What is it?

Assessment categorisation is a feature in Moodle which allows assessments to be categorised as summative or formative.

Why use it?

It allows for students to clearly see which assessments are summative and which are formative.

In future, staff reporting will be available so that summative and formative assessments can be reported on to help improve marking workload planning.

Who can use it?

Availble on all Moodle courses. It can be configured by Course Administrators or Tutors.

Meeting the baseline

The UCL Connected Learning Baseline suggests the following for assessment :

4.1 Provide an assessment outline with a clear description of the module assessment
The assessment and feedback outline should include the schedule, criteria, submission details, and an overview of how students should expect to receive and make use of feedback.
Moodle could be used to amplify and support that information, perhaps to include sources of advice, etc.

How do I set it up?

The options to add Assessment categorisation will appear whenever an assessment is created or edited.

The categories currently available are:

Summative: counts towards course mark and is mapped in SITS.
Formative: does not contribute to course mark.
Dummy activity - neither formative or summative.

This feature is available for the following activities, with more to follow:

Moodle assignment
Moodle quiz
Moodle workshop
Turnitin assignment

Students will see whether an assessment is Summative or Formative in the new Feedback tracker report. Dummy activities will be excluded from the Feedback Tracker report.

Mark Transfer and Assessment Categorisation

If you have mapped your Moodle assessment to SITS using Mark Transfer, then your assessment will automatically show as Summative. You won't be able to edit the categorisation without removing the mapping first.

Adding Assessment categorisation to a new/existing assessment

When you edit an assessment, you will see an option called "Formative or summative?". Select the most appropriate category from the drop down menu.

Bulk adding/editing Assessment categorisation to your course

Categories can also be added in bulk for all assessments on a course using the date management report tool.

When you load the report, you will see the "Formative or summative" option for each assessment.

Further information

Feedback Tracker launch blog