Treat zeros as ungraded for both teacher and student views

Idea created by Clint Jacobsen on Apr 27, 2015

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Choosing for a gradebook to treat ungraded assignments as zeros should set that as the default to the grades view students see.

Comments from Instructure

Comment from Christi at Canvas on June 10 in the comments below:
Hey all,
I completely agree that this verbiage and action is confusing. We are working on a design for better verbiage and a cleaner solution to this problem.
I want to make sure we agree on what the problem is. To me it has two parts.
Teachers don't want to have to hunt through the gradebook to award zeros to the assignments that are missing or late.
Teachers want to be able to see what a student's grade might be if they didn't turn in any of the missing assignments (I'm told this is the original reason for the feature). The verbiage for "treat ungraded as zero" implies that the grade is actually being awarded and doesn't clearly indicate that the teacher is the only one seeing these zeroes being awarded (students don't see the zeros).

What do you all think? Would you agree that those are the primary problems?

67 Comments

chris@aspiredu.com Apr 28, 2015 8:58 AM
So are you saying that you'd want a zero automatically entered after a certain number of days passed and the assignment was ungraded?
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- Clint Jacobsen @ chris@aspiredu.com on Apr 28, 2015 9:33 AM
  Nope. Currently, if an instructor chooses to "treat ungraded assignments as zero" in a courses gradebook, students have to manually uncheck a box to not "calculate only based on graded assignments" to see the same grade total in the course that the instructor sees; to be on the same page as the instructor concerning the grade they are earning in a course. The default on the student side is a check in the box regardless of the setting chosen by the instructor. If an instructor chooses to ungraded to equal zero, the check should leave the box on the student's view of their grade calculation by default... otherwise, they are setup for a fall, thinking their grade is higher seeing it as inflated not including zeros on assignments.
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  - Michael Kasnetsis @ Clint Jacobsen on Jun 11, 2017 4:12 PM
    Totally agree. Student default should be "treat ungraded assignments as zero." Mr Jackobsen accuratly points out that students are "setup for a fall, thinking their grade is higher seeing it as inflated not including zeros on assignments." This has been my experiance with students shocked to learn that they are failing and not getting the C or B the gradebook displays with the current default of "calculate only based on graded assignments."
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anthonem@seattleu.edu May 5, 2015 12:33 PM
Would love to see this request find more attention. As it stands the "treat ungraded assignments as zero" is misleading, and I have found inconsistencies in how "drop the lowest X scores" works when enabling the "treats ungraded assignments as zero" is enabled. Also, I've been told in a Canvas help ticket that this setting is meant to be per-session...meaning you have to turn it back on every time you log into Canvas with a new session. Too many problems here!
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- Aimee Bates @ anthonem@seattleu.edu on Oct 5, 2015 12:36 PM
  I think too few people realize this is happening. What student is going to complain that their grade is too high?
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  - Kelley L. Meeusen @ Aimee Bates on Oct 8, 2015 12:04 PM
    They will all scream when their final grade report and official transcripts show a lower grade.
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Stefanie Sanders May 7, 2015 4:47 AM
I'd find this particularly helpful as the end of a course approaches. Recently, I set my Gradebook to "treat ungraded assignments as zero" when there were about five days left in a course, hoping to spur the remaining participants into action, and was dismayed to discover that the setting only affects my Gradebook view--and as Mark Anthoney notes above, only for that session. I wound up sending students a message telling them to toggle their own "calculate only based on graded assignments" checkbox in their Grades view, but it's hard to know how many of them actually did that.
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awilliams May 7, 2015 5:10 AM
Totally agreed. It being the end of the semester some of the newer (to using Canvas) faculty and their students have expressed some serious displeasure to find out they were misunderstanding grades.
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Samuel Bachert May 20, 2015 8:22 AM
In order to keep an accurate grade for my students I go in and enter a zero after the due date for all students who haven't completed the assignment. Usually by using the set default grade after I have finished grading everyone else's or while in SpeedGrader just entering a zero (this way I can include a comment as well). It would be better to be able to check "treat ungraded assignments as zero" like Stefanie Sanders does as the semester approaches or implement this feature: Automatic zero in gradebook after a date so that a zero is auto entered after the due date that way a teacher doesn't have to remember to enter the zero and students always have an accurate reflection of their grade in the course.
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- Kelley L. Meeusen @ Samuel Bachert on Oct 8, 2015 1:54 PM
  Samuel:
  
