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Marking Guides

Published on: 20/08/2025 · Last updated on: 20/08/2025

What are marking guides?

Marking Guides are grading forms that can be used in Moodle Assignments and Forums.

Marking guides allows Teachers to define a grading form with specific criteria, and choose how many marks to award for each. Feedback comments can also be included.

Image showing selection of grading method

In this example marking guide, you can see predefined criteria, with allocated marks and space to enter feedback comments

Example of Marking guide with criterion, comments and maximum mark.

How do staff and students use it effectively?

Clear marking criteria will help students understand what any particular assessment task is looking for. Marking guides and Rubrics can help ensure assessment guidelines, success criteria and next steps are clear for students and staff.

Staff can decide which options they use when setting up their Marking guide or Rubric but we would recommend you consider the following:

  • Choose the setting to make the criteria descriptions visible to students in advance, and let them know that they can view these by accessing the assignment submission point.  You may need to highlight to them how to view the marking criteria at the early stages.  
  • If you’re using the Rubric or Marking guide for formative feedback, you can choose to hide the points awarded from students.
  • It’s important to include feedback comments and to personalise the feedback provided.  You can choose how to use the rubric and marking guide in combination with feedback comments. You can either have feedback comments for each assessment criterion, or you can make an overall feedback comment. 

How to set up a Marking Guide

Note: Videos will show some differences to live Moodle following the summer 25 upgrade. these will be updated in due course.

Watch this short video [7 mins] which demonstrates how the set up a Marking guide:



Marking guide – Advanced marking in Moodle video

Downloading marked grading forms

Although you can see completed marking guides inside of each student’s grading page, it is also possible to see and download the associated grades and feedback for all your students in one go.  

  • In the Course navigation menu, click onto the Grades tab
  • Select Marking Guide Report from the drop down menu at the top of the page
  • Select the activity you wish to view the feedback for and press the Submit button

All relevant grading information appears on the screen, and can be downloaded for offline review.

Reusing grading forms

The Advanced grading tab within an assignment or forum activity enables Moodle Teachers to select or switch between grading methods.  If you have selected an advanced grading method on this page (rubric, ranged rubric, or marking guide) a management screen will appear.

To use an existing marking guide, select Create new grading form from a template.

Select grading form image

By default, a number of pre-defined templates will appear, however a search function located at the top of the page will enable you to search for and reuse your own rubrics and marking guides.

Screenshot of grading form search tool. A check box labeled 'include my own forms' has been selected.

Note: Only marking guides (and rubrics) that you have previously been marked as ‘Ready for usage’ (i.e. that are attached to an existing activity) can be re-used this way.

Sharing grading forms with others

At the current time, there is no export/import option for marking guides, however the workaround is to create a new activity (such as an assignment) and attach the relevant grading form to it. You can then create a backup of this activity and share the resulting .mbz file with others.

By restoring the activity, the attached grading form is restored too.

Note:  If you delete all of the activities that make use of a specific marking guide, (or rubric), you also delete all copies of that grading form.

FAQs

A key difference between a Marking Guide, a Rubric, and a Ranged rubric, is the way that points/marks are awarded for each criterion. For the Rubric, only a set number of points can be awarded depending on the preset levels of each criterion. The Ranged rubric allows a precise number of points to be allocated within a specified range. In a Marking Guide the grader can choose the points awarded up to the maximum points allowed for the given criterion.  

Marking Guide 

  • You can set up a marking guide in Moodle using the Advanced Grading options. 
  • In Moodle, the marking guide is a feedback form where you can describe the learning outcomes or assessment criteria. The form provides a box to enter feedback comments for each criterion. 
  • You can allocate a maximum mark for each criterion. 
  • The marking guide allows you to build up a bank of frequently used comments. 
  • General feedback and criteria comments can be made visible to students.
  • Can be re-used and/or shared with colleagues.

Rubric 

  • You can set up a rubric in Moodle using the Advanced grading options. 
  • In Moodle, the rubric is presented in a grid format. There are rows for the different assessment criteria or learning outcomes, and columns for the expected performance levels. 
  • You can assign a score to each performance level. 
  • You can decide whether to display the breakdown of marks to students, or just the descriptors. 
  • General feedback and criteria comments can be made visible to students.
  • Can be re-used and/or shared with colleagues.
  • The overall mark is calculated by the rubric. 
  • A well-constructed rubric can speed up the marking process, improve consistency of feedback and provide the student with a clear explanation of their final grade.

Ranged Rubric 

  • You can set up a ranged rubric in Moodle using the Advanced grading options. 
  • In Moodle, the ranged rubric is presented in a grid format. There are rows for the different assessment criteria or learning outcomes, and columns for the expected performance levels. 
  • You can assign a score range to each performance level, and a precise score can be given within that range when marking.
  • You can decide whether to display the breakdown of marks to students, or just the descriptors. 
  • General feedback and criteria comments can be made visible to students.
  • Can be re-used and/or shared with colleagues.
  • The overall mark is calculated by the ranged rubric. 
  • A well-constructed ranged rubric can speed up the marking process, improve consistency of feedback and provide the student with a clear explanation of their final grade.

