Ensuring that the correct grade and feedback is provided to the correct student is of critical importance. Managing this situation in cases where students do not submit an online assessment requires special handling. The following process for Grading and Feedback Only Assignments can assist.

What is a Grading and Feedback Only Assignment

A Grading and Feedback Only Assignment differs from most other assignments as it does not normally require or accept a student submission, yet it facilitates the grading of work and the provision of feedback. The grades and feedback are securely provided to each student, independently, the assignment type allows the lecturer to provide grades and feedback to students in a secure manner within Moodle, independently of a specific submission.

Use cases for a Grading and Feedback Only Assignment

This type of assignment can be useful in situations where students:

  • Undertake a performance of some form – such as music or drama – which does not lend itself to submission;
  • Create or produce an artefact – such as an artwork or other physical creation;
  • Participate in an oral or viva-style assessment;
  • Undertake assessments in forms that are not readily captured for online submission, but which may be assessed, graded and for which feedback may be provided.

Benefits of a Grading and Feedback Only Assignment

Because a Grading and Feedback Only Assignment is created and managed within a module or course page in the Moodle virtual learning environment (VLE), the assignment type benefits from access to the list of module participants.

  • Grades assigned are recorded to the Moodle Gradebook, if this is in use, and can be downloaded as part of the overall module grading.
  • Grading may be securely undertaken in accordance with the list of student participants independent of their having submitted a piece of work to Moodle. As the Moodle Assignment activity is used, the assessors have the benefit of using the Assignment Workflow process which assists in the grading, reviewing and release of scores for the assignment. This can be particularly helpful where there are multiple assessors and/or a large number of students.
  • Feedback may be provided to students in a variety of modes which include lecturer typed remarks and feedback, audio and video feedback in addition to the attachment of image, text or pdf files. Feedback is custom to each student and only accessible by the intended student.
  • Results for the assignment may be prepared in advance and scheduled for release on an appropriate date when the Grading Workflow is used.

Grading and Feedback Only Assignments in Moodle

Creating a Grading and Feedback Only Assignment in Moodle entails the following steps:

  • Access the Moodle page or module where the Grading and Feedback Only Assignment should be placed and browse to the assessment (or appropriate) section of the page.
  • From the bottom of that section click the button +Add and activity or resource.
  • From the pop-up window locate the Activities tab and click on the Assignment activity option.
  • In the Adding a new Assignment settings window that opens:
  • Provide a suitably descriptive assignment Name (mandatory);
  • Optionally, add a Description for the assignment if required; this description will be shown on the module page under the assignment name. Should you set the Description, and wish it to display on the Module page, ensure you check the Display description on course page check box under the description.
  • Provide any instructions that relate to the assignment in the Activity instructions area. This may be a brief regarding the task to be completed for the assignment to be graded;
  • Additional files, such as copies of the full assignment brief may be added to the Additional files section. More than one file may be added;
  • Configure the Availability section as required:
  • Allow submissions from specifies the date and time from which the assignment is open for submission; for the Grading and Feedback Only assignment, this may be disabled (uncheck the Enable checkbox) if not considered relevant as no submission will actually be made;
  • Due date specifies the deadline for the task to be completed; for the Grading and Feedback Only assignment this should be enabled and set appropriately to ensure students are suitably informed and so that the assignment shows in student calendars;
  • Cut-off date specifies the date after which assignments may not be accepted. This may not be relevant to your specific situation as no online submissions are being made. This may be left disabled (Enable unchecked);
  • Remind me to grade by may be set in according with personal preferences: if checked (Enabled) this will prompt you with a grading reminder for the specified date;
  • Always show in description may be checked to ensure that students can see the timeline that has been set for the assignment.
  • Submission types determine the form that submissions may take. In this case as no student submission is being made online, all the Submission types should be unchecked, as below:
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  • Feedback types set the types of feedback that the assessor may provide. The options chosen may vary according or personal preference and convenience.

    For the purpose of Grading and Feedback Only Assignments, the following can be considered:
  • Feedback comments – allows text comments to be typed for each student’s assignment
  • Feedback files – permits the appending of assessor uploads such as notes, PDFs, audio or other forms of feedback. This should be chosen for audio or video feedback if these are to be chosen for use.
  • Offline grading worksheets – facilitates offline grading. In this situation a grading spreadsheet can be downloaded from the assignment, grades may be appended and the spreadsheet may be reuploaded to Moodle at a later point to record the grades online. The option cannot be used with advanced grading (that is with a Rubric or Grading Guide).
The following options are not suitable for use with Grading and Feedback Only Assignments:

  • Annotate PDF – as no student submission is present, there is no submission for annotation
  • Comment Inline – again, as no student submission is present, no inline comments may be added.
  • Submission Settings configure the settings pertaining to how students process submissions.
    The settings in this section may be ignored and accepted as default as no online submissions will be made by students.
  • Group submission settings
    The settings in this section may be ignored and accepted as default as no online submissions will be made by students.
  • Notifications
    The settings in this section may be ignored and accepted as default as no online submissions will be made by students.
  • Grade
    The grading scale and configuration for grading can be configured in this section. These settings will apply as grading will be used in a Grading and Feedback Only assignment.
  • Use marking workflow is set to Yes by default: this controls the marking process through a series of stages and ensures that grades are released only when the assessor determines by setting grades to release.
  • Use Marking allocation allows specific assessors to be assigned to particular students: this may be useful for coordinating the grading of larger groups.
  • Hide grader identity from students: the identity of the assessor may be hidden from students if required. This may have little benefit for smaller groups with a single grader but may have benefits where multiple assessors work on a large group. Feedback comments and any identification provided there will be displayed to students.
  • The remaining sections may normally be accepted as default.
  • Click Save and return to course when satisfied with the settings for the assignment.

