column who have not completed the assignment.
- Set all grades within a column to one value (and exclude rows with existing values, if desired).
- Quickly edit all grades in an existing column (and/or set empty grades to "0's", if desired).
- Toggle the visibility of a gradebook column (students cannot see hidden columns and they will not be reflected in the course total).
- Move an activity into a different gradebook category.
- Quickly edit all of a single student's grades (also set empty grades to "0's", if desired).
- Send a message to an individual student.
- The Joule gradebook is an alternate option to the Moodle grader report for grading a course.
3. Teacher Documentation
The Joule gradebook was designed to simplify the gradebook experience by improving default views, and it is more productive because it can perform actions in the course directly from the gradebook.
3.1. Accessing the Joule gradebook
Navigate to the Settings block and select Course Administration > Grades.
If the Joule gradebook is not displayed you can select it from the navigation drop-down menu near the top of the page, or selecting the Joule gradebook link under the View tab.
 | Note: The site administrator can make the Joule gradebook the default choice so it automatically displays when you open Grades.
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3.1.1. Uncategorized items
Click Show uncategorized items or Hide uncategorized items to show and hide uncategorized items in the Joule gradebook. This can streamline the Joule gradebook and make it less cluttered. You can customize what is displayed, only showing category totals, or showing all items.
3.1.2. Navigating
Navigating through categories is easily done by using the drop-down menu and the "Next" and "Previous" arrows.
3.1.3. Entering grades
You can enter grades in the empty cells using point values, percentages and/or letter grades. Press Enter or click in another cell to save the grade.
 | Note: Grades entered in the gradebook will override grades entered in the Module Grader report for each activity, and grades that are assigned automatically. If a student retakes a quiz after a grade has been entered in the gradebook, the new quiz grade will not replace the grade entered in the gradebook even if it is higher.
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 | You can use the Tab key to quickly toggle through the fields.
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 | Letter grade values can be set in the Settings block under Course administration > Grades > Grade administration > Letters or Site administration > Grades > Letters. Letter grades entered in the Joule gradebook will use the mean of the range assigned to the letter. For example, if a student receives an A on an activity and the grade range for A is set to 90-93%, the grade value entered will be 91.5. If the assignment is only worth 50 points, you would take the 93% and multiply it by the total possible points, in this case 50 (.93x50=46.5). The student will receive 46.5 points out of 50 for the assignment if an A is entered in the Gradebook.
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3.2. Column Actions
Joule gradebook is more productive with actions to perform bulk and individual grading and messaging tasks. Actions can be viewed by clicking the action icons in a the rows and columns. The actions below are available for column actions. Some actions are available when viewing categories where as others are only available for items within categories.
- Joule Grader: Jump to the Joule grader.
- Module Grader: Jump to the activity grades to view detailed results.
- Column Grader: Input activity grades for all course participants at one time.
- Message to Incompletes: Send a message to all participants who have not completed a specific activity.
- Message to Grade Range: Set a grade range that will trigger a custom message to be sent to students whose grades fall within that range.
- Change all grades in this column to: Change all grades for an activity using this feature. If all students except a few received the same grade, you can use this feature to save time by only having to input the exceptions.
- Toggle Visible/Hidden (Currently Visible/Hidden): Makes the grade for the activity visible/hidden to students.
- Move this to a different gradebook category: Move the item to a different category in the gradebook.
3.2.1. Joule Grader Action
Select this action to jump to the Joule grader.
3.2.2. Module Grader Action
Select this action to jump to the activity grader.
3.2.3. Column Grader Action Action
Open the Column Grader to easily grade all students in the column. Enter grades and use Check to make empty cells=0 to enter zeros in all cells that do not have a grade entered already. Click Save when you're finished grading in the Column Grader.
| You can use the Tab key to quickly toggle through the fields.
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3.2.4. Message to Incompletes Action
Send a message to all students that have not completed the activity. All students that do not have a grade entered for the activity will be added to a message automatically. Add/remove recipients, and enter a subject and body for the message. Click Send to send a message to all students who do not have a grade in the activity.
3.2.5. Message to Grade Range Action
Send a message to all students in a specified grade range, good, or bad. Enter the grade range you would like to send the message to and click Save.
Add or remove recipients using the Add Recipients link and/or the red X's next to a name. Enter a subject and body for the message.
Click Send to deliver the message.
3.2.6. Change all grades in this column to.. Action
Change all grades in a column to a specified grade. Check Ignore cells with existing values to leave grades already entered in a column as they are, or uncheck it and replace all grades with the value that is entered. Use this to grade exception. Enter the grade you wish to change all grades in the column to, and click Save when you are finished.
3.2.7. Toggle Visible/Hidden (Currently Visible/Hidden) Action
Select whether or not you want this activity to be visible/hidden to students. When you click this option in the menu it will change the visibility without having to save.
3.2.8. Move this to a different gradebook category Action
Use this action to move an item to a different category without the need of using the Moodle Grader report. Select the category for where you would like it to be located.
Click Save when you are finished.
3.3. Row Actions
Joule gradebook is more productive with row actions to perform bulk and individual grading and messaging tasks. Click the action icon next to the student's name and select the Row Grader or Message to student options to grade all activities for the student or to send him/her a direct message.
3.3.1. Row Grader Action
View and change grades for one student at a time. The Row Grader allows you to quickly enter grades for all of a student's assignments, with the option to make any empty cells=0 by checking the box. Enter the grades for the student for each activity. When you finish entering grades and decide how to handle empty cells, click Save.
| You can use the Tab key to quickly toggle through the fields.
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3.3.2. Message to Student Action
Send a message to a student.
3.4. Sorting
You can organize students by names, grades, and groups.
3.4.1. By name
Sort students by Last name and First name by clicking on the respective links above the list of names. Click a student's name to visit the student's profile.
3.4.2. By grade
Click the course Category or Item link at the top of a column to sort the grades in the column in an ascending/descending order.
3.4.3. By group
Sort students by the groups they belong to for group grading using the participants menu. If groups have been created in the course, the All participants drop-down menu will be available. Click the drop-down menu or use the "Next" and "Previous" arrows to navigate between groups. Select a group from the list and only those students belonging to the group will be displayed in the Joule Gradebook.
| Note: Groups need to be set up in the course for the All participants drop-down menu to appear.
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3.5. My Preferences
Teachers can customize settings in the My preferences tab in the Joule gradebook.
Navigate to the My preferences tab and select Joule Gradebook from the drop-down menu.
3.5.1. Show/hide toggles
The following settings can be configured:
- Show calculations: If enabled, when editing is turned on, a calculator icon is shown for each grade item and category, with tool tips over calculated items and a visual indicator that a column is calculated.
- Show show/hide icons: If enabled, when editing is turned on, a show/hide icon is shown for each grade for controlling its visibility to the student.
- Show column averages: If enabled, the Joule gradebook will contain an additional row displaying the average (mean) for each category and grade item.
- Show locks: If enabled, when editing is turned on, a lock/unlock icon is shown for each grade for controlling whether the grade can be automatically updated by the related activity.
- Show user profile image: Determines whether or not to show user profile images.
- Show ranges: If enabled, the Joule gradebook will contain an additional row displaying the range for each category and grade item.
3.5.2. Special Rows
The following settings can be configured:
- Range display type: This setting determines whether the range is displayed as real grades, percentages or letters, or whether the display type for the category or grade item is used (inherit).
- Decimals shown in ranges: This setting determines the number of decimal points to display for each range or whether the overall decimal points setting for the category or grade item is used (inherit).
- Column averages display type: This setting determines whether the average (mean) is displayed as real grades, percentages or letters, or whether the display type for the category or grade item is used (inherit).
- Decimals in column averages: This setting determines the number of decimal points to display for each average or whether the overall decimal points setting for the category or grade item is used (inherit).
- Grades selected for column averages: This setting determines whether cells with no grade should be included when calculating the average (mean) for each category or grade item.
- Show number of grades in averages: If enabled, the number of grades used when calculating the average (mean) is displayed in brackets after each average.
3.5.3. General
The following settings can be configured:
- Students per page: This setting determines the number of students displayed per page in the Joule gradebook.
- Aggregation position: This setting determines whether the category and course total columns are displayed first or last in the gradebook reports.
- Enable AJAX: Adds a layer of AJAX functionality to the Joule gradebook, simplifying and speeding up common operations. Depends on Javascript being switched on at the user's browser level. This option is set to "Yes" because AJAX is required for Joule gradebook.
Click Save changes to apply these settings when you are finished, or click Cancel to discard any changes and proceed.
4. Administrator Documentation
You can set the Joule gradebook to be the default report for teachers.
Navigate to the Settings block and select Site administration > Grades > General settings.
Scroll down to the Teacher profile report and choose Joule Gradebook.
When you are finished, scroll to the bottom and click Save changes.
There are also report settings for the Joule gradebook located in the Settings block under Site administration > Grades > Report settings>Joule gradebook.
Enter the following options:
- Students per page: Determines the number of students displayed per page in the Joule gradebook.
- Grades selected for column averages: Determines whether cells with no grade should be included when calculating the average (mean) for each category or grade item.
- Show column averages: If enabled, the Joule gradebook will contain an additional row displaying the average (mean) for each category and grade item.
- Show ranges: If enabled, the Joule gradebook will contain an additional row displaying the range for each category and grade item.
- Show user profile images: If enabled, will show the user's profile image next to the name in the Joule gradebook.
- Show number of grades in averages: If enabled, the number of grades used when calculating the average (mean) is displayed in brackets after each average.
- Column averages display type: Determines whether the average (mean) is displayed as real grades, percentages or letters, or whether the display type for the category or grade item is used (inherit).
- Range display type: Determines whether the range is displayed as real grades, percentages or letters, or whether the display type for the category or grade item is used (inherit).
- Decimals in column averages: Determines the number of decimal points to display for each average or whether the overall decimal points setting for the category or grade item is used (inherit).
- Decimals show in ranges: Determines the number of decimal points to display for each range or whether the overall decimal points setting for the category or grade item is used (inherit).
- Aggregation position: Determines whether the category and course total columns are displayed first or last in the gradebook reports.
When you are finished, remember to scroll to the bottom and click Save changes.
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