  That is what I do in my own courses, and that is what I advise my faculty - enter a zero at due date. If you accept late submission, you can always change the grade.
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Christi Wruck Jun 10, 2015 3:59 PM
Hey all,
I completely agree that this verbiage and action is confusing. We are working on a design for better verbiage and a cleaner solution to this problem.
I want to make sure we agree on what the problem is. To me it has two parts.
Teachers don't want to have to hunt through the gradebook to award zeros to the assignments that are missing or late.
Teachers want to be able to see what a student's grade might be if they didn't turn in any of the missing assignments (I'm told this is the original reason for the feature). The verbiage for "treat ungraded as zero" implies that the grade is actually being awarded and doesn't clearly indicate that the teacher is the only one seeing these zeroes being awarded (students don't see the zeros).

What do you all think? Would you agree that those are the primary problems?
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- Stefanie Sanders @ Christi Wruck on Jun 11, 2015 8:22 AM
  Sorry, Christi Wruck, I meant that reply to go to you.
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- Kimberly Smith @ Christi Wruck on Aug 31, 2017 11:30 PM
  Hello Christi,
  I posted my comment to the Community, but also wanted to reply to your question specifically - since it seems you are someone who may be orchestrating a change to this feature? Here is my post...
  Along the lines of this conversation, I would like to add an issue associated with the Assignment Group rule "Number of scores to ignore for each student" (which is actually "automatically drop lowest X scores). I am wondering if there might be a way to incorporate a new feature to “treat ungraded as zero” when allowing students to ‘drop lowest’ X scores from an Assignment Group. Any suggestions on how best to manage this in the current system would be appreciated. Right now, I am just preventing totals from displaying to students in the Gradebook. Thank you!
  
  Here is my situation: I allow students to drop their lowest score from several of my assignment groups (1/14 lowest quiz score, 2/5 lowest critical thinking tasks, 1/5 lowest exam score). So, if students do well on the X number required assignments in each group they can, potentially, skip the remaining ones in that group. Alternatively, students can choose do all of the assignments in each group and then keep their highest X required scores in each group. I find that this not only encourages students be focused early in the semester (do well 'up-front' may = less work later), but also offers flexibility in terms of their balancing school and 'life' responsibilities. Students are allowed to miss one assignment deadline from each assignment group for any reason (sick, car trouble, have to attend a wedding, internet went down, dog ate my homework) and use that as the assignment that gets dropped from that group. It also eliminates the need for creating make-up assignments. Unfortunately, this also wreaks havoc with students' (and sometimes my) ability to understand their current course grade across the semester.
  
  Presently, in my case, as students' grades are posted across the semester, the system automatically "drops" their lowest X scores for each group (based on rules set for each assignment group). A case in point... I have a student who has already completed the required 3/5 critical thinking tasks this semester (90/90, 85/90, 90/90). However, two of these are grayed out in her Gradebook because the lowest 2/5 of these are 'ignored' – so only 1/5 is counted toward her course grade. This Gradebook issue does not resolve itself until the deadlines for ALL of the assignments in that Assignment Group have passed (near the end of the semester) – even though she is likely to skip the two remaining assignments in that group, and use those two zeros as her “dropped' scores. I realize, of course, that I could just set the Assignment Group rules at the end of the semester. But, as others have alluded to, students will think they are fine - until suddenly points (lowest scores) disappear from their Gradebook at the end of the semester.
  
  Ideally, there would be some way that the 'not yet due' scores were grayed out until the submission deadlines pass in each group. Would an IF-THEN kind of thing, integrated into Assignment Group rule option, work? Something like...
  IF "assignment is not locked" (in an Assignment Group) THEN "treat ungraded as zero"?
  This way (I think), all assignments would start out as zero (and grayed out) in the Gradebook and, early in the semester, the X number of “to be ignored” scores would (of course) be the scores grayed out in the Gradebook. However, as the semester progresses, and students’ assignments are graded, higher (non-zero) scores replace them and are included in course grade totals - while the “to be ignored” scores (I think) have no influence on overall course grades until their respective deadlines pass? Refering to the example case from above, that student's 3/5 scores would be counted in her total and the two up-coming (likely to be dropped) assignments have no influence. In that same example, if that student decided to complete a 4^thcritical thinking task, and that 4^th score was higher than one of the three previous scores in that group, the 4^th (higher) score would replace the lowest of the first three in that group.
  
