Our work / Open source
Needs grading, for Moodle
A Moodle block that puts everything waiting for you to grade in one list: assignment submissions and quiz essays, across all your courses, oldest first. Add it to your Dashboard and stop opening every course to check. It is free and open source.
- 4.5 to 5.3 Moodle versions, on PHP 8.1 to 8.4
- GPL v3 free to use and change
- Alpha try it on a test site first
Why can't teachers see this already?
Moodle counts ungraded submissions inside each activity, one course at a time. A teacher with six courses opens six courses, then every assignment in them, to find out what's waiting. The Dashboard's Timeline shows deadlines, not work handed in. Teachers keep asking for one list on the Moodle forums, and the block many used, Grade Me, stops at Moodle 4.5.
What does it count?
Each line is one activity: how many are waiting, the course, and when the oldest arrived. The link opens that activity's grading page. On a course page the block shows that course only.
| Work | Counted when |
|---|---|
| Assignment submissions | The latest submission is submitted and has no grade, or the student changed it after it was graded. The same rule Moodle's assignment uses for its own count. Suspended students are left out. |
| Quiz attempts | Finished, but with no total yet: a question such as an essay is waiting for manual grading. |
- Only what you can grade. Each line checks your grading permission in that activity.
- Fast on big sites. One query for all your assignments and one for all your quizzes, not one per activity.
- Stores nothing. It reads existing submissions and attempts, so there is no personal data to manage.
How is it tested?
PHPUnit covers the ordering, graded work leaving the list and coming back when a student changes it, quiz essays, permissions, suspended students and the course filter. Behat adds the block to a teacher's Dashboard and opens the grading page from it. CI runs on Moodle 4.5 to 5.3, on PostgreSQL and MariaDB.
Questions people ask
How do I see all ungraded assignments across my Moodle courses?
Add the Needs grading block to your Dashboard. It lists every assignment and quiz in all your courses that has work waiting for you, with the number waiting, the course, and how long the oldest has waited. Each line links to that activity's grading page.
Doesn't the Moodle Timeline already show this?
No. The Timeline shows upcoming deadlines for activities you take part in. Work submitted to you for grading, and quiz essays waiting for a mark, don't appear there. Moodle's own counts live inside each activity, one course at a time.
Does it show work from courses I can't grade?
No. A line only appears for activities where you hold the grading permission (mod/assign:grade or mod/quiz:grade). Students who add the block see nothing to grade.
Which Moodle versions does it support?
Moodle 4.5 to 5.3, on PHP 8.1 to 8.4, with PostgreSQL or MariaDB/MySQL. An older block that did this, Grade Me, stops at Moodle 4.5.
Is it free?
Yes, open source under the GNU GPL v3. If you need forums, workshops or your own activity types in the list, or a grading workload report for heads of department, we build that at a fixed price.
Need more in the list?
Forums, workshops, H5P or your own activity types, a workload report for heads of department, reminders when work waits too long. We build that on top of this block at a fixed price.
Get a fixed priceBacked by Ta9in.