Moodle: Use grading workflow to manage assignment feedback

The Assignment activity has a grading workflow option that enables instructors to:

• Hide feedback and grades until ALL submissions have been graded (normally assignment grades and feedback are visible to each student as soon as they are entered).
• Manage the work of multiple graders, including allocation of submissions to particular graders and review before releasing grades and feedback to students.

Enable grading workflow

1. Navigate to the Assignment Settings page.
   • If you are creating a new Assignment, you will see this page as soon as you add the Assignment activity.
   • For an existing Assignment, click on the Assignment to open it, click the gear icon, and choose Edit Settings.
2. Expand the Grades section.
3. Set Use grading workflow to Yes.
4. If there are multiple graders, change Use grading allocation to Yes as well. This allows graders to indicate who is grading which submissions.
5. Click Save and Display.

How grading workflow works

When grading workflow is enabled, Teachers can assign the following grading statuses to submissions:

• Not graded
• In grading
• Grading completed
• In review
• Ready for release
• Released

Note that only the Released status has a technical effect: it is the only status in which students will be able to view their grade and feedback they’ve received. (See What Students See, below).

The remaining statuses are simply labels that graders can use to manage their work. For example, if two graders are reviewing each other’s work, each might use “Grading completed” to indicate to the other that a submission is ready for review and “Ready for release” to indicate that they have reviewed it.

Grading allocations are also simply labels that help graders distribute their work. All Teachers will still be able to view and edit grades and feedback for all submissions.

View and change grading statuses and allocations

1. Click on the Assignment to open it.
2. Under the Grading Summary, click View All Submissions.
   • When grading workflow is on you will see a grading status beneath the submission status in the Status column.
   • When grading allocation is on, you will see a Grader column.
3. If the table isn’t editable, turn Quick grading on by checking the box in Options section beneath the table. (Note: Moodle will remember this setting.)

You can edit submissions one at a time using the drop-down menus in the Status and Grader columns (see example labeled a in the image below). If you do this, remember to make sure the Notify students setting (labeled b) is set to Yes if you want to alert students about the change, and click Save all Quick Grading Changes (c) to apply your changes.

Here are some shortcuts for bulk-changing statuses and grade allocations. 

Change grading status for all submissions

When you are viewing all submissions with quick grading on:

1. Check the box in the heading of the Select column to select all submissions. Selected submissions will be checked and highlight in yellow as shown below.
2. Scroll down to the With selected … menu beneath the table and choose Set grading workflow state.
3. Click Go.

4. You will see a list of the students you selected, choose the appropriate Grading workflow state and click Save changes.

Allocate all of a grader’s submissions at once

When you are viewing all submissions with quick grading on:

1. Check the boxes in the Select column for the submissions this person will grade. Selected submissions will be highlighted in yellow.
2. Scroll down to the With selected … menu beneath the table and choose Set allocated grader.
3. Click Go.
4. You will see a list of the students you selected, choose the appropriate Grader and click Save changes.

Filter and allocate grading by group

If you have set up Groups for your course you can use them to manage and allocate grading.

1. Edit the Group mode setting for the Assignment:
   1. Open the Assignment.
   2. Click the gear icon and choose Edit Settings.
   3. Scroll down and click Common modules settings to expand it.
   4. Change the Group mode to Visible groups.
   5.  Click Save and display.
2. Click View All Submissions.
3. There will be a new Visible groups menu above the submissions table; select a group to display only the students in that group.

4. Check the box in the heading of the Select column to select all submissions. Selected submissions will be checked and highlight in yellow as shown below.
5. Scroll down to the With selected … menu beneath the table and choose Set allocated grader.
6. Click Go.
7. You will see a list of the students you selected, choose the appropriate Grader and click Save changes.

What students see

When students click on an Assignment, they see Submission status information: when an assignment is due, whether they’ve submitted work, and if they’ve submitted the timestamp for the submission and a link to the file.

Information on the Grading status is also included. If grading workflow isn’t enabled, the status options are Not Graded or Graded. If grading workflow is enabled, the grading status will be Not Graded or the setting chosen by a Teacher. If Grading status is set to anything besides “Released” no grades or feedback are visible.

Once a Teacher changes the Grading Status to Released, the grade and feedback for the assignment will be visible to the student as shown below.

Questions?

If you have any additional questions or problems, don't hesitate to reach out to the Help Desk!

Phone: 610-526-7440 | Library and Help Desk hours
Email: help@brynmawr.edu | Service catalog
Location: Canaday Library 1st floor