  Thank you again!
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Stefanie Sanders Jun 11, 2015 8:21 AM
Hey Christi, thanks for articulating the clarification. I see this as three separate requests, only one of which is covered by the idea under discussion here.

(1) The current "Treat ungraded as zeros" function should be accompanied by clear verbiage that this is a hypothetical exercise that does not actually give zero grades to any students.
(2) Teachers should have a tool that allows them to assign zeros to all students across the Gradebook (ideally, since many teachers award zeros in a timely fashion as they grade each assignment, this functionality would only come to play toward the end of a semester and would be more of a "just-in-case-I-missed-something" exercise).
(3) Teachers should be able check "what-if" grades for an individual student just the way students can: How do I check my What-If Grades? (The old community had a feature request for this--"What If" Student Grading View for Instructors and Administrators : Help Center --but I couldn't find one here in the new community.)

Is this how others who've contributed to this discussion see it playing out?
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- Beth Young @ Stefanie Sanders on Jun 18, 2015 4:38 PM
  Brandy Long just added this feature idea to the new community: Allow instructors to use what-if grades
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- Christi Wruck @ Stefanie Sanders on Jul 7, 2015 11:12 AM
  Thanks Stefanie Sanders,
  Can you help me understand the use case for teachers needing "What-if" grades?
  I understand why an instructor might want to make sure they distributed all the zeros they needed to~ or have a way to see what a student's grade would be if they don't turn in any of the missing things and received zeros... but what is the scenario where a teacher is playing with "What-if" grades for multiple students at the same time (because they can do it on an individual basis on the students grades page)?
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  - Renee Carney @ Christi Wruck on Jul 7, 2015 11:44 AM
    I can share a use case that I would often hear from Klint Hull. He wanted to be able to use the what-if feature with his students when he had conferences with them. His workaround was to have them login.
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  - Stefanie Sanders @ Christi Wruck on Jul 7, 2015 2:41 PM
    HI Christi, with pleasure! One example that immediately comes to mind is when you are assessing a course full of students who need to reach a particular benchmark. Using the "treat ungraded as zeros" feature allows the teacher to see at a glance which students would not achieve that benchmark at the end of the term if they didn't complete any additional assignments. Being able to "what-if" in the complete Gradebook, in the aggregate (rather than having to navigate to each student's Grade page individually) would allow the teacher to quickly determine which students might need an extra nudge on specific assignments, and/or would allow the teacher to focus students on specific assignments and the grades they would need to reach. I understand that students can do that on their own--and I always point students to the "what-if" functionality--but in my view, the more specific direction I can give students in this regard, the better.
    
    Also, when an assignment is muted, a teacher can rapidly navigate to the Gradebook and enter hypothetical grades for numerous students. If the assignment is unmuted, this is no longer feasible because students would now be able to see all the grade changes and would receive notifications for them. This especially resonates with me because at my school--and I'm sure at many others--the grading scale consists of only full letters: A, B, C, D, and F--and for the writing-intensive courses I teach, students will only get credit for having completed their writing-intensive requirement if they achieve a C or better in the course. I hate to see a diligent but struggling student miss that C by a few one hundredths of a point. In a class with 100 students, it is far quicker to be able to "what-if" those borderline students in the Gradebook than it would be to make a note of those students' names and then navigate to each of their respective Grades pages.
    
    That's just a few off the top of my head. I can readily say that throughout the course of any given semester I've wished for "what-if" ability many times for various reasons.
    
    Hope this helps!
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    - Samuel Bachert @ Stefanie Sanders on Jul 7, 2015 2:57 PM
      One that I had and the work around Stefanie Sanders already mentioned would be when you get those students who ask "do I have any change of passing this course?" the solution now would be to encourage them to use the what-if feature and to play with it, but I feel like a better response would be for me to do the same thing and answer their question.
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Clint Jacobsen Jul 8, 2015 9:25 AM
(Hey-look, 25 people voted for this. That's great, thanks!)

