Moderation and Grades form

As a Subject Convenor, this page will guide you through filling in the Moderation and Grades form.

Overview

The Moderation and Grades form allows you to provide information about the moderation process and grades proposed for each cohort.

Using the form

  • This form has a floating bar that stays on top as the page is scrolled.
  • If you are the convenor and the form is the the ‘Convenor’ stage, you will be able to see buttons: ‘Save‘, and ‘Submit to Moderator‘.
  • The 'Submit to Moderator' button stays greyed out until you have filled in all mandatory fields completed.
  • Mandatory fields are marked with a red asterisk.
  • If the subject is tagged as an “Indigenous Australian Content — Hybrid IAS ” then information about the subject will appear in a yellow box.

    Example of the Indigenous Australian Content (IAS) box.

What you need to complete

You only need to fill in the subject convenor-related questions, Q1 to Q3 and the grade distribution question. These questions are flagged with the following image:

Image showing the words 'subject convenor

Any questions not related to your role will be greyed out.

Please ensure you save your changes as you work through this form. The save button at the top of the form saves all changes. Alternatively, you can save your individual changes as you go along by hovering over the pencil icon and clicking the save icon that appears.

Moderation questions

These questions can be filled in at several stages during the session and saved each time before finally submitting at the end of the session.

Select all that apply. Optionally use the comment box to explain further.

Select all methods of moderation used in any of the cohorts in the subject. You can select multiple options.

  • If you used a different method of moderation than those listed, then choose ‘Other’ and write a description in the comment box.
  • You may use a slightly different process for some assessment items (e.g. assignments and exams can be different). If needed, use the comment field to explain the differences.

Moderation of assessment includes checking the consistency of marking of the assessment tasks and grading process against the assessment/marking criteria and related standards in order to ensure consistency across groups of students in the same subject. As well, all grades should be reviewed before approval and communication to students.

Schools and faculties have minimum expectations of moderation (which vary slightly due to discipline differences). Your school will tell you what actions you must do (at a minimum) and what boxes to select.

Blank can be used for 0

The bolded line indicates the total weighting of 100% of all tasks and the number of students in the subject. The subsequent lines indicating moderated task weightings show after the tasks moderated have been selected and the number of moderated tasks are entered.

First, select all the assessment task number(s) from the dropdown list that was moderated. Then type in the number moderated for each cohort (an entry can be left blank for a 0).

Here you explain why you selected the given items. The table automatically shows the assessment weight and the enrolment size to help in your explanations. The table can be left blank if no items were explicitly moderated. The final comment box is mandatory and must provide an appropriate explanation.

Schools have policies about which assessment items are moderated and how large the sample sizes are. Please follow your school policy and write comments that align with it.

Example of comments against various parts of the form.

Please be aware:

  • You cannot just tick the box for an assessment item to appear, you must also type in a number (corresponding to the sample size).
  • Some subjects are complicated and the assessment structure is different for different cohorts. For simplicity, these subjects are shown in abbreviated fashion – but this can cause confusion. So if you have a complicated subject, then an explanation is required.

    For example, a subject could have a WD cohort with 5 assessment items and a WI cohort with 6 assessment items. The weights that appear in the table are the weights pulled from the leftmost outline (even if they are different for other cohorts). If the weight shown is wrong for a cohort, then put in an explanation (in Q2b). Additionally, if a cohort does not have a certain assessment item (A6 for WD in this example), then a dash appears showing you that you cannot have moderated that item.

Please select 'No' if no adjustments or 'Yes' if marks were adjusted due to the moderation process. If yes, you must provide a reason in the comment box. These reasons should include a description of what adjustments were made and why these were necessary. If the subject has multiple cohorts/markers, explain which cohort(s)/marker(s) were impacted. You should also mention the magnitude of the adjustment.

This information may be used in future sessions to adjust the depth of moderation for markers.

Grade Distributions

This section provides information about the grade distribution. The distribution is provided here as a tool to help check that grades are ready. Beneath the grade distribution table will be a dot point summary. In this summary, where the line item is in red text, you must provide a reason in the comment box below. The tool tip gives suggestions for how to give comments. Note: you can see historical grades for comparison in the data dashboard in the Reflection and Planning form.

