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Moodle Assessment Features

When a Moodle Activity is configured to demonstrate a competency, Moodle marks this competency complete. There is a yes/no determination on competencies, there is no score.  A set of Moodle activities can also be configured to complete one competency. When the Moodle completes the competency for a student, PEMS creates an Assessment Result record that records the date and completion, when and if there is an Assessment code record with correctly corresponding fields.

  • Moodle determines if the competency has been achieved
  • When achieved, an assessment result record is created for the student with date of achievement

Hierarchy of Competencies

Moodle offers unlimited hierarchies in competencies, when all sub competencies are completed, Moodle checks off the higher level competency as completed.  PEMS does not duplicate the hierarchy and has one level of competencies.  If the school wants to reflect the hierarchy in Moodle in PEMS, the best approach is to use an agreed convention in the name field of the Assessment Code record.  Regardless of how Moodle checks of a competency when it is checked off an Assessment Result record is created in PEMS.

Learning Plans In Moodle and Programs of Study

In Moodle, a student can be assigned a learning plan, which is a group of competencies that may span multiple courses.  The student can view their progress towards the learning plan in their profile. 

In PEMS, the learning plan is a field in the program of study record.  The field is meant to be an exact text match to the learning plan record in Moodle.  In Moodle, the learning plan record does not have a unique identifier which to force a unique value.  The school must ensure that only unique text strings are used for learning plan names.

Note: we need to create a field name "Moodle Learning Plan" and "Learning Plan Status" in the program of study table and in the student plan table. 

All learning plans are meant to support he objectives of the program of study.  PEMS allows only one learning plan per program.  PEMS enforces that the learning plan name is unique.  Users  copy/paste the name of the learning plan into Moodle to create an exact text match.

PEMS does not automatically create learning plans that match the PEMS, users must ensure an exact text match in learning plan name between Moodle and PEMS.  (investigate for future versions.)

 

Competency-Based Assessments

For assessment codes with type = competence,  calculations are not made between assessment result records.  Assessment result records are entirely driven by the Moodle Competency framework feature.  Also, for these types of assessments, the marks matrix is not used.

This type of assessment code is only used with tight synchronization between PEMS and Moodle and is non-functional if Moodle is not configured to use competencies and Learning plans, as students may only demonstrate they meet the competencies through completing certain assignments in various Moodle courses.  

If the school intends to use competency based assessments then when ever a course author makes a change to the list of competencies, the PEMS list of assessment codes must also be updated.  The assessment code records with type = competency must correspond to the competencies in Moodle if PEMS will record student achievements. 

  • The Assessment Code field in PEMS must be the exact same text string as the Competency Code field in Moodle.

PEMS does not auto-update the assessment code records when new competencies are defined in Moodle. (investigate for future versions)


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