Replying to the June 10th "Response from Instructure", I haven't really haven't kept up much with this after I posted it (and I admit could have done a little better with the grammar of the post), but the focus of the idea (the goal?) does not directly have teacher in mind. I'm reading "1. Teachers don't want to..." & "2. Teachers want to be able..." and that may be missing the intent of the idea. *Students* need to be in sync with teachers on the grade they are earning in a course. Students and teachers need to see the exact same values, at least initially, or first thing after they each click "Grades" on their respective ends. "What-if's" and etc. can happen later, but when a teacher chooses to "treat ungraded as zeros" students need to see their grade calculated treating ungraded assignments as zeros too, right-off-the-bat. Ultimately, and I'm sure its why I would have submitted the idea, a teacher mentioned that their students were not seeing the same grade values as they were and it became something the teacher had to address in class.
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- Clint Jacobsen @ Clint Jacobsen on Jul 8, 2015 9:27 AM
  (and I clicked "post" a little early on this one too... )
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- Stefanie Sanders @ Clint Jacobsen on Jul 8, 2015 10:30 AM
  ^This, absolutely, Clint. I want students to be able to see the same grades I'm seeing when I click the "Treat ungraded as zeros" button. I don't want to inundate students with the notifications that would ensue if I were to enter default grades as zeros in each column; I want every student to be able to see where he or she would stand if they were to walk away from the course at that particular moment without expecting each student to resort individually to the "what-if" option.
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- Louise A Sharrar @ Clint Jacobsen on Mar 9, 2016 5:59 AM
  Clint, I too agree with you and many others on this idea. We are currently in the process of transitioning our courses to Canvas from ANGEL and this was an option we were able to set in ANGEL as well "Treat Ungraded Items as Zeros." This was actually a Best Practice that we implemented as in many cases, instructors would forget to add "0s" to grades and/or would have to add "0s" manually if forgetting to set this or not knowing that the feature even existed. We actually just had a team meeting about this last week and now our Best Practice in Canvas is to NOT set select the "Treat Ungrade as 0" option in Canvas due to the way it currently functions. We are also communicating this out to our instructors so they are aware of the situation.
  
  Can someone please (1.) look into this as enabling this feature to function so that instructors do not need to manually add "0s" to the gradebook would be beneficial (for example we have courses that have hundreds of students enrolled)? In other areas of the university, there could be thousands of students enrolled. As you can imagine this is a very inefficient process for instructors, TAs, and course design teams. (2.) Enabling the feature so that it functions/displays the same way for both instructors and students would eliminate confusion and problems with grade conflicts.
  
  A big thanks goes out to see that you are still gathering information on this idea!
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  - Karen Matson @ Louise A Sharrar on Mar 9, 2016 9:41 AM
    Great points Louise.
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jonathan.cowan@sno.wednet.edu Oct 7, 2015 3:18 PM
I think if you could toggle the feature whether or not zeros are generated for all assignments, or just past due assignments, it would make the most sense in terms of flexibility. Also, when toggling the feature on and having it only consider past due assignments, it would be great if it then ignored any turned in assignments that students have done which may not be due yet.
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Amy Rovner Oct 8, 2015 11:23 AM
These are all good ideas. I want to emphasize that AT LEAST, the student grade view should not include the "calculate only based on graded assignments" box checked. It is SO misleading and what a surprise once their instructor enters their zeros - their grades plummet. Secondly, if the faculty member does not put zeros in for the unsubmitted assignments, the students do end up with inflated grades (@Amy Bates mentions- what students are going to complain about that!) . I like the solution of offering a date by which a zero is automatically entered. If this was part of the assignment/discussion/quiz settings, it would bring attention to this issue.
Thanks!
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Richard Eitel Feb 4, 2016 8:43 AM
I agree that the "treat ungraded as zero" verbiage is very misleading. I don't understand why this would NOT change the grade students see. Better verbiage would be "preview grades with ungraded as zero."

However, I think the most of the optimal solution is already in-place. Namely, the "default grade" functionality in the drop down list associate with each grade book entry. It would very easy after entering grades for all submitted assignments to quickly go in a set "default grade" to zero. Which I believe changes only the ungraded assignments to zero (there is also the option to override all grades to the "default" level). Thanks to one of the commenter above for making me aware of the "default" option. . . .

The missing functionality however is for online quizzes or other assignments which are automatically graded by Canvas there should be the option, during the creation of the assignment, to have Canvas assign grade of "zero" after the due date has passed.

These options would make sure that both student and instructor clearly see accurate representations of a students current grade in the course!

