Effective Gradebook Practices (Canvas)

A properly configured gradebook in Canvas and a few consistent practices throughout the semester help your students always know where they stand in the class. This transparency is important to all students, and can particularly affect our student-athletes, graduating seniors, honors students, veterans, and those on academic warning and probation.

Before the semester begins

Help students know where they stand and reduce the number of emails you receive:

  • Select a grading scheme. Follow the Canvas guides to enable and set a grading scheme and make sure it matches what has been posted in your syllabus.
  • Determine how final grades will be calculated. Decide whether the final grade is a calculated total or a weighted percentage.
    • Calculated total — publish your assignments and grade them as the semester develops. Total scores will be calculated automatically.
    • Weighted total —organize all graded assignments into assignment groups and assign a weighted percentage to each group.

Also, consider these tips:

  1. Arrange the gradebook columns in an order that works for you.
  2. Hide/show extra columns in the gradebook which may be useful to you.
  3. Create a late policy to automatically deduct points on all late submissions.
  4. Dashed assignments are not included in a student’s grade calculation. Create a missing submission policy to automatically convert missing assignments to ‘0’ after the due date.
  5. Choose an automatic or manual grade posting policy. Manual grade posting is particularly useful if your course contains automatically graded quizzes. Just remember to post the grades when you finish grading!
  6. Create all the assignments at the start of the semester to help students manage their time effectively. This also builds the course schedule for you automatically.

During the semester

  1. Use the Message Students Who function to communicate with students who have not yet made a submission, have not been graded or performed within a specified range.
  2. Grade assignments in a timely manner and provide feedback through the Speedgrader.
  3. Whenever possible, use rubrics to quickly score student submissions.
  4. Remember to post grades on all columns with a manual posting policy.

End of the Semester

  1. To add extra-credit or boost students’ calculated totals at the end of the semester:
    1. Create an extra-credit no-submission assignment worth zero points and manually enter scores for specific students.
    2. Add an extra-credit criterion to an assignment’s rubric and when you save it, Canvas will alert you to the difference between the assignment’s score and the rubric’s score. Opt to ‘Leave Different’ and use the extra-credit criterion in the rubric to assign extra-credit.
    3. For weighted totals, create an extra-credit assignment group and assign the weights such that they sum to more than 100%.
  2. Use the End of Semester Checklist to make sure your students see the same grades you see and submit to the Registrar’s Office.
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