Moodle Course Dashboard - Needs Grading

Instructor question:

I'm still getting used to using the grader in Moodle (I used the Joule Grader in the past).  The Joule grader "told me" when someone resubmitted an assignment.  I assumed that the one we have now would do the same.

I knew that this student resubmitted because she told me she did.  But I can't see anything in the assignment submission list that tells me there has been an updated submission.  (I'm concerned because I know that other students have resubmitted as well and now I don't know how I can track them).

Can you take a look and let me know if there is a way to figure this out?

Click the settings gear in the upper right > Open Reports:

Then select the "Needs Grading" report from the "Dashboard" dropdown menu:

See the informational notice Moodle provides:

The Needs Grading report shows you what is ready for grading. It lists each student and their activities that need grading. Select Grade now to grade the activity.

Use the filters to expand or narrow your view. You can send messages to students you see in the report. Select the student and the option to send them a message from the Action menu.

Negative Grades In Moodle

We had an interesting question from an instructor:

What I want to be able to accomplish is to be able to input negative values to a grade.

In my class attendance is required. If students have perfect attendance they receive 10 points extra credit toward their final grade; if students miss 1 or 2 classes, their final grade does not change; and any subsequent absence, they are penalized by 10 points to their final grade. 

What I want to do on Moodle is to add an assignment and call it attendance where the value of the assignment is 0. I would add 10 points if students earned perfect attendance, and I want to subtract points from the final grade when they've missed more than 2 classes. However, Moodle will not allow me to input a negative value. How do I subtract points from the final grade without taking it out of previous assignments? Is there a way for you to allow me to input a negative value?

Eric Bryant delivered a terrific solution:

As this is a somewhat unique way of grading, my suggestion would be to create a manual gradebook item that has a maximum value of '0' and a minimum value of '-10'.  

You will also need to create an additional manual gradebook item with a minimum value of '0' and a maximum value of '10' and mark this one as Extra Credit.

Setting it up this way will allow you to assign every student on the first gradebook item a zero (100%), or something less up to -10 points (0%).  The second gradebook item will be for those students earning the extra credit.  As the item is marked as extra credit, only those earning 10 points will be awarded and it will not impact any other student grades.

Remember these two manual gradebook items should not be within a category if you use categories.

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Moodle Language Pack Updates

You may have noticed various instances of what appear to be misspelled words (enrol, enrolment, etc.) in our Moodle system, but those are actually Australian spellings. We have customized a number of them to US spelling, but if you would like to temporarily switch over to the "English - United States" language pack, it's simple. Log in to LBCC Moodle and look at the language selector at the top of the page:

It's that easy!

If you like the English - United States language pack, you can make the switch permanent:

1. Click the little disclosure triangle next to your name and picture in the upper right of any LBCC Moodle page, and click "Preferences."

2. Click the "Preferred language" link.

 3. Select "English - United States (en_us). And yes, that is "English Pirate" you also see there. Good luck with that.

4. Click the "Save changes" button.

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