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How to Use the Gradebook to Enter and Calculate Grades in Canvas

How to Use the Gradebook to Enter and Calculate Grades in Canvas

Using the Gradebook

Are you looking for instructions on how to import your Canvas final grades into PeopleSoft? Instructions are available from the Office of the Registrar here.

This page covers:

  • Interaction between the Assignments page and the Grades page, and
  • Using the gradebook, including calculating grades.

Assignments Page

Before getting into the grades page proper, let us explore some additional features on the assignments page that manage parts of your grading in Canvas.

Annotated screenshot illustrating parts of the assignments page discussed here.

  • (A) Each assignment group in your course is listed, and can be re-ordered by dragging its handle (Drag and drop icon in Canvas.) to its left, or collapses/expanded in your own personal view by clicking the arrow before the name.
  • (B) Create new assignment groups with the +Group button.
  • (C) Options for your assignments page overall are behind the top-right most button.
  • (D) If your course has weighted scoring enabled, you can easily see the value for each assignment group.
  • (E) If any assignment group rules apply, you can see them like shown here. Pointing at this for a moment will remind you which rules are applied.
  • (F) This button give you options for the given assignment group.

Assignment Groups

Assignment groups are how you can organize your assignments in Canvas. They function on the assignments page similar to how modules work for your course. You can use assignment groups only for organization if you would prefer (such as all sub-parts of a large semester-long assessment belonging to one group, or all reflection papers being organized together), but using assignment groups also adds the following features:

  • The Grades page can show the subtotal for each assignment group as its own column.
  • Assignment groups can be set to drop certain scores, such the common “drop lowest quiz”.
  • Weighted scoring can be applied to the groups, such that all of the assignments in a group constitute a certain percentage of your course’s final grade.

Note: All courses start with and must have at least one assignment group.

Organizing Assignment Groups

Moving assignments between assignment groups is as easy as dragging and dropping them with the handle ( Drag and drop icon in Canvas. at the start of the line). If you need to move the assignment a longer distance, you may prefer to click the options icon ( Options icon in Canvas. at the end of the line) for that assignment and choose move to. Alternatively, you can edit the assignment and choose the assignment group from the drop down field on that page.

Assignments and assignment groups will default to appearing in your Grades page in the same order as they appear on the Assignments page.

Assignment Group Rules (Dropping Lowest)

Using assignment groups, you can instruct Canvas to keep only the highest or lowest assignments in a group.

  1. Navigate to your course’s Assignments page.
  2. Click on the edit button to the right of the assignment group to modify. (F) in the above screenshot.
  3. Click edit.
  4. Enter the number of highest or lowest scores to ignore within a group.
  5. If any assignments be more important than others that they should not be dropped, click the Add Assignment link under Never Drop to add them to a list of assignments that are always kept.

Screenshot of Edit Assignment Group panel.

View the full documentation for assignment group rules.

Weighted Final Grades

You can easily use Canvas to calculate your final scores for your course based on weighted percentages.

  1. Navigate to your course’s Assignments page.
  2. Click on the edit button in the top right of the page. (C) in the above screenshot.
  3. Click Assignment Groups Weight.
  4. Check “Weight final grade…”
  5. Assign the percentage for each group. Canvas will show you the total shown. Any groups not contributing to the final score can be weighted to zero. Refer to the full documentation (linked below) to see what Canvas will do if your total is higher or lower than 100%.
  6. Click Save.

Screenshot of the assignment group weights panel.

Note: Assignments preserve their relative weight (based on points) within an assignment group. An assignment worth more points than another in the same assignment group will contribute more to that group’s value. Canvas does not have equal distribution of all assignments within an assignment group unless all assignments have the same point value.

View the full documentation for weighted final scores.

Gradebook

Important note: Anything that is to appear in your gradebook needs to be an assignment in your course. To “add a column” to your gradebook, you must create an assignment. Learn more about creating assignments. You can create assignments that are of type “no submission” or “on paper” to handle assignments such as class participation or an in-class exam where the student does not directly submit something in Canvas for grading.

Gradebook Overview

Key parts of the Gradebook are indicated below.

Annotated screenshot labeling the parts of the Grades page.

