Both letters and scales are two ways to display the grades obtained by our students if we want to use something different from points or percentages.

To work with either of them, access the gradebook.

Letters

Although the default defined letters may not be very useful in our environment, we can transform this scale to better suit our purpose.

To work with the scale, select More > Grade letters in the left dropdown. Click Edit. 

Check the box Override site defaults and then you can start editing, both the letter and the score range in which it will be assigned. You can set up a general letter scale for the entire site from the administration options.

These values are nothing more than a direct relationship between a certain percentage obtained for an activity and the text string you choose, so you could change the scale to use Outstanding / Very Good / Good, Pass / Fail, or even emojis.

If you need more fields, you can add them at the bottom by clicking Add 3 field(s) to form. If you have too many, leave the boxes empty and they will disappear.

Scales

Scales are another way to grade that does not use numbers, but rather other types of assessments. You can access scales from the left dropdown by selecting More > Scales.

By default, we have several scales that we can use in courses, which are listed on the page. If we want to create a new scale, click Add a new scale and add the name, description, and each possible value of the scale itself. Remember to add the scale values from worst to best and separate the values with commas.

If you have permissions assigned to save scales as standard, you can check the corresponding box when creating the scale, which will make it available for all courses in the instance along with the other standard scales.

Now that you have created a scale, you can use it in the following activities for assessment: forums, glossaries, and assignments.

Access the editing settings for the specific activity and locate the Grade area. Select Grade from the dropdown, then in Type select Scale. Then choose the Scale from the list shown and save.