This article will explain how to set up the Group Contribution Grading functionality.
Group Contribution Grading, also called "Grading" in the assignment, is an extra functionality that you can add to your Group Member Evaluation assignment. You can add it after step 3 in the edit mode of the assignment. This feature enables you to calculate a student's grade based on the contribution of this individual to the group deliverable. It could be linked to the rubric in the assignment in the sense that you can ascribe points to the rubric criteria if wanted.
Grading
Moreover, you can add grading to your assignment by clicking on the purple plus button on your left. You can configure how many points do you want to give to each process of the assignment like in the following screenshot.
Configurable Group Contribution Factor within GME
Configurable Group Contribution Factor is also possible within Group Contribution Grading. Teachers can adjust the threshold of what the outcome of the grade will be according to the group contribution factor or group skill factor.
When creating a GME assignment with the ‘review within groups’ option (does not work with other options), it’s possible to enable ‘configurable group contribution grading’ at the bottom of the page in the settings underneath the Configurable Grading module. After enabling this feature, you can click the ‘configure’ button which presents a choice between two different grading options.
It’s important to note that this should be done after a group project is finished and has been graded. This feature is meant to change that group grade and individualize them based on contributions
Group contribution factor:
The group contribution factor calculates student participation by distributing a factor between 0 and 2 which shows how much the students have done within the group work relative to the other team members. This factor uses the average of the ratings received from criteria for a student and compares this to the average rating received from this student’s team members.
It’s important to note here is that a student’s contribution factor will change when new ratings for other students come in later and will go up or down depending on the scores the other student received. For ‘Group contribution factor’, the teacher has to configure the values that will be used to categorize students’ contribution factor after this is calculated and determine what should happen to their particular project grade.
One out of three things will happen to the student’s project grade in this case:
It will stay the same (nothing gets deducted or added), the project grade gets multiplied by the contribution factor the student receives, or the project grade for this student will be reduced to zero (0).
By default these values are set to give students:
A zero (0) if their contribution factor is between 0 and 0.49
The project grade multiplied by the received contribution factor if their contribution factor is between 0.5 and 1
An unaltered project grade if the contribution factor is between 1.01 and 2.
Calculation of the Group Contribution Factor
To calculate the Group Contribution Factor, we take the square root of the sum of the average normalized ratings the student received, divided by the sum of the average normalized ratings the group received threshold.
When this group contribution is smaller than a configurable minimum threshold (0.49 by default), the student's project grade will be 0. When the group contribution factor is higher than a configurable maximum threshold (1.01 by default), the student's project grade will be left unaltered.
Between these minimum and maximum thresholds, the student's group contribution factor is multiplied by the project grade to result in the final grade.
Visualisation of the calculation
Using or adjusting the factor
The teacher may edit these values to what is desired for the assignment. The system will provide suggestions in regard to the adjustments that are to be made to the grades. To apply these suggestions the following options are available:
For all students: By clicking on the arrow icon at the top of the table header, suggestions can be applied for all students within the assignment. Note: a confirmation dialog will appear explaining what is to happen and that this cannot be undone (see below)
For all students in a subgroup: By clicking on the arrow icon that is connected to the subgroup row.
For just one student: By clicking on the arrow icon on the student row.
Group skill factor
The group skill factor works a bit differently. Here, the factors are not calculated relative to the other team members’ scores but rather uses the ratings received compared to the maximum points possible for the criteria to come up with a factor between 0 and 1. An important difference here is that a student’s factor does not change depending on the scores the other students receive. Again, the teacher is able to configure the values that decide what will happen to student project grades when they receive their average scores.
One of three things will happen to the student’s project grade in this case:
It will stay the same (nothing gets deducted or added), the project grade gets multiplied by the factor the student receives, or the project grade for this student will be reduced to zero (0).
The defaults for this group contribution option are set to:
Give students a zero (0) if they score between 0 and 0.55
The project grade is multiplied by the average score if they score between 0.56 and 0.8
An unaltered project grade if they score anywhere between 0.81 and 1
The teacher may again edit these values to what is desired for the assignment.
Finally, click Publish in the top-right corner of the screen. When you have finished setting up the assignment, it is time for the students to get started!
This concludes
the Group Contribution Grading | Set-up tutorial.
If you have any questions or experience a technical issue, please contact our friendly support team by clicking on the blue chat button (Note: support is available 24h every weekday & unavailable on the weekend).
