Grades in Canvas
These are common practices when using the Gradebook in Canvas. Also see Canvas help articles on the Gradebook and SpeedGrader.
Enter and edit grades in Gradebook
Assignments in the Gradebook are always shown with the assignment's point value. However, you can change the assignment to display grades for a specific grading type. You can also use a CSV file to import grades.
Any ungraded or un-submitted items can result in different total grades being presented to Instructors, Students, and in CatsWeb, depending on the settings used by each individual. If an assignment does not have a grade visible in the Canvas gradebook, it does not factor into the total grade and will be treated as dropped.
If the blank item is meant to be a zero, the student will see an artificially inflated grade. A student who notices this can use What-If Grades to see what their grade should actually be, but this requires the student to notice the discrepancy and take steps to check the difference.
Learn more about entering and editing grades in the Gradebook.
Handling missing or ungraded assignments
Set default grade to zero on assignments
Zeros need to be entered regularly for students to see a true reflection of their grade. The fastest way to do this is to use Set Default Grade for an item. This is not typically advised because for the student, it starts the semester off with a grade of zero. It will impact the student's overall score by displaying zeros for assignments that have not yet been completed. If you would like to use this feature, we advise you do so at the end of the semester or grading period.
Mark excused items
In the case where a student will be Excused from an assignment, their grade should be marked as excused. The fastest way to excuse a student from an assignment is by entering EX into the grade input field.
Late policy - automatically apply grade for missing submissions
The Late Policies area enables Canvas to enter some zeros on the instructor’s behalf. The late policy will only work with assignments that require a submission. This means that any in-class assignments, attendance grades, on paper submissions, live presentations, will not have the zero entered automatically, even with this setting turned on. Learn more about applying a missing policy or late submission policy in the Gradebook.
Ungraded icon appears on an item with a grade
If an instructor has updated an assignment after grading a batch of them or if a student has re-submitted an assignment, you may see that the ungraded icon appears over the top of the grades already entered. This resulted in the entered grades not counting towards or against their total score on the right side of the Grades area. This is easily identifiable, because when clicking on the ungraded icon in the Grades area, the entered grade will be visible. Instructors should confirm or update the grade for each student.
Canvas Assignment Groups
Assignment Groups allow you to weight final grades. If a percentage is above 100%, it is treated as extra credit.
Create an Assignment Group rule to drop the lowest grade. If you use this method, be sure that all assignments have equal point values.
Points-based grade calculation
Canvas assignments use a simple points-based grade calculation. The Gradebook calculates the student's average by dividing the total points earned by the total possible points of all grade items.
| Student Name |
Item 1 |
Item 2 (100 points) |
Item 3 (100 points) |
Item 4 (100 points) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Student A | 88 | 100 | 100 | 77 |
| Student B | 97 | 100 | 88 | 71 |
Student A's grade would be calculated this way:
[ (88+100+100+77) / 400 ] * 100 = 91.25%
Student B's grade would be calculated this way:
[ (97+100+88+71) / 400 ] *100 = 89.0%
Weighted Gradebook calculation
A weighted assignment group calculation is a bit more complex than a point based gradebook setup. It's best to think of each assignment group as an individual gradebook:
- Each assignment group calculates the student's average by dividing the total points earned by the total possible points of all grade items in the assignment group.
- Each student's assignment group average is multiplied by the assignment group’s individual weight.
- All assignment group points are then added together to determine the final course grade.
| Exams - 50% | Homework - 20% | Assignments - 20% | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Student Name | Exam 1 | Exam 2 | Exam 3 | HW 1 | HW 2 | HW 3 | Assn 1 | Assn 2 |
| Student A | 80 | 96 | 88 | 68 | 82 | 76 | 64 | 70 |
| Student B | 78 | 64 | 94 | 82 | 86 | 84 | 78 | 86 |
Student A's final course grade would be calculated this way:
| Category | Category Calculation | Category Average |
|---|---|---|
| Exams | [ (80+96+88) / 300 ] * 50 | 44% |
| Homework | [ (68+82+76) / 300 ] * 20 | 15.07% |
| Assignments | [ (64+70) / 200 ] * 30 | 20.1% |
| Final Course Grade | Add Exams, Homework and Assignments averages [44+15.07+20.1] |
79.17% |
Verifying a total grade
The best way to verify the total grade is by using the Export option which will generate a spreadsheet containing a column for Current Score and Final Score.
Follow these steps to generate the spreadsheet:
- In your course, load the Grades area.
- Click Actions.
- Click Export.
If Current Score and Final Score do not match, then there is at least one Assignment that is not graded or excused.
Canvas student grade override
You can override a student’s final grade in Gradebook before submitting final grades to Banner allowing you to enter a final grade for students that is different from the grade automatically calculated by Canvas in the Gradebook.
You can enter a letter grade or a percentage. A letter grade results in the lower bound of the grading scheme. A percentage is retained as the override score which can be applied to the final grades in grading periods, but the overridden grades from the grading period will not affect the student's total final course grade. Students can view the overridden grade in their Grades page. However, students will not know the score has been overridden.