Gradebook Tips and Tricks


Course Grading Scheme

 

A grading scheme can be attached to your course to show your students if they received an A, B, C, D, or F. If you’re responsible for Early Alert / Midterm grades, this is crucial in sending grades from Canvas to Banner. If you have questions about setting up the gradebook in Canvas, please contact Biggio Tech at 334-844-5181 or bighelp@auburn.edu

enabling grade scheme in canvas

Auburn has provided two common grading schemes for you to use, but you’re welcome to customize them however you wish. If you feel generous, you can even change an A to 89.5!

grading scheme window open

 

Help on setting up the grading scheme

 

Hiding Grade Totals

 

If you post your grades but don’t rely on Canvas to calculate them or want your students to calculate their grades independently, you can turn off both the Assignment Group totals and the grade Total. Students will see each score for their assignment, but Canvas will not display any calculations. This is particularly handy throughout the semester if their scores won’t be completely accurate until the end. Under More Options, you can hide the grade distribution under course Settings to prevent students from seeing the averages.

hiding grade totals

 

Help on hiding your totals

 

Mute Assignments

 

Sometimes it may take a while to grade a particular assignment, and you don’t want Abigail Adams to have access before Zack Zulu. By muting the assignment, you can work on entering your grades without students receiving any notifications. All they see in their grades is an icon indicating that the instructor is working on the grades.

muting grades image

Once muted, your students will see a notification that you’re working on their grade.

student view of muted assignment

 

Help on muting assignments

 

Set Default Grade

 

You may have over 1,000 students in a course, each receiving a bonus for attending class before Spring Break. Or you have entered all your grades for an assignment and want to enter 0s for the students who missed the assignment. To help with either scenario, you can simultaneously set a default grade for all students. Enter all your grades, then set the default grade to 0, for example, to fill in the gaps without going through each missing grade. Note: Ensure you do not check the “overwrite grade” box; otherwise, it’ll replace every grade with 0.

default grade

 

Help on setting a default grade

 

Regarding “Treat Ungraded as 0”

 

Related to giving students 0s: Canvas ignores an assignment until a grade is entered. A slightly misleading option is “Treat Ungraded as 0s.” Although this is accurately reflected in your gradebook, it does not affect student grades. If a student receives a 0, then you must enter a 0 manually or using the above “set default grade.”

ungraded as "0"

 

How do I use the gradebook

 

As always, don't hesitate to contact Biggio Tech at bighelp@auburn.edu or 334-844-5181, if you have any questions!