Frequently Asked Question

If your syllabus is set up by weights, here are some helpful steps to change your Beacon Learning gradebook appropriately:

1. Select the course you'd like to change (i.e. Course 101)
2. Click "Gradebook Setup" in the Administration Block
3. Here you will notice an overall parent category for the course (Course 101 folder). To the right you will find an "Edit" drop down menu.
4. Select "Edit Settings" and change your Aggregation to "Natural"
(a) While here, you may also want to uncheck the "Exclude empty grades." This will give the student a more accurate idea of their grades while also allowing them to only increase their score rather than decrease.
5. Save your changes at the bottom of the screen.
6. Depending on your syllabus, you may find adding category folders at the bottom is useful. (Example: If you have 16 discussion posts for this course and the "Discussion" category is weighted at 15%, you will want to add a category for each of your discussion posts.)
7. Once each of your categories or assignments are inserted, you can use the checkbox next to a category to override the weight with the percentage of your choosing (based on your syllabus).
(a) Make sure your weights equal 100% before hitting save or Moodle will automatically adjust the percentages for you.

Bonus: If you'd like your students to now see their total score as a percentage rather than cumulative points, stay in the Gradebook setup view, but select the "Course grade settings" tab. Once here, find "Grade display type" under "Grade item settings," and change it to one of the options with Percentage (i.e. "Percentage (Letter)" 89% (B+)).

Related Knowledgebase Article: Gradebook Display Type - Percentage, Letter, Real

Please also note in the User Report and Overview Report sections, by default totals will be hidden if you have any hidden graded items even if it's at the end of the course.