The fact the Canvas makes it nearly impossible for instructors to quickly see the grade same grade calculation resutls that students see is alarming (the only way I know of is to export grades to export grades to excel, even then the results seem inconsistent).
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Clint Jacobsen Feb 26, 2016 11:21 AM
An issue stemming from this came up again today; students were seeing a grade that differed from what the instructor was seeing. Ultimately, these two numbers need to be the same, or it otherwise needs to be immediately apparent to students and teachers what number the other is working with.
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Karen Matson Mar 2, 2016 10:50 AM
Yes this treat has burned us. We want the 0's to be filled in and thought they were until we read the fine print that is was a treat and not real. It is misleading.

Karen
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Dakin Burdick Apr 27, 2016 12:36 PM
A further wrinkle on this. I noticed in my course this semester (Spring 2016) that "treat ungraded as zero" had turned off twice during the semester. The first time I thought it was my mistake but after the second time I suspect it may have something to do with default settings being reinstalled during new builds. I turned it on again, and alerted our faculty, but it is now the last week of the semester and some students who would have otherwise withdrawn may now flunk their courses. Our faculty members, of course, are not pleased with the situation.
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- awilliams @ Dakin Burdick on Apr 27, 2016 1:34 PM
  Hey Dakin Burdick
  Since the "treat ungraded as zero" feature is currently just for faculty view, how would the on or off state of this setting have influenced student decisions?
  
  To your question about the setting coming unchecked, even though it doesn't state it in How do I treat ungraded assignments as zero in the Gradebook? this gradebook setting is stored in browser cache so if your faculty use a different computer, browser, or clear their browser cache the setting will revert back to the off state.
  
  If your faculty are using this feature for anything other than a temporary and hypothetical view of what students grades would be if they entered zeros for unsubmitted work, then that is a serious misuse of the feature. We have struggled with this and send out emails throughout the semester and post things in our Teaching and Learning Center reminding faculty to enter zeros.
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  - Dakin Burdick @ awilliams on Apr 27, 2016 7:25 PM
    As to the student decisions, wouldn't the "what if" function for students to calculate their grades take the "treat ungraded as zero" into consideration?
    For the browser possibility, I don't think that was it. It happened in my course and I only use Firefox and never clear my cache.
    As for entering zeros, are you saying that the function is well-known to not work? Why would using that feature be a serious misuse?
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    - Aimee Bates @ Dakin Burdick on Apr 27, 2016 8:12 PM
      Because that view doesn't translate to the student view, which is the real issue with this feature. The view is user-specific. If the teacher turns it on, he/she is the only one that sees its effects.
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      - Dakin Burdick @ Aimee Bates on Apr 28, 2016 12:17 PM
        Aha! That makes sense, but it certainly isn't intuitive for faculty.
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    - Stefanie Sanders @ Dakin Burdick on Apr 28, 2016 6:14 AM
      Dakin, to elaborate on what Adam Williams has stated, actually, the guide to which he linked is clear on this:
      As an instructor, you can view student grades as if all ungraded assignments as worth zero points in the Gradebook. This feature called Treat Ungraded as 0 is located in the Gradebook Settings and is only a visual change that does not actually affect any grades—it only helps you see the change in Gradebook calculations if ungraded assignments were given scores of zero. Enabling this option has no effect outside of the Gradebook; students cannot see any difference in their grade pages.
      It's not that it's "well-known to not work"; it's that that's how it is designed to work. Enabling the "treated ungraded as 0" option in the Gradebook is a teacher-only view-only setting--a hypothetical.
      
      There's a completely different way of assigning zeros in the Gradebook, and that's to assign default grades for each assignment column. You'll find that described in How do I set a default grade for an assignment? . This allows teachers to bulk-enter zeros for all students who haven't already received a grade, and that's how teachers can convey missed assignments and zero grades to students, because those zeros are indeed entered in the Gradebook and students will see the impact of those zeros on their course grades--something they won't see if the teacher simply enables the "treat ungraded as 0" setting in his or her own Gradebook.
      
