In order to save time and headaches at the end of the semester, we recommend following the steps below to ensure that your gradebook is set up correctly at the beginning so that it will be easier to use during the semester and your final grades will be calculated accurately.
- Set up your course Grading Scheme. You will need to enable and accurately implement a Grading Scheme according to the information provided in your course syllabus document.
It is crucial that you ensure your course Grading Scheme matches your syllabus information. A standard UWF grading scheme is automatically enabled on your course site, so it is best that you check the grading scheme and make any adjustments needed. You can do this by clicking the Settings link on your course navigation menu. - Set up grade weighting in your Canvas course according to your Syllabus.
The first step is to set up your assignment group weights on the Assignments page in your course. Canvas does not assign weights to individual Assignments and instead assigns weights to each assignment grouping. If you need to weight a single assignment, such as a final exam, then you will need to create a separate assignment group for that particular item. For more information, see the Canvas tutorial: How do I create Assignment Weights?. - Create Assignments and grade columns as needed within each assignment group. Create all the assignments that your students will submit and organize them within your assignment groups. These assignments can be "assignment shells" right now, meaning that they simply state the assignment title, due date, and how many points they are worth. You can come back and edit each assignment at any time to include more detailed information. However, it is important when creating your assignment shells to determine the types of assignments your students will complete: Graded Quizzes (assessments and surveys taken online), graded Discussions, Canvas Assignments submitted online (papers submitted online but not checked for plagiarism), and Turnitin Assignments (papers submitted online and checked for plagiarism) are all possible within Canvas. For any graded items for which students will not submit work online, e.g., an in-class exam, create an on-paper assignment. For any graded items for which students do not submit anything tangible, e.g., participation, create a non-submission assignment.
- Decide how you would like to keep track of your student's attendance. Depending on your class size and how hands-on or automatic you want your in-class attendance-taking approach to be, there are a few different options that may work well for you. See Using Canvas to take attendance in class for more information.
Optional: Setup any drop rules that you have written into your syllabus (e.g., drop lowest score from your pop-quiz assignment group). Any "ungraded" grades (e.g., an item that does not factor into the final grade) will not be accounted for and will not be dropped. So, if you wish to drop the lowest quiz score from your pop-quiz assignment group, you will need to make sure that every item in your pop-quiz assignment group is being factored into the final grade. You will also need to make sure to add a grade value to the Gradebook cells for every assignment in this group. Leaving any cells ungraded (with a "-" in them) will cause the drop rule to be applied incorrectly for the students who have ungraded cells. To learn more about how to enable this type of drop rule, please refer to this assignment group rule guide.
Keep in mind: If you want to drop the lowest score from an assignment group, in order for Canvas to correctly drop the lowest score, all items within that assignment group must be graded items. At the end of the semester, you will need to ensure that all assignments in this group have a grade value entered in the Gradebook.
You can designate individual assignments as exceptions to the drop rule if needed. For example, if there is an additional extra credit assignment in your pop-quiz assignment group, you will need to make sure the extra credit assignment is listed as an exception for the drop rule to work correctly, or else students who do not complete the extra credit assignment will be penalized.
- Optional: Set up any automated late submission or missing submission policies you wish to use before your students start to submit their work. You can use a missing submission policy to automatically assign a grade of 0 once the due date has passed to students who have not submitted an assignment (keep in mind: this won't impact "no submission" or "on paper" assignments, so you will have to manually assign zeroes to those items). You can also use a late submission policy to automatically deduct points for late submissions. However, there are important caveats to keep in mind when using the late submission policy, so be sure to read Canvas's late submission documentation in its entirety before opting to use this tool to make sure that it is a good option for your course.
- Optional: Set up your grade posting policy if you wish to use a manual posting policy at any point. If you wish to use a manual posting policy for your entire gradebook so that grades are released for them to view only after you choose to release the grades, it is best to setup this posting policy at the gradebook level before students begin submitting work. If you have not yet finished building out your assignments, you can still enable manual posting at the course level so that all new gradebook columns are created with the manual posting policy selected. If you wish to use a manual posting policy for only a few items, then we recommend selecting manual posting for those individual columns. Learn more about how grade posting policies work.
- Optional: Make sure the extra credit you want to give students is factored in correctly.
Even if you are not sure whether you will offer students extra credit, it is never too early to think about how you would want the extra credit to factor into students' final grades if you do decide to offer it later in the semester. For clarification about adding extra credit to your course, please consult our Managing Extra Credit in Canvas article to learn more about the two options we recommend.
You can organize and rearrange the columns in your gradebook by clicking and dragging them into your desired display order. For more information, see our How can I organize my Gradebook in Canvas?