Learning outcomes from Moodle to Nuventive

To move learning outcomes from Moodle to Nuventive requires first having set up outcomes in Moodle. Setting up outcomes is optimally done prior to the start of the term. That said, outcomes can be created and attached to any assignment that has not yet had submissions. 

In order to set up learning outcomes in Moodle, a rating Scale must first be set up.

Scales are set up from a submenu on the Grades tab from the course home page. 

Use Add a new scale to create a rating scale.

Give the scale a name. Once used anywhere else in Moodle, the scale cannot be edited. This is why the scale is grayed out above: the scale is in use. 

The scale is a comma separated list of words. Keep each rating short, the rating words will populate a drop down list. 

The ratings must be in order from lowest rating to highest rating. Under the hood, Moodle, with default admin settings, will assign one point to the first rating, two points to the second rating, three points to the third rating, and so forth. 

On the same submenu as Scales, the next menu item is Outcomes. Outcomes used in the course is blank in the above image because no outcome has been selected for removal.

The course is a course in progress with two learning outcomes. Both outcomes are in use, as a result neither can be removed. There are also no remaining unused outcomes that can be added to the course. 

To add an outcome select Manage outcomes on the Outcomes page.

To add an outcome, select Add a new outcome.

The outcome must have a full name, a short name, and a scale. The description is optional and is useful for longer learning outcomes. The full name will appear in the assignment grader and should also be kept relatively brief. 

For this course learning outcome the complete learning outcome is in the description. Note that the Scale for the above outcome cannot be edited or changed. Once an outcome is saved, the scale cannot be changed. If an error has been made and the scale requires changing then the outcome will have to be deleted and rebuilt from scratch.

Once outcomes have been created, a new Outcomes subsection will appear below Grade in Assignments. In the above image course learning outcome SSSC115.1 was previously selected. Once an outcome is selected in the Assignment set up, the outcome cannot be deleted from  Assignment set up. Outcomes are deleted from Gradebook setup.

When submissions come in, the outcome is listed below the Grade as a drop down list. 

The drop down list displays the ratings plus an option for "No outcome" that Moodle uses as the default state prior to setting the rating. Note that Moodle automatically generates the No outcome option.

Outcomes display in the Grader report gradebook. The outcome typically follows the assignment. 

By default outcomes are not included in calculation of grades. The setting for this is tucked away in a Gradebook setup submenu.

A vertical ellipsis menu on the right side of categories accesses Edit category.

In Edit category is the option to include outcomes in the grade aggregation using the hidden 1,2,3... point scale. Those scale rating points cannot be edited. In the above course outcomes are not included in the grade aggregation. Including the outcomes in the aggregation can have unexpected or unwanted results. For the rating scale in use suboptimal is not the same as failure. On the rating scale, however, suboptimal is 2 out of 4 points or 50%. Mixing scale rating points and points from assignments and tests seems ill advised. 

In the Grades submenu is the Outcomes report which reports averages based on the 1,2,3... scale underneath the ratings.

At the bottom of the Grades menu is Export.

At the bottom of the Grades: Export is Select all/none. 

For the purposes of exporting outcomes, Select none and then select the outcomes manually.

For the process ahead only the Real values are needed in the export file.

Note that the file exports in the open document spreadsheet format (.ods). This can be opened by spreadsheet programs such as open source LibreOffice among other spreadsheet programs. In this exercise the file was opened in LibreOffice and then the results were copied into a Google Sheets spreadsheet.

In the export file the outcome ratings are displayed for each student and each assessment.

To the right a column was manually added with gender information for use in Nuventive. In this spreadsheet gender was in column P, the specific column will vary depending the number of outcome assessments.

In Q2 above is the following formula:

=IFS(G2="Optimal",4,G2="Sufficient",3,G2="Suboptimal",2,G2="No evidence",1,G2="-","")

That formula can be filled across and down.

The values in the formula were intentionally selected to remain the same as those used internally by Moodle. These values could be altered in the spreadsheet.

Columns X and Y above tally the results from columns Q to W for the columns corresponding to the outcome. As appropriate to the design of the course and nature of the assessed assignments, tally functions might include AVERAGE, MEDIAN. In this course specific assignments were selected for demonstrating the learning outcomes. 

X2: =max(Q2:S2)

Y2: =max(T2:W2)

AA2: =counta(P:P)

AA3: =counta(P:P)

AB2: =countifs($P:$P,"F",X:X,">2")

AB3: =countifs($P:$P,"F",Y:Y,">2")

AC2: =countifs($P:$P,"M",X:X,">2")

AC3: =countifs($P:$P,"M",Y:Y,">2")

AD2: =sum(AB2:AC2)

AD3: =sum(AB3:AC3)

AE2: ="[national] DLL "&AD2&" ("&AB2&" females; "&AC2&" males ) out of "&$AA2&" students ("&round(100*AD2/$AA2,0)&"%) achieved near mastery or better of this CSLO."

AE3: ="[national] DLL "&AD3&" ("&AB3&" females; "&AC3&" males ) out of "&$AA3&" students ("&round(100*AD3/$AA3,0)&"%) achieved near mastery or better of this CSLO."

The results in AE2 and AE3 can be copied into Nuventive Solutions in the appropriate location. The appropriate values can then be filled into the blanks below.

Learning outcomes can also be attached to Moodle quizzes and tests. These outcomes, however, do not attach at the question level. These outcome attach only to the whole test. In addition, marking these outcomes is done in the Grader report and only from the Edit mode in Moodle. In the Grader report there is only the overall score for reference.