Teachers can decide which options to use but we would recommend that you consider the following:

  • It’s important to share the marking criteria with students before the assessment. You may need to highlight to them how to view the marking criteria at the early stages.
  • Choose the setting to make the rubric or criteria descriptions visible to students in advance, and let them know that they can view these by accessing the assignment submission point.
  • If you’re using the rubric/ranged rubric or marking guide for formative feedback, you can choose to hide the points awarded per criterion from students (they will still see the total grade awarded).
  • You can use the rubric/ranged rubric or marking guide in combination with a Letter scale to provide indicative feedback (for example Pass or Fail) instead of a percentage mark.
  • You can choose how to use the rubric/ranged rubric in combination with feedback comments, so you can either have feedback comments for each assessment criterion, or you can make an overall feedback comment. It’s important to include feedback comments, to personalise the feedback provided.
  • You could also choose to annotate the submitted assignments, as the rubric, ranged rubric, and marking guide can be used in combination with the other feedback methods in Moodle.

No, Moodle will scale the marking guide/rubric/ranged rubric score to 100 even if your marking guide/rubric/ranged rubric doesn’t add up to 100 (assuming you haven’t changed this in the assignment settings) e.g. an assignment with a marking guide/rubric/ranged rubric that scores 20/40 will appear as 50/100 in the gradebook and for SAMIS transfer.

The rubric/ranged rubric will work out the marks based on the points awarded for each criterion. When you create the rubric, you will be able to determine the points each level is worth.

For example, when using the rubric if you have chosen the levels in the green boxes for each criterion, the student would receive a mark of 6/9, this will appear as 66.7/100 in the gradebook and for SAMIS transfer. The ranged rubric will calculate based on the exact score awarded.

The marking guide will work out the marks based on the points decided by the grader, the grader can only give a score up to the maximum marks.

For example, if the grader awards a mark of 7 on the assignment below, the student will receive a mark of 7/10, this will appear as 70/100 in the gradebook and for SAMIS transfer.

When using the rubric, the weight of each criterion is not immediately obvious. However, you can influence the final grade by adjusting the points assigned to each level within a criterion.

To apply a weighted grading system, the key is to set the points for each level of the rubric. A criterion with higher point values will have more impact on the final grade.

For example, if one criterion has marks 0, 1, 2, 3, and another criterion has marks 0, 2, 4, 6, the second criterion will contribute twice as much to the final grade as the first one because its maximum score is higher.

Example:

CriterionLevel 5Level 4Level 3Level 2Level 1
Criterion 1 (50%)504030200
Criterion 2 (20%)20151050
Criterion 3 (10%)108640
Criterion 4 (10%)108640
Criterion 5 (10%)108640

Explanation:

  • Criterion 1 (50%): The maximum score for Criterion 1 is 50.
  • Criterion 2 (20%): The maximum score for Criterion 2 is 20.
  • Criterion 3 (10%): The maximum score for Criterion 3 is 10.
  • Criterion 4 (10%): The maximum score for Criterion 4 is 10.
  • Criterion 5 (10%): The maximum score for Criterion 5 is 10.

Since Criterion 1 has the highest score (50), it has the largest impact on the final grade (50%). The other criteria contribute proportionally less based on their respective scores.

Important Notes:

  • Moodle automatically scales the total score to 100, which is the default in the Assignment settings. If your top marks for Level 5 don’t add up to 100, it can still work as Moodle will scale the result for you.
  • It’s recommended to leave the Assignment total score at 100 to ensure seamless grade transfer to SAMIS.

No. These assessment methods must be completed online in Moodle’s grading screen.  If you would like to export submissions to work and mark offline you will need to mark with Simple direct marking. 

Marking guide: Yes, a marking guide can be edited once in use. A warning will appear if the marking guide has already been used for grading and will ask you if the assignment needs to be regraded or not. 

Rubric/Ranged rubric: Yes, but editing the levels or values of the criterion will not change the grade book value already given to students. The assignment will need to be regraded.

This depends on how the markers want to work.

Double (not blind) marking could use a marking guide where each marker adds a feedback comment with their initials.

In rubrics/ranged rubrics you can choose to have feedback comment boxes for each criterion, but only show these to markers.  These could be used to explain ‘levels’ chosen for moderation with other markers.

In the Marking guide – yes, other graders on the unit will be able to see and use the frequently used comments saved for that assignment. This isn’t currently possible for Rubrics an Ranged rubrics.

Yes. You can search your own grading forms in the search box. This way, you can simply re-use your grading forms. Only forms marked as ‘Ready for usage’ can be re-used this way.

Click Create new grading form from template.

Click the box to include your own forms and click Search.  Then select the link to use the form.

Each time you reuse a marking guide or rubric, a new version is created.  This means you can edit the new version without it affecting any of the previous versions.

To re-use a marking guide or rubric in a different Moodle course you will have to Backup and Restore the activity. Please note that previously used Rubrics cannot be adapted into Ranged rubrics and vice versa, so will need to created from scratch in the first instance.

Each time you reuse a marking guide, rubric, or ranged rubric, a new version is created.  This means you can edit the new version without it affecting any of the previous versions.

Only the Marking Guide option gives you the chance to use ‘frequently used comments’.  If a teacher regularly uses the same comments when marking, it is possible to add these to a frequently used comments bank. 

  • Click the Click to edit link and add a comment. 
  • Click the +Add frequently used comment button to add another one and repeat as needed. 

When you reuse a marking guide the frequently used comments will be duplicated for reuse too. 

When using a rubric, ranged rubric, or marking guide, it is not possible to ‘partially’ grade, i.e. make some changes to grade or feedback, save and come back later to finish. If you try this then your choices and/or feedback comments will not be saved. You need to complete grading for each criterion before saving.

If you have set the option to include feedback comments per criterion, then it’s ncessary to add these at the same time as the grading. If you grade without leaving comments, then once saved the option to add the comments is removed. This has no impact on the ‘overview’ feedback you can give.

Further reading

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