Grade database entries

Giving grades for entries is the single most powerful motivator for learners. It also rewards learners for their time and effort. As always, if you don’t want to assign a numerical grade to an entry, you can create a custom scale and assign a qualitative grade. When you rate an entry, the grade is added to the grade book, like a rated forum post.

To enable learner rating of entries:

1. On the Updating database page, select the Roles tab.
2. Click the Override roles link just below the tabs.
3. Select the learner role from the list of roles in your course.
4. Select Allow for the Rate entries capability.
5. Click Save changes.

We would strongly recommend combining ratings and comments. Rating allows you to assign a numerical value to an entry, but it doesn’t give you a method to tell the learner why they received the particular grade. The comments box enables you to communicate the reason.

Ratings and comments can be turned into a collaborative venture with your learners. By default, learners are allowed to add comments and only Trainers are allowed to rate entries. However you can enable collaborative rating by setting an override for the Learner role.

If you don’t see the Override roles link in the Roles tab, ask your system administrator. By default Trainers are unable to override roles, so this ability must be granted by your system administrator as well as setting which roles can be overridden by the Trainer role.

Next steps

• Add a database entry