Moodle Q&A: Import grades from Excel into Moodle

Posted on: October 3, 2012 | By: Dan Reis | Filed under: Instructional Technologies, Moodle, Teaching & Learning

Question mark signQuestion: I prefer to enter grades using Excel. How can I import grades into Moodle using Excel?

Answer: Importing grades from an Excel document into Moodle is easy, if you follow some very specific, non-intuitive, steps. Importing grades from Excel is useful if you prefer to use Excel for grade calculations or if you use Scantrons and have a spreadsheet of scores that you want to quickly copy and paste into Moodle.

Summary of steps:

  1. Add the grade items in Moodle
  2. Export the gradebook to a TXT file
  3. Enter the grades (or copy and paste from Scantron spreadsheet)
  4. Import the TXT file back into Moodle

The first step is to add the items you want to grade to the Moodle gradebook. The import will not work unless the items have been added to the gradebook in Moodle first. To do that, change views to Simple View.

Simple View

At the bottom of the page, click on “Add grade item.”

add grade item

Give that item a name and set the maximum points. You can either add all the graded items you’ll need for the semester – or wait and add them as you need them.

grade item detail

Now that your gradebook is setup in Moodle, you are ready to continue. Follow the directions at the bottom of this page to learn how to export and import your grades. (Wesleyan University)

Note for instructors using Scantrons: You won’t be able to import the spreadsheet with your Scantron results. Instead, you’ll need to copy a column of grades then paste that into the correct column on the spreadsheet you exported from Moodle.

Read other Moodle questions from faculty.

Modified image by Flickr user srsphotoCreative Commons licensed BY-NC 2.0

Dan Reis

Dan Reis is an Instructional Technologist with Elon University’s Teaching and Learning Technologies.

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2 responses to “Moodle Q&A: Import grades from Excel into Moodle”

  1. These instructions appear to apply to a previous version of Moodle because the screen shots do not correspond to the current display for “grader report”. I have tried to use the export/import functions between Excel and Moodle and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I can’t figure out what I’m doing. Could someone post instructions for the current version of Moodle, please?

  2. Dan Reis says:

    Hi Donna, I’m sorry you are having problems. The screenshots above are from the current version of Moodle. The linked tutorial does use a different version but the text steps at the bottom of the page are the same for our version. The thing that has caused problems for other faculty is not creating the item in the Moodle gradebook first. If it still doesn’t work, send an email to TLT@elon.edu and we’d be happy to help.