The Canvas Gradebook has several features that can make it easier to communicate assignment grades to your students and to organize your grading experience for yourself. These include grade posting policies, rules for late and missing work, and how the Gradebook looks to you as an instructor. It's a good idea to adjust your Gradebook settings at the beginning of every semester when you are setting up your Canvas site.
Grade Posting Policy
In the Gradebook, you can select a default grade posting policy for course assignments to control when students see the grades that you enter. Posting policies can be set to automatic or manual.
By default, the policy is for grades to be posted automatically. If you select an automatic posting policy, assignment grades will be visible to students as soon as they are entered. Grades for anonymous and moderated assignments will not post automatically.
If you select a manual posting policy, grades will be hidden by default and will remain hidden until you have released the grades for each assignment. Selecting a manual posting policy will not apply retroactively to grades that have already been entered. Any grades that have already posted will remain visible. To hide grades for an assignment that has already been graded, you can hide grades from the assignment's Options menu.
Please see the Canvas Guide for more information about setting a posting policy.
Missing and Late Work Policies
Setting these policies will automatically edit the grade of students who submit work after the due date set in Canvas, or who do not submit any work for a given assignment. Note: These settings should be applied before any assignments are submitted. If you set these policies in the middle of the semester they will not apply retroactively to previously-submitted assignments.
The Missing Work Policy setting will automatically apply a grade of zero for missing submissions. See the Canvas Guide for applying a missing submission policy.
The Late Work Policy setting will deduct a specified percentage of the grade for each day late. See the Canvas Guide for applying a late submission policy.
If you have assignments that were submitted in person, or that did not have a due date set in Canvas, you can manually set the status of a student submission in the Gradebook (None, Late, Missing, Excused). Canvas will still automatically apply a missing or late policy.
Please see the Canvas Guide for changing the status of a grade.
Grade Detail Tray
This setting allows you to easily click through all assignments for a single student and view or change their grades and on-time status, as well as add comments. You can also click through and look at every student one by one for a single assignment and view or change grade information.
To open the grade detail tray, click on any student's grade for any assignment in the Gradebook, then click the arrow next to that grade. The grade detail tray will slide out on the right side of the screen. Use the arrows to either side of the assignment name or the student name to click through each assignment or student.
Please see the Canvas Guide for using the grade detail tray.
Filtering Columns
To change which columns you see in your Gradebook, you can filter columns by Assignment Group, Modules, and/or Section for easy grading. Use the View > Filters menu in the Gradebook to choose how to filter your view, then choose the specific group, module, or section you want to see.
Please see the Canvas Guide for filtering Gradebook columns.
Need additional help? Contact the HWS IT Services Digital Learning Team.