[ARCHIVED] Grading: Multiple Assignments as One Grade

[sierrashamaly]

In our courses we have case logs that count as 5% of a grade. Our school grading policy is that you either get all 5% for completing all case logs or 0% if all case logs are not complete. 

Currently, they are posted as 'quiz assignments' being graded by 'complete/incomplete'. I can get the grade to show with a percentage, but if the grade is not 100% then I need it to register as 0. 

Any advice?

[rmurchshafer]

What if you put all of the quizzes into into a single Assignment Group.  Then Edit the Assignment group to ignore the highest n-1 Highest Score.  If there are 10 case logs ignore the highest 9.  In this way if a student completes at 10 they get the score of the lowest (complete).  If they only complete 9 or fewer, they are all ignored and they get a 0.  To make this work you will need to ensure that any missing grades get updated as 0s, otherwise it will be as if the assignment is not required for them.  

I just want to add that for at least 9 years I've been making fun of that feature in Assignment Groups to ignore the Highest Grades.  I joke about how the only time you would do that is to tick off your students.  This is the first real example of a useful case for that feature I've come across.  I hope this works for you and I know I'm going to remember this scenario/use case now.

Rick

[sierrashamaly]

Hi, 

I am glad that I have found a legit purpose for this. I have tried this and it works for the most part.. 

Do you have an idea of if the student missed an assignment within the case logs assignment group and how to have that register as a 0% grade? 

Your idea worked if they completed all of the assignments, but doesn't assign a 0 if they missed any. 

Thanks, 

Sierra Shamaly

[rmurchshafer]

Sierra,

You are correct that my method will require 0s or some grade to be in every item for it to correctly give them credit.  Probably the easiest way to do this would be to give everyone a 0 on each of those assignments at the beginning of the semester (preferably before you publish the course).  As they complete each assignment that grade should replace the 0 and they only earn the credit once they have completed them all.  

You'll want to double check, but I'm fairly certain if you manually give a 0 on a quiz it doesn't count as an attempt so they can still take it. 

Rick