Assignment Grading & Feedback, Course Gradebook, and Final Grade Submission for Instructors

Topics

• Assignment Grading in Canvas Overview
• How to Grade Assignments in Canvas
• Using SpeedGrader and Leaving Feedback
• Steps at the End of the Each Term
• Overall Course-Grade Display in Canvas Gradebook
• Submit Final Grades using Self-Service
• Viewing Grades for Inactive/Concluded Students

Assignment Grading in Canvas Overview

Grading in Canvas is very simple. The Canvas Gradebook makes grading quick and efficient by offering hotkeys to speed-up grading, as well as filtering/organization options to make your Gradebook display how you want. Canvas also uses a tool called SpeedGrader, which lets instructors quickly grade papers in the browser. This tool also lets instructors view and add annotations to the submissions. Let's see how this is done below.

How to Grade Assignments in Canvas

To access a course's Gradebook:

1. In the global navigation menu, click on Courses and choose the course you want to view:
   
   
2. From the course's home page, click on the Grades link in the course navigation menu.
   
   
3. Now you will see something similar to the image below, which is the course Gradebook:
   
   
4. At the top of the Gradebook, you have 3 dropdown menu options.
   • Gradebook - Access the Learning Mastery Gradebook, individual student view, and the Gradebook history.
   • View - Find options to change how the Gradebook displays, such as arranging by the due date, filter by groups, arrange by late assignments, hide columns and much more.
   • Actions - This menu allows you to import and export grades as a CSV file. This means you can import grades for bulk grading if you want.
5. To the right of the dropdown menus, you have a keyboard icon that shows you the Gradebook hotkeys you can use to grade faster.
6. Next, we have the Search field where you can type in a student's name to find their grades.
7. The gear icon next to the search field allows you to adjust your late policy and grade posting options. Using the late policy section, you can choose to set an automatic or manual late deduction for each assignment.
   
   
8. Under the grade posting policy, you are given the option to have grades automatically post to students or manually post. The manual option may be useful for times when you don't want students to share their grades or feedback with other students just yet.
   
   

Entering Grades:

 After accessing the Gradebook as shown above, you can now start entering grades. To do this:

1. Click within a cell to edit the grade and type the grade you wish to grant the student. The Gradebook allows you to either enter grades into the cells below or you can click the Grade Detail Tray icon to open up a panel for grading on the right-hand side of your screen (see more details below).
   
   
2. Once you have typed in the grade, you can either click off of the grid to make the grade save (for automatic grade saving) or if you want to continue entering grades, then you can use the arrow keys to navigate in any direction to another cell.
   • If you have manual grade posting turned on, then you will need to post grades from the grade column menu here:
     
     
3. If you want to use the Grade Detail Tray to grade, click on the icon within a cell to make the tray pop open on the right:
   
   
   
   
   • The details tray allows you to easily click the left and right arrows to navigate between students as well as each assignment. You can also get to the SpeedGrader tool from here (see more details down below on using SpeedGrader).
   • Click on a student's name to open up their grading profile where you can easily see their past grades and any feedback you may have left them.
   • The Status part in the details tray lets you mark if an assignment was late, missing, excuse or another customized status.
4. This view is great for grading papers, quickly marking the status of a submission, leaving comments, and accessing SpeedGrader, Canvas's tool for grading papers.

Using SpeedGrader and Leaving Feedback

SpeedGrader is a tool built into Canvas to make grading papers simple and efficient. This tool can be used for individual papers as well as group papers. For a quick overview, view the information below. For a more detailed dive into SpeedGrader, check out Canvas's article How to use SpeedGrader.

To access SpeedGrader, you have a few methods:

1. From any graded assignment or quiz.
   • On the right-hand side of each assignment/quiz, you can find the SpeedGrader link under the Related Items menu:
     
     
2. From any graded discussion.
   • At the top, right-hand corner of a discussion, click the Options icon shown below and then click the SpeedGrader link.
     
     
3. From the GradeBook.
   
   • Click the grade details tray icon within any cell in the GradeBook.
     
     
   • Now in the details tray, click on the SpeedGrader link.
     
     

To use SpeedGrader:

1. After opening SpeedGrader, you will see the grading panel on the far, right-hand side of the screen with a few important sections to note.
   
   
   
   
   1. The first section holds a few menu icons.
      • Gradebook - Returns you to the GradeBook view.
      • Visibility - Lets you hide/post grades for the current assignment.
      • Settings - Provides some sorting options, anonymous grading options, keyboard shortcuts, and a Help link.
   2. The second section displays the title of the assignment, the due date of the assignment, and the name of the course (note the picture above is from a test course titled "1", but this would normally say something like ACCT245).
   3. The third section displays how many of the current assignments have been graded out of how many have been submitted, the average grade for the current assignment (not shown above), and how many groups/students there are to grade.
   4. The last section displays the current student you are entering grades for and allows you to quickly switch between students by clicking the left and right arrows.
2. Now you can begin grading! If the student submitted a paper, you can use Canvas's DocViewer to add annotations to the submission. To learn more about using this tool, see Canvas's article Using DocViewer. 

Providing feedback:

1. File attachments: This is where any files you upload to the student will appear. You can click the 'x' icon to remove the file and you can also see the time you uploaded the file below the submission. Click the paper icon outlined below to select a file from your computer. 
2. Audio/video upload: This is where any audio/video recordings you create/upload will display. The audio/video tool allows you to record right from your computer or upload a file from your computer as well. Simply click the play button icon outlined below.
3. Comments: The comments section allows instructors to either type in a comment or use the speech to text feature to fill in the comments without typing. To use this tool, click the sound icon outlined below.
   
   

Steps at the End of the Each Term

At the end term, an instructor will need to complete the following steps for each student:

1. Make sure each assignment has a grade value entered that is visible for the student. See steps above to post grades for each assignment. If an assignment was not completed, enter a "0" value for that assignment. 

2. Determine the overall course-grade to be presented to the student in the Canvas gradebook. For more information, please read on in this article. 

3. Enter a final grade for each student into Self Service. For more information, please read on in this article. 

Overall Course-Grade Display in Canvas

The overall course-grade display in Canvas is pre-calculated after each assignment has a score entered into it. If an assignment was not completed, enter a "0" value for that assignment. Please see the earlier portions of this article for instructions to publish grades for an assignment. Once all assignments are given a published score, instructors will be able to choose either the calculated grade option in the gradebook, or override the calculated score. 

Overriding Calculated Overall Course Grades

At the end of the term, an overall course-grade calculation is present in the gradebook in Canvas. The "Final Grade Override" is a tool in Canvas that allows you to enter an overall course-grade for students that is different from the grade automatically calculated by Canvas in the Gradebook (please see the link below for more information). However, while this grade calculation in Canvas is visible to students, it is not the official record of the final grade. Please keep reading below in this article for more information. 

• How to override a student's overall course-grade calculation in the Gradebook

Important: Final grades for a course must be submitted in Self Service. Even instructors will choose an overall course-grade for a student in the Canvas gradebook, the official record of final grades must be completed by instructors using Self Service. Please see the next section of this article regarding final grade submission. 

Submit Final Grades using Self Service

While assignment grades and overall course-grade calculations are housed in Canvas, final grades for a course must be recorded in Self Service to update student transcripts. Self Service can be accessed by clicking on the link Take Attendance & Submit Final Grades in Canvas under the Information tab or log in to the Self Service tool directly.

After landing on dashboard,  navigate to the course by clicking on the Faculty link and steer to the section where grades need to be recorded.   

Add the grade for one or more students and click on the Post Grades button. There is not a requirement to post all grades at once. It can be done for one or more students at a time if needed.

Important: Once a final grade is posted in Self Service, it cannot be changed. If a final grade alteration is needed after final grade submission in Self Service, an instructor will need to contact the Registrar's Office to make any further changes. 

To learn more about incomplete grades (for student course extensions), course reinstatement, or extended course access, please click here. 

Viewing Grades for Inactive/Concluded Students

You can view the grades for inactive and concluded student enrollments in the Gradebook. 

For concluded student enrollments, all content in the Gradebook is read only and cannot be changed. Grades can also be viewed when viewing concluded enrollments in the People page.

For inactive student enrollments, grades can still be edited. However, inactive students cannot access the course, so they cannot view grades or receive any submission comments or feedback.

Note: Inactive and concluded enrollments also show in downloaded CSV files and SpeedGrader assignment submissions.

Open Grades

In Course Navigation, click the Grades link.

 

Open Student Name Menu

Hover over the Student Name column header and click the Options icon.

 

Show Inactive Enrollments

To view inactive enrollments, select the Inactive enrollments link.

 

View Inactive Enrollments

View the inactive student in the Gradebook. You will be able to edit the grades. However, the student will not able to access the course to view the grades or any submission comments or feedback.

 

Show Concluded Enrollments

To view concluded enrollments, select the Concluded enrollments link.

 

View Concluded Enrollments

View the concluded student in the Gradebook. You will not be able to edit the grades.

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