  • (A) The hamburger button shows or hides the course navigation menu. When you go to the gradebook, Canvas defaults to hiding this menu. Click on this to reveal it so you can return to other parts of your course.
  • (B) The table in the center of the gradebook is the main part of content. Each row represents a student in your course, and each column an assignment. (Some columns represent calculated subtotals for assignment groups, or the final score for the course.)
  • (C) Notice the horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the page. The gradebook often gets quite wide as assignments are added.
  • (D) Each cell, representing a student’s grade for an assignment, in the gradebook has a number (or icon), and color. You can find an icon reference under the Instructor Help tab. You can learn or change the color reference under view options within gradebook settings. Simply click in a cell to be able to type a grade.
    • A “-” grade means the assignment is currently exempted and is the default grade. If an unsubmitted assignment should count against a student’s grades, make sure to enter a score of “0”. See the common tasks below for bulk filling blank.
    • Note: A dark gray cell indicates that the assignment was not assigned to that student. A column with a lot of dark gray entries indicates either that the assignment was not published, or that there might be an issue with the Assign To box on that assignment’s settings.
  • (E) The options button Options icon in Canvas. for each column appears when you point at its header. Click on this to see options and tools available for each column, such as hiding grades or messaging students. Some column types (like student name or totals) have different options.
    • The column header also conveys additional information, including: its point value, whether or not the assignment grades are hidden (an eyeball in the left corner), if the assignment is unpublished, or that assignment’s grade posting policy. Clicking on the title in a column header takes you you to that assignment.
  • (F) You can build filters with the filters button. Clicking the filters button will open a menu on the right to build and save filters for your gradebook. You can add conditions, name the filter set, and save it. In the future, just click the Apply Conditions switch to turn on or off all filters in that filter set at once. Only one filter set can be enabled at a time. An example of what you can do with filters would be “show me all the quizzes for students in my Tuesday section”.
  • (G) The settings gear in the top right of the gradebook allows you to set grade policies for your course, such as late grade policies. You can also change view settings here, including changing the colors of the gradebook or disabling subtotal columns from appearing for you.
  • (H) The gradebook view selection above the gradebook table allows you to choose which gradebook you want to view. Options include the standard gradebook, an individual view, or the gradebook history for your course where you can audit changes over time. Depending on some course options enabled, you may have additional options enabled here.
  • (I) Use the Import and Export buttons to download or upload data from/to Canvas. Exporting your gradebook will create a CSV file for you to download. Import will request a CSV file to upload. When working with CSV files (such as in Excel), please make sure you do not sort the header columns or rows that Canvas provided.
  • (J) Use the quick search boxes to filter your gradebook quickly to find a particular student or assignment. Just click into the box and start typ ing.

Common Tasks

Here are short descriptions of how the most common tasks are performed in the Canvas gradebook.

Verifying Online Submissions

Scroll horizontally (C) until you find the column for the assignment column. Then scroll vertically (if necessary) to see who has and has not submitted. Tip: Try tying in the Search Assignments and/or student name quick search (J) above to filter rather than scrolling.

Grading Online Submissions

Please see the Grade Assessments using SpeedGrader page for this.

Entering Grades

Either utilize the SpeedGrader, or scroll to cell (assignment column and student row) to enter the grade. Click in it, and type the score. You can move down a column by pressing enter. See the Student Information area below to learn how to mark exemptions.

Bulk Grading (and filling in zeroes)

If you have an assignment you want to enter a bulk grade for (such as “everyone gets 5 points for this extra credit assignment”), click on the options button for that column header and choose set default grade, type the score and click Set Default Grade. If you do this process with a grade of 0, and do not check to override, this will let you easily replace all “-” or missing assignments with a zero.

If you click the options button for the header of the total column at the end of the gradebook, you can choose Apply Score to Ungraded. This will let you tell Canvas to fill in a zero for all missing assignments in the gradebook. You might want to look at Gradebook History (discussed below) after using bulk grading options to verify what changes were made.

Checking Totals

Scroll to the rightmost column of the gradebook. Canvas displays the student’s score according to the available data. The total score is the overall course score, and subtotals are displayed for each assignment group. For more about weighted grades or dropping scores, see the above discussion about assignment groups.

Note: A grade of – (including future assignments) is usually not counted against a student’s score. Make sure to fill in grades for a complete gradebook. You can set late and missing submission polices. See Gradebook Settings below. You can also set grading schemas (number-to-letter grade values; check Related links on the Instructor Help tab).

Message Students

You can choose “Message Students Who” from any the options button for any assignment column to send messages to a filtered list of students in your course. Selecting this will allow you to choose to email students who have not yet submitted, have not yet been graded (but did submit), or scored greater than or less than a score you specify. After selecting your filter, you will get a list of the students who will be sent an Inbox message. You can X any of them to omit them from the list. Type your message and click send.

To send a message to a specific student, see Student Information below to learn about the Context Card.

Show or Hide Total or Subtotal Columns

To hide totals or subtotals from your view, click on the gear (G), change to View Options, and check the boxes to hide Totals or Subtotals. Click Apply at the bottom right. To hide totals and subtotals from your students’ views, go to Course Settings, and, at the bottom of Course Details, click More Options. Check or uncheck “Hide totals in student grades summary” and click Update Course Settings.

