Understanding how grading works in Canvas is critically important. A misconfigured grade book can make a world of difference in a student's progress at Wabash. For someone new to Canvas, however, there can be a lot to unpack, especially if you've inherited a course with a grade book already set up. There are a lot of settings buried beneath the surface that might produce unexpected behavior if you don't know what to look for. This page will introduce you to the most commonly used aspects of the Canvas grade book and how to enter and adjust grades in your course.

Additionally, I will show you the core feedback tools that Canvas offers. Feedback is crucial to student success, and Canvas' SpeedGrader feature makes it easy to quickly grade and provide feedback to students. This page will also show you how to use this tool. There's a lot of information on this page, so feel free to pop down to the 'Activity' section of this page as needed to practice these skills at your own pace.

How do I adjust and organize my grade book?

Key Concepts:

Remember that every time you add an assignment with a point value, a graded quiz, or a graded discussion, a corresponding entry is automatically added to the Grades area of your course. You can see these entries by navigating to Grades in the Course Navigation menu.
By default, your grade book will be organized in the same order that your assignments appear in the Assignments area. You can either reorder your assignments, or you can select a new arrangement order by selecting 'View' at the top left of the grade book and then selecting 'Arrange by'. You can choose from a variety of options (see full guide).
Another sorting feature is Assignment Groups. Within the Assignments area, you will see that assignments are contained within boxes that appear similar to Modules. Though new courses only contain one assignment group by default, titled 'Assignments', if you have inherited a course, there may be a variety of assignment groups already created. Assignment groups are like grade book categories. In addition to seeing the total score for all graded assignments in the course, assignment groups also show the earned point percentages for all items within that group. For example, if you group your assignments into two groups, Formative and Summative, you and students can see total grade for all items in the course as well as the earned grade for each category individually.
To add assignment groups, navigate to Assignments and select at the top right. Give the group a name and select 'Save'. You can use the drag handle to the left of an assignment to drag and drop it into a new assignment group. Additionally, when you create a new assignment, you can choose which group to assign it to (see full guide).

How do I enter and adjust student grades and grade book item statuses?

Key Concepts:

You can directly enter and adjust grades from within the Grades tab. Select a cell for a particular student and assignment and you can enter the desired grade value. You can move between cells by clicking or by using the arrow keys on your keyboard.
You can also enter a default grade for an entire assignment. Hover over the name of the assignment in the column header and select the kebab to open the grade book item menu. Then select 'Set default grade' to assign the same grade value to multiple students (see full guide).
To help you keep track of late and missing submissions for online submission assignments, Canvas will mark a grade cell as red if it's Missing (the assignment Due Date has passed and the student has not submitted to the assignment) and blue if it's Late (the student submitted to the assignment after the Due Date). By default, these statuses will not influence a student's grade, but students will see these labels in their Grades tab. To adjust the status of a student's submission, you can click in the grade cell, select to the right of the grade entry field, and then adjust the status in the window that pops up to the right (see full guide).

What are some common grade book errors and misunderstandings?

Key Concepts:

Every assignment that you have in your course has a corresponding grade book entry. If published, these items are also visible to students in their Grades tab. Additionally, every assignment group you have is also visible to students, even if there are no items graded within that group. It is important to unpublish or delete assignments and assignment groups you do not plan to use or grade in your course so students have a clean, uncluttered list of graded items.
Gradebook weights can cause confusion for both instructors and students. The fastest way to tell if weights have been applied to your course is to go to the Assignments area, select the kebab on the top right, and then select 'Assignment Groups Weight'. Using this feature is a quick way to make sure your various assignment types have the appropriate effect on a student's overall grade, but it can cause your gradebook to behave in unexpected ways. A clearer, but potentially more time-consuming way to ensure appropriate weights is to calculate out your point values so that your groups naturally fall into your desired percentages (see full guide). You are welcome to message your Canvas Training and Reference Course facilitator for a more in-depth discussion on gradebook weighting.
Be sure to enter a grade of 0 (zero) for missing work. There is a difference between a grade of 0 (zero) and a grade cell with no grade entered. A grade cell with no grade will be indicated with a dash. Grade cells with no grade entered will not count for or against a student's final grade. It is simply not included in the grade calculation. A grade of zero, however, will be included in the final grade calculation. If you do not enter zeroes in a timely manner, a student's grade will be artificially inflated and they will think they are doing better in the course than they actually are.

How do I use SpeedGrader to quickly enter grades and provide feedback?

Key Concepts:

For all online assignments, including assignments with an online submission type, quizzes requiring manual grading, and graded discussions, you will be notified of new submissions on your To Do list. You can find your To Do list for all courses on the right side of your Dashboard, and course-specific To Do lists on the Home page of each course. You can use these notifications to easily know when there are new submissions awaiting grades and feedback (see full guide).
Clicking on an item in your To Do list with new submissions will launch the SpeedGrader. The SpeedGrader shows one student at a time and allows you to view their submission on the left and provides a grading and feedback panel on the right. You can review the submission, assign a numerical grade, and leave general comments for the student (see full guide).
For online file and document submissions, you can also use the annotation tools above the submitted document to leave pin comments, text box comments, and highlight comments (see full guide).
To move between students, you can use the navigation bar at the top left to move backward and forward through your student roster, or select the downward triangle to scroll through a list of students. TIP: You can optionally have Canvas sort the list of students by submission status. This will put ungraded assignments at the top of the SpeedGrader list and increase your grading speed. To do this, select at the top left of SpeedGrader, select 'Options', and select 'by student status' in the 'sort student list' dropdown menu (see full guide).

Using the content above as a reference, we recommend that you complete the following tasks in your sandbox course for practice:

Create a new Assignment with an online submission type in the Assignments area of the course and give it a point value. Save and Publish the Assignment and then view it in the Grades area of the course.
Create a new Assignment Group in the Assignments area of the course. Drag your new assignment into that group.
Enter student view and submit a file to your new assignment. You may need to navigate to the Assignments area of the course to find it if you have not added it to a module.
Leave student view and navigate to your Dashboard. Click on the new To Do notification for the assignment you just submitted.
View the file you just submitted in SpeedGrader. Give it a grade and leave a comment.
Enter student view again and navigate to the Grades area of the course to view your grade.
Leave student view and navigate to Grades. Adjust the grade you just gave in the grade book.

Next Steps

The grade book can be one of the most complex and precise tools in Canvas. If you have any questions on the content of this page, or if you would like to review a course grade book with me, please don't hesitate to sent your instructor a message in the Canvas Inbox, or post in the Canvas Q&A Discussion. Once you feel comfortable with adjusting your grade book, adjusting grades, and using SpeedGrader, select 'Next' to move on to the next module item.