Under criterion-referenced assessment, any grade distribution is possible. However, analysis of grade distributions can be used as a diagnostic tool to show where criterion referencing has not been used consistently. Grade distributions can also assist with reflection and future planning.

This information is drawn directly from Grade Centre. If the grade centres are not configured properly, then the distributions may come out wrong. You can find  Grade Centre health checks in the resources section of Interact2 Grade Centre help site.

Also see Multi-session or Year-long subjects.

Known issues/features with grade distributions

  • Interact2 users with no SID are automatically excluded. In particular, preview users are excluded.
  • Interact2 users with no marks at all are automatically excluded. This is a feature of BlackBoard. If a student who has not attempted anything should be counted, then you need to explicitly give them an override grade (most likely FNS (from 202090) or FW). The benefit of this approach is that spurious users are excluded.
  • If Grade Centres are merged, then the grade distributions are likewise merged and listed under the parent site. A flag mentions when merging has occurred (hovering over this flag, a pop-up shows the sites that have been merged). If merged, child sites should not be used. If they are used, the grade distributions will come out wrong. The only way to fix is to delete any marks entered into the child site.
  • If the Cumulative Mark uses another total column to determine its value, then the grade distribution is wrong. To resolve this, Edit the Column Information of the Cumulative Mark and get it to total the raw columns directly. This is better practice anyway to avoid the ‘running total’ issue total columns can have. [For the technically minded, the reason for the error is because Blackboard does not share the values of derived columns like totals, and so they look like 0 rather than their true value.]
  • If a “Manual Override” is used in the Administrative Override column, then the grade will be ignored. Fix: delete grade and retype in directly. Note: grade transfer is correct regardless.
  • If Discussions are used for marking and some students are marked as “not participating” then the “not participating is not recognised (students are implicitly given 0 instead). This usually will lower grades.

Finalising the form

To complete the form, you must complete this section This signs off this form.

By ticking the subject declaration boxes, you are confirming that grades entered in Grade Centre are true and correct and will not be altered in any way. It also confirms that moderation has taken place for the given offering and any issues have been documented and resolved.

If you tick a box and save the form, then the moderator is notified.

Caution: After the form has been saved, you cannot untick a box. A dialog window will appear saying “If grades need to be changed, then please contact the school for the process."

To complete the Moderation and Grades form, all offerings must be declared.

In an ideal situation, you would finish Q1-3 and the grade distribution question, declare all cohorts by clicking all the box(es) in the subject declaration table and pressing the Save button and then the Submit to Moderator button.

If some cohorts are not ready by the due date (for example, a delay in exam delivery or delays due to protracted moderation), the form allows you (and the moderator) to approve the cohorts that are ready while still waiting for the delayed ones. To do this, you tick the box(es) in the subject declaration table for the cohorts that are ready and press the Save button. This will trigger an automated email to the moderator to advise them to fill in their sections in this form and sign off their sections. The grades for the cohorts declared can then be transferred. You then need to fill in the Whole Cohort TA table for those cohorts that will be delayed (see below). Once the last cohorts are finalised, the convenor should update responses to Q1-3 and the grade distribution question (if needed), declare the remaining cohorts and press the Submit to Moderator button.

If grades need to be changed after the subject declaration, please contact your school for what is required.

A Head of School is able to reverse the declarations. However, depending on the timing of the reversal, other changes (like a change of grade form) may be required.

If an offering will not be ready in time, then you can request an extension via the Whole Cohort TA table.

State the reason for the delay and the expected completion date. The text you type in is part of the school assessment agenda and minutes. These comments will be reviewed by the school assessment committee.

If an offering has already been declared, then it will not appear in the whole cohort TA table (since it longer needs to be).

Feedback

Moderator and School Assessment Committee will review this form. They may add notes and return the form to you for further updates. If this happens, you will receive an email with the notes. When you return to this form, you will see these notes at the top of the form.

Once you complete the required updates, you can resubmit to Moderator via the Submit to Moderator button.