Grade Category Options in the Moodle Gradebook

Grade categories are useful for grouping assignments together, calculating subtotals, and making special calculations (e.g., dropping the lowest grades).

Edit Category Settings

Category settings can be made while creating a new category.

To modify the settings of an existing category:

1. On your main course page underneath the course name, hit Grades, and then in the drop-down menu on that page, navigate to Gradebook Setup.
2. Locate the row that contains the title of the category. In the Actions column (at right), click Edit and from the drop-down menu, select ︎ Edit settings. The Edit category page will open*.*Note: The Edit category settings for the course total can be found in the top row of the Categories and items table.
3. Click headings to open collapsed settings areas and click Show more... to view and adjust additional settings under a heading.Note: You can click Expand all to collapse settings for all of the headings at once. Explanations of the most commonly used gradebook category options are described below.
4. When finished adjusting settings, scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save changes. You'll be returned to the Gradebook setup page.

Grade Category Options

Category Name

This name replaces the default "Category total" name that displays in the Grader report and the User report. This is useful when you use multiple categories in order to differentiate total columns.

Aggregation

Determine the kind of calculation used to compute the category total.

• Mean of grades: Average of all grade items in the category (the sum of all grades divided by the total number of grade items).
• Custom weights: Each graded item is assigned a value used to determine the relative importance of the item in the overall calculation. The value does not need to be the same as the possible points for an item. If an item has a weight of "0," it will not be calculated in the total.
• Natural: The sum of all grade values in the category.

Click Show more... to access the following options:

Exclude Empty Grades

Control what the category does when grade items have empty scores for individual students: