We’ve put out a lot of information recently about new features in Moodle 2.9, many of which pertain to the grade book. One big improvement is that if a field in the gradebook is empty, Moodle will no longer value that field as a zero when calculating cumulative course scores.

Subsequently, instructors no longer have to use workarounds like the ‘Extra credit’ value or an ungraded category for assignments that haven’t yet been graded. In the past, those workarounds have been used to prevent ungraded assignments from being calculated in student scores. The workarounds will no longer be needed because Moodle 2.9 will calculate only graded assignments. Instructors will, however, have to manually enter a zero if they’d like Moodle to factor in that score for an assignment.

Because of these changes we decided to apply a script to the database that removed the ‘Extra credit’ value from any assignment in any Fall 2015 Moodle course. Instructors still have the ability to make an assignment extra credit by following the instructions below.

First, open grades and click on Setup and Categories and items.

Locate the assignment and click on Edit then Edit Settings.

Locate the Parent category area, check the Extra credit box and click on Save changes.

Back in the ‘Categories and items’ area, a ‘+’ will appear in the ‘Max grade’ column for an extra credit assignment.