Grading & Exam Tools

Overview

Gradebook & Assessment covers the instructor-facing tools for viewing, managing, and adjusting learner grades — including the gradebook MFE, grade overrides, bulk grade import/export, and grade debugging tools.

Instructors use the gradebook to identify struggling learners, apply grade adjustments for extenuating circumstances, and manage the end-of-course grading process.

Current State (2026)

• Gradebook MFE: frontend-app-gradebook provides a filterable, sortable table of all learner grades by subsection
• Grade overrides: Instructors can override individual subsection grades with justification (audit log)
• Bulk grades: edx-bulk-grades allows importing/exporting grades via CSV for batch processing
• Grade recalculation: Available via instructor dashboard to recompute grades after policy changes
• Access: Course staff roles (instructor, staff) have gradebook access; learner grades visible per-course only

Architecture

• Frontend: frontend-app-gradebook calls the grades REST API in edx-platform
• Grades API: edx-platform exposes /api/grades/v* endpoints for subsection grades, course grades, and overrides
• Grade storage: Subsection grades stored in PersistentSubsectionGrade; course grades in PersistentCourseGrade; computed by Celery tasks
• Override model: PersistentSubsectionGradeOverride stores instructor adjustments with audit trail
• Bulk grades: CSV upload triggers background Celery tasks to update grades; edx-bulk-grades handles the CSV parsing and validation

Relevant Repositories

Repository	Role in This Feature	Activity Level	Notes
openedx/frontend-app-gradebook	Gradebook MFE	Medium	Primary grades UI
openedx/edx-bulk-grades	CSV bulk grade import/export	Low	Batch grade management
openedx/openedx-platform	Grade backend: storage, computation, API	High	Core grades system

Recent Changes

• Gradebook MFE incremental improvements
• Persistent grade model stability

History

Origin

• Year introduced: ~2012 (basic grade display in LMS); persistent grades model is newer (~2017–2018)
• Initial implementation: Grade computation was ephemeral (re-computed on demand); no separate gradebook UI initially
• Context: At scale (thousands of learners per course), computing grades on demand was not feasible; persistent grade storage was a major architectural investment

Key Milestones

Year	Milestone	Teams / People Involved
~2012	Basic grade computation in LMS	Unknown
~2017–2018	Persistent subsection grades model introduced	Unknown
~2019–2020	Grade override feature added	Unknown
~2020–2021	Gradebook MFE (frontend-app-gradebook) development	Unknown

People Who Shaped This Area

• Engineering: Unknown — open question for interview
• Product: Unknown — open question for interview
• Design: Unknown — open question for interview

Open Questions

• [ ] When was the persistent grade model introduced and what architectural challenges did it solve?
• [ ] What drove the decision to build a dedicated gradebook MFE?
• [ ] How are grade policies (weighted assignments, passing thresholds) configured and computed?
• [ ] How does bulk grade import work — what validations are performed?
• [ ] What are the most common instructor workflows that are painful in the current gradebook?