Changing the Gradebook View

Filter the Gradebook

To filter your gradebook, click the Filters button and click Create New Filter. Add Condition(s) and values and click the Apply Conditions toggle to use the filter. Only one filter set can be used at a time. You can give the current (new) filter a name and save it for easy use later. Use the trash can icon to remove any conditions or saved filters.

Sort the Gradebook

Sort the gradebook rows by clicking on any column header options button Options icon in Canvas. and selecting sort. You can click and drag columns to reorder them manually. Or sort the gradebook columns from the View Options menu inside Gradebook Options gear. Note: Arrange by -> default order shows your gradebook columns in the same order as on the assignments page. Manually ordering your assignments (including using assignment groups) there will let you sort you keep your gradebook well-organized so you can easily find the column you need.

Gradebook History

Select Gradebook History from the Gradebook menu. This will show you a register of every change in your gradebook, including before and after changes to grades, and who made the change. This data is preserved here even if you delete an assignment, or a student is removed from your course. Filter the list with the menus above the chart. To return to your gradebook, just select Grades again from the course navigation menu.

Individual View

Select Individual View from the Gradebook menu. You can use this view to focus on one student at a time, including the checkbox to hide student names as you review grading patterns. Once you select global settings, you select a student in the content selection area to see the breakdown of that student’s grades. Or select an assignment to see some statistics about it. (Or both be taken to that submission.) Individual view has links to other functionality discussed elsewhere on this page, such as Message Students Who. Return to the normal gradebook view by selecting Gradebook from the dropdown menu in the top right corner.

As an alternative to the Gradebook Individual View, try the Grades button from the student context card discussed later in this document. That view will show you the grades for each assignment in your course for that student in an easy-to-review format.

Student Information

Click on a student’s name in the first column of the gradebook, and a context card will pop up on the right of your view. This is a quick way to get an idea of the student’s performance information in your class. This shows information about the student you clicked on as seen in the screenshot below. You can see the, the student’s information, grades and recent assignments (the quantity varies by your screen size), and relative activity. The stars at the bottom show the student’s relative activity to others in your course. Clicking on the name views their profile page, the mail icon sends an inbox message, Grades takes you to viewing their individual grades page, and Analytics takes you to analytics for your course filtered by that student. (You can learn more about analytics, and what Canvas counts as participation on the help page for New Analytics.)

Screenshot of the panel that appears when a name is selected.

If you click on a cell in the gradebook, and click on the icon (appears like a door with an arrow) that appears in that cell, the grade detail tray will open on the on the right. This allows you to set the status of the assignment (such as to excuse the assignment, excluding it from grade calculations), or exchange comments with the student about the assignment. This pane also has arrows to go between students or assignments, and has a link to SpeedGrader, where it will take you directly to the submission for this cell.

Screenshot of the side panel that appears when clicking on a gradebook cell.

Gradebook Policy Settings

Clicking the gear in the top right of the gradebook will open the menu as shown in the screenshot below. Here you can set course grade policies.

Screenshot of the late policies panel.

Late Policies

Note: The some of policies set here apply retroactively, so be careful with changing it after you already have grades in your course.

The “grade for missing submissions” setting allows you to apply a grade to assignments marked as missing. To count a missing assignment as zero, check this and fill in 0. Note that assignments without a due date are never missing unless you manually mark them as such.

The “deduction for late submissions” allows you to deduct a percentage from the grade per hour or day the assignment is late, and allows you to set a minimum grade (effectively a maximum late deduction). Note that assignments without a due date are never late unless you mark them as such.

Grade Posting Policy

On the Grade Posting Policy tab, you choose whether grades for assignments are set to be posted manually, or automatically. The default of automatic is that as soon as you enter a grade for a student, they can see it. You can override this on a per-assignment basis by clicking on that options button in that assignment from its column header. For any assignments that are set to a manual posting policy, students do not see any grades or feedback until you post them by clicking on the options button for that assignment. Additional information about this, including a useful flow chart, can be found on the Instructor Help tab.

Note: Comments can still be visible to the student before this, so be cautious what you enter as a comment in SpeedGrader or the Grade Detail Tray. Also, assignments created before setting this policy may not toggle. If you change this after you have already created assignments, verify individual assignments say manual in their column header.

Gradebook Help for Instructors

Video Overview

Using

Views

Tools and Communication

Attendance

Assignment Groups (Categories/Weighting)

Settings

Related

Gradebook Help for Students

Video Overview

Grades

Assignments

Related

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