Step 1. Click on the forum link for the forum you want to grade.
Step 2. Select “Edit settings” under Forum administration in the Administration block.
Step 3. Under the Ratings section, you will need to choose how the individual threads’ grades will be aggregated via “Aggregate type” and the “Scale” you wish to use. It is important to understand the differences between the options. For more information regarding these settings see Moodle Docs: https://docs.moodle.org/31/en/Forum_settings .
NOTE: Within the Ratings section of the forum settings, you will find Aggregate type, where you will determine how the forum score is tabulated. Typically, the Maximum rating or Sum of ratings is used when an instructor is evaluating posts.
If you have set the aggregate type to a maximum rating of 10, then participants who post an appropriate response in a forum might earn a 9/10. This is the score that will appear in the gradebook.
Another aggregate type that is very helpful when requiring participants to make multiple posts in a forum is the sum of ratings setting. This way, as you grade each post, the scores are added together for a total grade for the forum. For example, when participants are required to make an initial post and two reply posts, the total forum grade can be set to 15. A participant who makes a great initial post and two average response posts would earn a 5 for the initial post and a 3 on each response post, making the total forum grade a 11/15. This is the score that will appear in the gradebook.
Step 4. When you are done, save the settings.
Step 5. When you open each student’s posting, you will be able to assign a grade. Assessing a participant’s post is very straightforward. As a teacher, you simply go into the forum, click on the post that you want to evaluate and find the Rate… drop-down menu in the bottom left corner of the post. The label beside the drop down menu displays the aggregate type for the rating. (See example below.)
Important note: If you are grading multiple postings over a period of time (i.e. using a Sum of ratings aggregate type, then students will see each grade as you post it and it will only be “final” once the last posting is graded. (i.e. if the total possible points is 20 and students get 5 points for the first posting, their score will appear as 25%) If you don’t want students to see this until you have graded all the postings then you should hide this column from the students in the gradebook until you have finished grading all posts.