This article was created to provide instructions for setting up a gradebook using a mastery-based grading scale to trigger micro-credentials without affecting the grading system of the parent course. To clarify, any activities using MAS or NCG grade scales are not intended to affect the student's overall grade in the course, which would be determined by a standard grade scale.
1. Course Setup
The first step is to set up the course with course completion tracking for mastery grading.
1. Begin by entering the desired course. In the top navigation menu, click on "Settings."
2. Within the course settings scroll down to "Completion Tracking". Here, select yes for the following:
Enable completion Tracking
Show activity completion conditions.
3. Once done click on save and display.
2. Adding an Assignment
This step is to set up any standard-graded activities for your course. If your course already contains normal graded activities, you can skip this section and move onto Creating a Custom Scale.
1. Begin by navigating to your course and turning on "Edit Mode."
2. After turning editing mode on, click on "Add an activity or resource" to add an assignment.
3. Select the assignment and provide a name for the assignment in the designated field.
4. Scroll down to the "Grade" section and choose "Point" as the grading type. Ensure "Simple Direct Grading" is the selected Grading Method.
5. Once you have set the grading type, click on "Save and Display" to save the assignment.
3. Creating a Custom Scale
The next step is to create a custom grading scale to allow the use of MAS/NCG-based grading values. This scale will be used to grade the activities that will award a micro-credential.
To create a custom NCG-based scale valued at 0 points and a MAS-based scale valued at 1 point, please follow the steps below.
1. Begin the setup by selecting "Grade" from the top navigation menu.
2. Once in the Grade section, click on "Grader Report" from the drop-down menu that appears.
3. In the "More" section, choose "Scales" from the options available.
4. In the new window, on top, click on the "Add a new Scale" button to initiate the creation of your custom scale.
5. On this page, you will create your custom scale. First, you need to name it. Type the name of your scale in the available field. It can be anything, but try to choose something that will help you differentiate this scale.
6. By default, scales start from 1. To create a custom scale with NCG-based scales, valued at 0 points and MAS-based scales valued at 1 point, you will need to adjust the scales accordingly. For instance, you can assign NCG a value of 1 and MAS a value of 2. Each level should be separated by a comma.
4. Setting letter grades
Using the scales created earlier, they now need to be set up as letter grades in order to be displayed on graded activities.
1. Navigate to the drop-down menu for scales and select the "Grade Letters" tab.
2. On the "Grade Letter" page, locate the "Edit" option at the top and click it.
3. In the edit window, change the letters in the left column to represent NCG and MAS by Overriding site defaults. Set the grade for NCG to be 0% and for MAS to be 100%. This adjustment ensures that any score below 100% is automatically considered a NCG.
4. Once done, click on "Save Changes" to apply the new grade letter settings.
5. Creating Mastery Category
After creating the grading scale in the previous step, now create a MAS category to store all the mastery assignments.
1. Begin by locating and clicking on the "Grades" tab within your course, found in the navigation menu.
2. From the Grades page, click on the "Grader Report" option. A drop-down menu will appear here, select "Gradebook Setup."
3. Within the Gradebook Setup interface, locate the "Add category" tab positioned at the top of the page. Click on this tab to start creating a new grading category.
4. In the new window, provide a name for the new category, such as "MCG." Additionally, specify the aggregation method by selecting "Weighted Mean of Grades" to accurately calculate the overall grade for this category.
5. Scroll down the Gradebook Setup page until you reach the "Category Total" section. Within this section, set the grade type to "Scale" and select "Mastery" as the appropriate scale for this category.
6. Scroll to Grade to pass and provide the value as "2" (This ensures that the assignment is completed only upon getting full marks.)
7. Continue down the Gradebook Setup page and locate the "Parent Category" section. Here, choose "Weight Adjusted" as the aggregation method and input "0" in the weight column. This will ensure the created category is not a part of final grades.
After finishing the step, click on the "Save Changes" button at the bottom.
6. Adding NCG/MAS Assignment
Now that the grade scales have been set up, you can begin adding MAS/NCG activities to your course. Please follow the steps below for these instructions.
1. Within your course, add another assignment by selecting "Add an activity or resource."
2. Provide a name for the assignment in the designated field and scroll down to the "Grade" section.
3. Select "Scale" as the type of grade. Choose the scale name that you previously created in 'add a scale'' section.
4. After selecting the scale, choose "Rubric" as the grading method. Select the grade category that was previously created, for example, MCG, and set the grade to pass as "2."
6. Scroll further down to the "Activity Completion" section. You'll see the following boxes (3):
Student must view this activity to complete it
Student must receive a grade to complete this activity
Student must receive a passing grade to complete this activity
Ensure that "Show activity as complete when conditions are met is enabled"
7. Check the boxes of whichever options you would like the assignment to be tracked for completion. The Receive Passing Grade option refers to the passing grade that you have configured in step 4.
8. Once finished, click on save and display and repeat the Activity Completion step for any other assignment required for a micro-credential.
9. When your assignments have been set up with the necessary completion tracking, please submit a ticket to the Service Desk with your micro-credential requirements for T&L to attach a micro-credential to your course.
Setting up the NCG/MAS Rubric in Assignment
1. After creating the assignment, go to "Advanced Grading" and select "Define new grading form from scratch" to customize the rubric.
2. in the "Rubric Options", uncheck the following boxes:
Display points for each level during evaluation
Display points for each level to those being graded
3. To add criteria, click the +Add criterion button from the rubric, to edit the criteria, click into the text box and add your text.
4. To add a level, click the +Add level button, and to edit the boxes, click the boxes and begin to add your text. Please also ensure that you include an initial column at the start (the far left) labelled Not submitted, and would be valued at 0 points. This is to accommodate grading for students who did not hand in their assignment at all.
5. Next, you need to change the points by clicking into the text and then typing in the appropriate value.
Note: NCG columns should be scored at 0 points, and MAS columns should be scored at 1 point.
Once done, click on save rubric and make it ready.
7. Adding a Completion Block (Optional)
You can also add a block to your course that will show your students their progress towards earning the micro-credential and what exactly they need to complete. The following sections of this document, 3 and 4 are optional but will show you how to configure this.
1. In the course main page, Turn edit mode on by clicking the button in the top-right corner of the page.
2. Once editing mode is on, you will notice an option to add blocks. Click on "Add a block" to proceed
3. From the list of available blocks, choose "Course Completion Status" and "Course Progress".
This block is not required but will start appearing at the top of your course and will show students their progress towards earning the micro-credential.
8. Setting up Course Completion (Optional)
After adding all your assignments and the course completion/progress block, navigate to the main page of your course.
1. Click on "More" located on the top right side of the navigation menu.
2. From the dropdown menu, select "Course Completion."
3. In the new window that appears, scroll down to the "Condition: Activity Completion" section.
Here, select all the assignments that are compulsory for triggering a micro-credential for the course.
This will add these specific assignments to the course completion and progress block to show students what they need to complete in order to earn the micro-credential within your course.
For an example of what this looks like in a real environment, please feel free to enrol yourself in the example course for this method. The enrolment password is MC2024
This work by Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.