Grading and Feedback with a Grading and Feedback Only Assignment

Grading and Feedback can be undertaken by accessing the assignment and from the Assignment display choosing between one of the two displayed options, as illustrated:

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  1. View submissions – this enables Quick Grading by listing all students enrolled on the module or page and enables the grader to add a grade each student’s work, add a text feedback comment to each and to set the workflow status for grading and release. Because grading and feedback is completed in a table-like format, the options for more detailed grading and feedback are limited.


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    Ensure, once grading is completed, that it is saved by scrolling down the page and clicking Save all quick grading changes.

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  2. Grading – this option opens a detailed grading window that displays each student in sequence. Each individual student, together with their image if they have added a profile image to Moodle, will be displayed at the top of the page. A notice that “This assignment does not require you to submit anything online” confirms that this is a Grading and Feedback Only assignment.
The following section will step through the second of these options, Grading: Detailed One-by-one) Grading Form View, in detail.

Detailed (One-by-one) Grading Form View

In the Detailed grading form view the assessor may set the following:

  • Grade – the mark to be assigned to the student’s work; for reference the overall mark is displayed. Whole numbers and decimals may be used here;
  • Marking workflow state – assists with the management of assignment grading stages. The assessor can update the workflow state from, for example, Not marked to Marking completed or Ready for release to keep track of grading progress;
  • Feedback comments – Text comments may be provided in text format by typing directly into the Feedback comments field. Text formatting is available in this interface;
  • Audio or Video feedback – may also be provided to the individual student by choosing either the Record Audio or Record video buttons on the Feedback comments toolbar.

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    An assessor may record up to two minutes of audio or video which will then be attached to the student’s feedback for the assignment. Recordings can be reviewed prior to posting them to feedback. Like all feedback and grading, these are only released to students the Marking workflow state is set to Released.

    For further details on Recording Audio or Recording Video, see the respective sections below.
  • Feedback files – external files, such as Word, PDF notes, images, external audio or video may be added to the student’s feedback.

    If using the Feedback files upload, extreme care must be exercised to ensure that the correct notes or files are appended to and matched with the correct student if any individual feedback is being provided. Control measures such as having a module grading colleague review your attachments may be advisable to ensure that the correct files are associated with their students.
  • Once the detailed grading form has been completed proceed to the bottom of the page to locate the save options, illustrated, and choose the appropriate option:

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  • Notify student – this will send a Moodle notification to the student to advise that Grading and Feedback is available to view when the Marking workflow state is set to Released. If the Marking workflow state has been set to off, the notification will be sent immediately on Save changes or Save and show next;
  • Save changes – saves the changes made to the current student and remains on the student’s Detailed grading form page;
  • Save and show next – saves the changes made to the current student and moves to the next available student for grading;
  • Reset – clears all the details that have just been amended to the current student and reverts the form to its initial state when the page opened.

Releasing Grades and Feedback – Workflow Methods

Using the Grading workflow, all grades and feedback may be released at the same time. To do this:
  • Access the module or page with the assignment and browse to the specific assignment;
  • On loading the Assignment choose View all submissions to list all participants, their grades and feedback. At the top left of the table of students, under Select, click the top-most checkbox to select all students;
  • With students selected, locate the With selected… line below the table display and set the associated drop-down to Set marking workflow state. Click Go to the right once set to proceed;

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  • A pop-up will appear to confirm that you wish to set marking workflow state for all the selected students: click OK;
  • On the following screen the selected students are displayed. Locate the Marking workflow state line and set it to Released;
  • Should you wish to have students receive a Moodle notification that the grading and feedback is now available, set Notify student to Yes;

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  • Click Save changes to apply the Workflow Released state. Grading and feedback will be available to students to review. The submissions overview will reflect the update.

Additional Notes:
Adding Audio or Video Feedback to a Moodle Assignment


Recording Audio Feedback

  • On clicking the Microphone button, a Start recording button will be displayed on screen. On the first instance of accessing the recording feature you may be asked to provide browser permission to use your microphone.
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    Choose the correct microphone, if there are multiple options, and Allow recording in your browser using the pop-up (the example below is illustrative and will vary from device to device and between browsers).

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  • Once you have granted permission, recording will commence immediately. A two-minute countdown will display in the Record audio window. Click Stop recording when complete.
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  • A Playback window will be displayed allowing the recording to be reviewed and showing the duration of the recording. Play the recording by clicking the Play button. Record again if required or Attach the recording as feedback.

    When Attached, the Recording will be displayed in the Feedback comments window. Exercise care not to delete the recording from the feedback comments window as doing so will require the recording to be re-done.

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  • Once the recording is attached, review any other details and when satisfied proceed to the bottom of the page to locate the save options, choosing an appropriate option.

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Recording Video Feedback
  • On clicking the Camera button, a Start recording button will be displayed. On the first instance of accessing the recording feature you may be asked to provide browser permission to use your webcam and your microphone.
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  • Choose the correct camera and microphone if you have multiple devices and Allow recording in your browser using the pop-up (the example below is illustrative and will vary from device to device and between browsers).

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  • Once you have granted permission, video should be displayed in the Record video window and recording will commence. A two-minute countdown will display in the Record video window. Click Stop recording when complete.


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  • A Playback window will be displayed allowing the recording to be reviewed and showing the duration of the recording. Play the recording by clicking the Play button. Record again if required or Attach the recording as feedback.

    When Attached, the Recording will then be displayed in the Feedback comments window. Exercise care not to delete the recording from the feedback comments window as doing so will require the recording to be re-done.

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  • Once the recording is attached, review any other details and when satisfied proceed to the bottom of the page to locate the save options, choosing an appropriate option.

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