SCC Faculty Knowledge BaseAcademicMoodleTroubleshootingWhy Students Can't See Their Course Total Grade in My Class (And How To Fix It)

Why Students Can't See Their Course Total Grade in My Class (And How To Fix It)

The Course total grade is a student's final grade calculated from all the item grades in a Moodle class.

A problem students often have in Moodle is that while they can see individual grades in a class, they can't see this Course total grade. Here's the most common reason why and two options for how to fix it.

When grade items are hidden the total is also hidden

The default behavior in the gradebook is for the Course total grade to be hidden if there are individual grades that are hidden from students. Unfortunately, instructors can't easily look at their grade book and see that this is happening.

In the image below from a Moodle gradebook, for example, both Ecology Exam 1 and the Course total grades are hidden to student, but only the Ecology Exam 1 grade column is visibly "grayed out" to show this.

Grades: View tab detail

Fix option #1: Change the course grade settings

One way to fix the hidden final grade issue is to go to the Course grade settings page and change the default gradebook behavior. From the gradebook Setup tab, click the Course grade settings link.

Gradebook tabs detail

On the settings page, change the setting Hide totals if they contain hidden items to either Show totals excluding hidden items or Show totals including hidden items. Do this for both Overview report and the User report sections.

Course grade settings page detail

Whether to "include" or "exclude" hidden items in the Course total calculation is determined by the instructor, but a final grade with that comprises of hidden grade items in its grade calculation can be very confusing for students.

Fix option #2: unhide all hidden grade items

To make the final grade visible without changing gradebook settings, you must make all hidden grade items visible.  For grades associated with graded activities (like the Ecology Exam 1), we must do this from the course outline, not from the grade book. So from your course outline (course main page), first Turn editing on.

Turn editing on link

Find the hidden activity in your course outline, click its Edit menu and select Show to reveal it to students. Do the same for any other hidden graded course activities.

Course outline item detail

If you have any hidden grade items not automatically connected to graded course activities (i.e. just grade items you manually created in the gradebook), you'll have to reveal those from the gradebook Setup tab.

In Setup, find the hidden grade item from the list, click on its Edit menu and click Show to reveal it.

Grades: Setup tab detail

With your grade settings changed or with all hidden items revealed, your students should now be able to see their current Course total.