Grade Override occur when you or another instructor manually edit grades for Moodle activities such as Quizzes, Forums, Assignments, Category totals, or Course Totals in the gradebook. Once saved, these items become highlighted in orange and will display "Overridden" in red text, indicating that the grade has been manually changed. This feature can be helpful when you need to adjust grades for any reason. However, it also prevents further updates to the grade from outside the gradebook. Therefore, any updates from that point on would require manual intervention.
Grade overrides occur with several types of gradebook activity:
Editing Category or Course Totals in the Gradebook
If you modify cells in a calculated column, such as a category total, the calculated column will not recalculate if grade items within the category are changed.
Manually Grading Moodle Activities from within the Gradebook
If you change the grades of an activity manually in the gradebook, such as a Quiz, Assignment, or Forum, the new grades will replace the original ones. As a result, any changes made outside of the gradebook, like regrading a quiz or assessing an assignment from the Assignment submission page, will not be automatically reflected in the gradebook.
Changing Grades from the Grade Page
To edit grades, users must select the Override Grade checkbox. Additionally, Exclude From Totals checkboxes are located in a column on this page.
Importing Grades from a Spreadsheet
If you import grades for a Moodle activity or category from a spreadsheet, the grades will be flagged as overridden and will no longer automatically update if grades are changed from outside the gradebook (e.g., if a Quiz is re-graded, or an Assignment is graded from the Assignment submission page).
In all of these cases, overridden grades can still be changed from the Grader report by further manual editing, but will not change if grades are updated somewhere else in the course.
Note: It is possible to lock grades in the Grader report, which prevents their value from being modified even if editing is enabled. To activate grade locks, you need to adjust the settings in the gradebook, as they are not activated by modifying a single grade.
Reasons to Override or Lock Grades
- You no longer want grades to be updated by assignments.
- You want to override a grade received on a quiz.
- You do not want teaching assistants to change grades after a certain deadline.
Potential Issues When Grades Are Overridden or Locked
- Overridden Calculated columns will not automatically update when changes to grade items are made.
- If a grade is overridden in the Grader report, you cannot change a grade or edit comments on the activity grading screen unless you disable the override/unlock the grade.
- Lock/Unlock a Grade Column
- To prevent further changes for an entire column, you can lock that column and preserve the currently displayed grades.
Tips when Working with Multiple Graders
It's important to note that only one grader, whether it be an instructor or a TA, can manually enter grades into the gradebook at any given time. If someone else has updated the gradebook after you've opened it for editing, Moodle won't allow you to save any changes you've made. This is done to prevent grading conflicts and unintended overrides that may arise if multiple graders use the same gradebook simultaneously.
To avoid this issue:
- Don't open grading screens in multiple windows on your own computer. For example, don't turn on editing in the gradebook Grader report in one browser window, while entering grades on the Assignment submission screen, or rating Forum posts in another browser window.
- If more than one person will need to manually enter grades in a course gradebook, we recommend you agree on a plan to alert each other when you are entering grades and when you complete a grading session.
Note: It is safe for multiple graders to grade Moodle Assignments simultaneously as long as they work from the Assignment submission page, grade one student at a time, and avoid using the Quick grade feature. To learn more about this process, please refer to the Enter Grades and Feedback One Assignment at a Time guide.
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