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Moodle Assignment feedback guide

Explore the different options for grading Moodle assignments.

About upload feedback and grades via Excel

This guide will walk you through uploading feedback and grades via an Excel spreadsheet. This option is useful for large groups of students, where operational feedback left directly on the student assignment is not required.

This option can be used when the Anonymous submissions setting has been enabled for the assignment. The student names on the downloaded assignments and in the Grading worksheet are replaced by a Participant ID. You will have to take care to ensure you are adding the grade for the correct student to the Grading worksheet by double checking the participant IDs between the downloaded assignment name and the Identifier column in the Grading worksheet.

Hide grades and feedback for an assignment

Grader Report menu opened and Gradebook setup highlightedYou must hide the individual assignment grade item while you are marking to ensure that marks and feedback are released at the same time to all students. To do this:

  1. Select Grades in the contextual navigation menu above the module name. The Grader report page opens
  2. Open the drop-down menu on the left of the page and choose Gradebook setup.
  1. Select the Edit link on the same row as the name of the grade item you are marking.
  2. Select Hide.

Edit settings opened for Test assignment and Hide highlighted

Access Submissions page

  1. Open the assignment from the module page. This opens the Grading summary page.
  2. If you are responsible for marking a specific group of students, select the relevant group from the groups drop-down menu. This will ensure that you are marking the relevant work.

  3. Select the View all submissions button to view the Submissions page.
  4. If you cannot see all the submissions you expect, check to see whether a filter has been applied. Filters can follow you from one module to another, and if another user has added a filter, it may still be in place. Remove the filters to see all submissions.
  • Alphabetic filter. Select All for both the First Name and Surname to clear

The first name surname filter

  • Options. Open the Filter drop-down menu, select No filter to clear any existing filter.

Bulk download assignment submissions

  1. Under the Options settings at the bottom of the Submissions page:
    • Check that Assignments per page is set to All.
    • Tick or untick the Download submissions in folders checkbox. By default, Moodle will create a separate folder for each student submission. If you want all student files to be downloaded into a single folder then you will need to remove the tick. 

  1. Scroll up to the top of the Submissions page. Select the Download all submissions button on the top right of the page.
    • If you only want to download submissions for certain students.
      • Check the box to the left of relevant students.
      • Scroll to the With selected...drop-down menu (above the Options settings) and choose Download selected submissions.
  2. A zip containing all of the student submissions will download to your computer. Each file is called "[Moodle identifier] assignsubmission_file_[file name]".
  3. Save the zip file to your university device or OneDrive.

Download Grading worksheet

  1. From the Grading action drop-down menu at the top of the Submissions page choose Download grading worksheet and save the Excel file to a convenient place on your university device or OneDrive. You may need to change the file extension to CSV (comma delimited). This will remove the file name. Give the file a meaningful title and save.

Download grading worksheet highlighted from Grading action meny

Unzip folder of submissions and review

  1. Unzip the submissions and save them to your computer.
  2. You can now read the student submissions offline.

Provide grades and feedback

  1. Open the Grading worksheet from your computer.
  2. Do not change or add any column names.
  3. Input your grades into the Grade column.
  4. Provide some general feedback into the Feedback comments column.
  5. Save and close the file ensuring it is an CSV format in order to upload back to Moodle.

Grade and feedback comments highlighted in a Grading worksheet

If you are working on an anonymous submission, the student names are removed and are replaced by a Participant ID. This participant ID will also be included in the file name of the downloaded assignment. You will have to take care to ensure you are adding the Grade for the correct student to to Grading worksheet by double checking the participant IDs.

Grading worksheet displaying Participant IDs

Upload grades to assignment

upload grading worksheet selected from Grading action menu

  1. Select the assignment from the module homepage to access the summary page and select View/grade all submissions.
  2. From the Grading action drop-down menu choose Upload grading worksheet.
  3. Select Choose a file... and upload the grading worksheet to Moodle, or drag the csv file to the arrow and wait for the file name to appear in the box.
  4. Select Upload grading worksheet.
  5. The Confirmation box will list all the students’ grades that will be imported.
  6. Select Confirm.
  7. The next screen will summarise how many student grades have been updated.
  8. Select Continue.

Release grades and feedback for assignment

  1. Select Grades in the contextual navigation menu above the.
  2. Select the Grader Report drop-down menu and choose Gradebook setup.
  3. Select the Edit link on the same row as the name of the grade item you are marking.
  4. Select Show.

This makes the grades and feedback visible and generates an email to students to alert them to their released grade and feedback.

Release grades and feedback (Anonymous submissions)

When an assignment is set up with anonymous marking, you must unhide the grade item and reveal student identities in order to release grades and feedback.

  1. Select Grades in the contextual navigation menu above the module name.
  2. Select the Grader Report drop-down menu and choose Gradebook setup.
  3. Select the Edit link on the same row as the name of the grade item you are marking.
  4. Select Show.

  5. Select the link to the assignment to open it.
  6. Select View all submissions.
  7. From the Grading action menu on the top left of the page, select Reveal student identities. This will populate the Grades into the Grader Reportgrading action menu opened and confirmation screen displaying and generate an email to students that grades and feedback have been released. Do not reveal identities until the grading is ready to be revealed to students as this option cannot be re-enabled. You will see a warning about this and will be asked to confirm you want to proceed.

Release grades and feedback (Anonymous submissions)

When an assignment is set up with anonymous marking, you must unhide the grade item and reveal student identities in order to release grades and feedback.

  1. Select Grades in the contextual navigation menu above the module name.
  2. Select the Grader Report drop-down menu and choose Gradebook setup.
  3. Select the Edit link on the same row as the name of the grade item you are marking.
  4. Select Show.

  5. Select the link to the assignment to open it.
  6. Select View all submissions.
  7. From the Grading action menu on the top left of the page, select Reveal student identities. This will populate the Grades into the Grader Reportgrading action menu opened and confirmation screen displaying and generate an email to students that grades and feedback have been released. Do not reveal identities until the grading is ready to be revealed to students as this option cannot be re-enabled. You will see a warning about this and will be asked to confirm you want to proceed.
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