03 March 2025

Manage Marking Schemes

You can group assessments in the curriculum hierarchy to enable a cumulative, grouped result to be included in the calculation for a course outcome result, so that assessments can contribute to a course outcome either as single stand-alone assessments or via a cumulative group.

This is done through the application of a marking scheme rule that applies to a set of one or more assessments to be used when calculating the accumulative result.

Only assessments that do not have Must Pass selected can be included in marking scheme groupings and only these will be shown for selection when adding assessments to marking schemes.

The predefined marking scheme types that can be specified for a group of assessments are listed below:

  • Average of top X (AVERAGEOFTOPX) - this rule calculates the average of the marks from the top ‘x’ number of assessments selected for inclusion in the marking scheme group, with ‘x’ being a user-specified value

  • Must Pass X (MUSTPASSXOFY) - this rule determines whether a user-specified number of assessments ('x') have been passed out of the total ('y') assessments selected for inclusion within the marking scheme group

  • Group (GROUP) - this rule takes the average of all the marks of the assessments in the group, taking into account the inner-group weightings

  • Assignment (ASSIGNMENT) - this rule enables you to group assessments to represent an assignment, linking assessments to the assignment that they form part of
  • Max Mark (MAXMARK) - each assessment is linked with a mark from the corresponding unit outcome grading scheme. The unit outcome will achieve the maximum mark, where all the assessments linked to this grade have been successfully passed. This is typically used for schemes that are found in qualifications (for example: BTEC Level 3), where a unit outcome is a Pass if all the Pass level criteria are achieved, a Merit if all the merit criteria are achieved, and a Distinction if all the Distinction level criteria are achieved.

    When a Max Marks marking scheme is specified, all assessments are automatically grouped in the scheme and the only additional marking schemes that can then be added to the set of assessments would be ASSIGNMENT type marking schemes.

  • Sum Marks (SUMMARKS) - each assessment result is added together and the total value will be set as the linked outcome result. This is typically used for A Level components, where each assessment has a ‘raw’ mark (that is: out of a maximum value, set in the Marks Out Of field of the assessment) and each ‘raw’ mark is totalled to obtain the component mark. When a Sum Marks marking scheme is specified, all assessments are automatically grouped in the scheme and the only additional marking schemes that can then be added to the set of assessments are ASSIGNMENT type marking schemes.
  • NZ Unit Standard Credits (UNITSTANDARDCREDITS) - this rule determines the minimum number of unit standard credits at a minimum level that must be obtained from the set of unit standard assessments in the marking scheme group. Only assessments of type Unit Standard can be included in a marking scheme group of this type

Note the following when considering marking schemes:

  • Assessments that are not included in any marking scheme grouping are considered individually against the course outcome result based on the grading scheme applied

  • An assessment can be included in more than one grouped marking scheme rule

  • The sum of the weightings applied to all marking scheme groupings and individual assessments for a UIO must total 100

  • The weighting of an assessment applied within an individual marking scheme group is distinct from the one applied at an individual level, and the weighting in the marking scheme group must also total 100 across all assessments selected for inclusion in it

It is in the marking scheme section that weightings for both grouped and single assessments are set. It is important to note that if the correct weightings are not applied to both grouped and single assessments, the expected course outcome grades cannot be calculated when the relevant learner assessments are marked.

Using the Marking Scheme functionality, you can: