Using the New Canvas Gradebook

Overview

The new gradebook in Canvas offers a more flexible and intuitive grading experience. Whenever you create an assignment, graded discussion, or quiz, a column will automatically generate in your gradebook. The gradebook is designed to allow instructors to quickly and easily grade using features such as Speedgrader.

Note: When you have multiple people grading, other graders will not see any changes until you refresh your screen.

Video Tutorial

This video provides a detailed overview of the new gradebook interface.

Gradebook Tour

The section below will provide an overview of the gradebook interface and then will go into more detail about each of these sections.

gradebook overview.png

Image showing gradebook interface

Sorting options and settings - Section includes: gradebook, view, actions, keyboard shortcuts, settings gearbox
Keyboard shortcuts menu - Opens keyboard shortcuts
Settings gearbox - Here you can set grading policies such as late submissions and override final grades
Student names - You can apply sorting settings to this section
Assignments and grading statuses - Displays current grading status for each students' submissions. Color coding lets you know if the submission was late, resubmitted, or dropped. This section also lets you know which assignments were graded and which are needing to be graded (depicted as symbols such as a paper icon which means a file submission is ready to be graded).

Now let's break this down and take a look at each of these options/ settings

Gradebook Options - Gradebook menu

A- Gradebook dropdown:

Image of gradebook sorting & grading history options

A - Gradebook dropdown menu

Individual view - allows you to assess one student and one assignment at a time and is fully accessible for screen readers.
Gradebook History - Displays the Gradebook History page Links to an external site., which logs recent grade changes in the course according to the student, grader, assignment, and date.

Gradebook Options - View menu

B - The View dropdown menu

Image of View dropdown option

From this menu, you can set the arrangement order of your gradebook.

Arrange By - Arrange columns Links to an external site. by default, assignment name, due date, points, or module
Filters - Filter columns by type Links to an external site. (assignment group, section, modules, student groups, and grading period, if applicable)
Statuses - View and change the color for a grading status Links to an external site. (late, missing, resubmitted, dropped, and excused)
Columns - Show or hide the notes column Links to an external site. and the unpublished assignments column Links to an external site.

Gradebook Options - Actions menu

C - The Actions dropdown menu

From this menu, you can import and export your gradebook as a CSV file.

Image of actions dropdown menu

Import - Imports your CSV file into Canvas gradebook
Export - Exports your gradebook as a CSV file where it can be edited and imported back.

Check here for more information on importing/ exporting the gradebook Links to an external site.

Setting Grading Policies

You can set grading policies such as late submission or final grade override by going to the gradebook settings.

To access your grading policies:

Image of settings option

Select the gearbox icon in the top right of your gradebook interface page.

late policy.png

Image late policy options

Next, You will see a tab called Late Policies. From here, you can:

Make sure you are on the Late Policies tab
A submission is labeled Missing when the due date has passed and it has not been submitted. Only submissions with a status of Missing will be affected by the Missing Submission policy. This effects all assignments in the course. If a submission is received after the due date, it will switch to Late instead of Missing. Selecting this checkbox allows you to define a grade that will be granted for missing submissions as a percentage of the total points possible. For example, a 20% assignment that is labeled missing and is worth 10 points, 2 points (or 20%) of the assignment value is awarded. To award all missing submissions with a grade of 0, the Missing submission grade can be set to 0%
Selecting this checkbox will automatically apply the deduction you set for any late submissions in the course that have previously been graded as well as apply to future late submissions you grade. In this section, you define the percentage to deduct, the interval (day, hour), and then enter the lowest possible grade percentage a student can receive when the late policy is applied.

Check out here for more detail Links to an external site.

Override Final Grade

You can enable the ability to override finals grades.

Image of final grade override

Select your gradebook options gearbox icon located in the top right of your gradebook screen
From the Advanced tab, check the override box
Select Update to take effect

Posting Grades

While you are in the grading policy settings, you will see another tab for posting grades. Think of this option as just like the 'muting' feature in the old gradebook. So if you choose to set the default 'manually post' grades, students will not see their grade you as you grade the class assignment submissions.

grade post.png

Image of grade posting policy

Select the Grade Posting Policy tab
Select either:

- Automatically post grades - Allows students to see their grades as soon as they are entered
- Manually post grades - Grades are hidden from student view by default and must be posted Links to an external site. to be viewed by students.

3. Select update for it to take effect

If you set 'manual posting' as your default, that means you will go and grade the assignment and release the grades all at once. To release the grades for an assignment after you are done grading, do the following:

post grades.png

Image of how to post grades

Locate the assignment you graded and want to release grades and select the three-dot icon
From the dropdown, select post grades
From here you can choose to post to all students OR select only students who have a grade or comment.
Select this slider button if you wish to only post particular sections.
Select post. Students will receive notification of a new grade available

Note: Student grades can be hidden in one of three ways:

*Explore more posting policy details Links to an external site.

The Grading Interface

Each assignment in your gradebook has a dropdown menu containing various options.

assignment options.png

Image of assignment options dropdown

Select the three-dot icon from the desired assignment
Sort assignments Links to an external site. - by grade or status (missing or late)
Access Speedgrader
Message students Links to an external site. who fit within specific assignment criteria
Curve grades - Links to an external site.Be mindful, once you curve grades, it cannot be undone.
Set default grade - Links to an external site. Lets you set a default grade to avoid entering the same thing for everyone. This setting will let you overwrite already graded submissions to the same default. This is good for participation types of assignments when everyone likely gets the same points.
Hide Links to an external site. or post grades Links to an external site. for the assignment
Denotes if grades are hidden or not
Enter grades as a specific value Links to an external site.: point, percentage, or grading scheme (this option is only for grading convenience and does not affect the actual grade; not available for complete/incomplete assignment types)
Download submissions Links to an external site. and re-upload submissions Links to an external site. (supported in file uploads only)
Modify grade posting policy (manual or automatic)

Individual student Grade details (Grade Detail Tray)

When you click on an individual cell in the gradebook, you can manually type in a grade OR you can view more grading options.

Image of grade detail tray

Click on the individual student cell for an assignment. You can type in a grade. The grade detail tray icon also appears.
Click the grade detail tray icon
In the top section of the tray pop up, you will see three options: Next to the student's name, there is an arrow. From here you can scroll through each student instead of going back into the gradebook cells to grade. The title of the assignment also has arrows. From here you can scroll through different assignments. Lastly, there is a speedgrader option.
The grade box. You can type in a grade here. Note: if you set any penalties for late submissions, it will appear here.
The assignment status. You can change the status of an assignment submission here. For example, if you need to change a submission status to 'excused' just click on that option.
Leave comments for this student for this assignment. This is more efficient compared to using the email function.

Speedgrader Interface

Speedgrader allows you to mark up assignment submissions, use rubrics, and automatically grade certain quiz question types. Once you have opened speedgrader, you can begin assessing the assignment.

Image of the speedgrader interface

Mark up toolbar. The tools here can be used to highlight, comment, strikethrough, or draw on the student submission
The student assignment submission preview box
Navigation toolbar. From here you can scroll to other student submissions without leaving speedgrader
If are added a rubric and specified it to be used for grading, it will populate here. You can click on the appropriate criteria rating boxes and speedgrader will tally up the points. If you did not add a rubric, a box is provided to type in the grade. You can also add comments.

Best Practices

Set the grade posting policy to manual so you can grade all student submissions before they are released to the students.
To retain a margin for instructor discretion, create an Assignment Group and associated Assignment that will not be graded until the end of the semester. Many instructors have used a Participation Assignment worth around 10% of the grade for this.
Create assignment groups in the assignments tool if you want to use weighted grading. Assignment groups populate in the gradebook at the end in a grey color.
Enable 'final grade override' to override the grade calculated by Canvas.

Additional Resources

Canvas Official: Comparison chart (old vs new gradebook) Links to an external site.
Canvas Official: All topics related to the gradebook Links to an external site.