      So as Adam said, if your teachers are enabling "Treat ungraded as 0" in their Gradebook views and think those are the grades their students are seeing, they are misusing the feature. It's just a toggle.
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      - Kelley L. Meeusen @ Stefanie Sanders on Apr 28, 2016 8:00 AM
        Very nice explanation Stefanie Sanders!
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      - ANTHONY DAVIS ANDERSON @ Stefanie Sanders on May 27, 2016 7:52 AM
        Very helpful Stefanie! Thanks.
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Paula Miranda May 23, 2016 7:26 PM
It would also be very helpful and appreciated if the verbiage could make clear that this setting is per-user in addition to being per-session, and that if there are rules in a course's assignment groups, it could cause confusion among course instructors.
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ANTHONY DAVIS ANDERSON Jun 10, 2016 6:47 AM
One thing that really concerns me about this going forward is that I have not had anyone confirm for me that this intended feature (unintended intended as I call them) will be changed in the revamped gradebook that is on Canvas Studio's roadmap. Does anyone know if that will be fixed on that?
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- Stefanie Sanders @ ANTHONY DAVIS ANDERSON on Jun 10, 2016 7:08 AM
  Anthony, the community managers are great about responding to the comments in these threads. Nevertheless, you might want to re-post your question (perhaps with a link to this feature idea) in the comments section of The specified item was not found. , where it will get the direct attention of the product manager for that project.
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- Renee Carney @ ANTHONY DAVIS ANDERSON on Jun 10, 2016 8:15 AM
  Hi Anthony
  
  The "under consideration" label is about as close as we can come to confirming that this will be part of the Gradebook Enhancements project. The product team is genuinely 'considering' it as they plan and scope the project.
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S Elin Jan 4, 2017 1:39 PM
This is a feature that has already been discussed, but, in my opinion, it has been diverted from its original intention in several responses along the way in the thread. I would like to add my own opinion and I apologize if I'm repeating someone else's points.

I am coming at this from a K12 perspective -- I don't know if most people here are Higher Ed, and if so, their students are more mature and able to handle their grades on their own, so this issue may not be as important to them.

For K12 online courses, it would be helpful if the instructor had the option to set the grade book -- or each assignment -- to display as a "running total" (ignoring zeros) OR as an "actual grade" that calculates with the zeros, and NOT give control to the students.

In our K-12 online program, we need to set the grade book to count missing assignments as zero globally and lock it that way so that students cannot change it; that way, they are not misled with a false sense of security. At their level of learning, it helps the students to see their actual grade, with the zero values factored in.
For example, if a student has completed 3 out of 15 assignments and received 100% on all 3, but has not received zeros for the other 12 uncompleted assignments, he or she sees a grade of 100% A. That is not realistic.

We have learned the hard way that young students do not intuitively know how to navigate and understand an online instructional course, especially interpreting a grade book, which they have never done before, typically. We try to scaffold the environment to prevent problems and misconceptions, and teach them skills like this gradually so they aren't overwhelmed with the online experience. By counting missing assignments as zeros, they see their grades climb as the term progresses as long as they are submitting work. It stays low if they don't. Simple.

We migrated from Blackboard, which offered this option. It's frustrating not to have it in Canvas.

Thanks for reading. I feel better now.
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Renee Carney Feb 10, 2017 2:40 PM
This idea was moved from Under Consideration stage (no longer in use) to the Product Radar stage.
This change was made as part of a feature idea process evolution. Find more information, and contribute insights, by joining Focus Group: DRAFT Feature Idea Space.
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- Louise A Sharrar @ Renee Carney on Feb 10, 2017 7:19 PM
  So glad to hear that this is moving to the Product Radar stage - thanks for the good news!
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Karin May Apr 6, 2017 11:47 AM
I would like to see Institution settings for both "Treat Ungraded as 0" and "Calculate based only on graded assignments". We should be able to set the default for our institution depending on what our faculty and students expect while still having the option available to same for the what-if grades. Also, yes, the verbiage should be changed/explained in both places.
Really, it would be better to have a "What-if" Total column and a Final Total column visible to all.
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Kimberly Smith Aug 31, 2017 11:24 PM
Along the lines of this conversation, I would like to add an issue associated with the Assignment Group rule "Number of scores to ignore for each student" (which is actually "automatically drop lowest X scores). I am wondering if there might be a way to incorporate a new feature to “treat ungraded as zero” when allowing students to ‘drop lowest’ X scores from an Assignment Group. Any suggestions on how best to manage this in the current system would be appreciated. Right now, I am just preventing totals from displaying to students in the Gradebook. Thank you!

Here is my situation: I allow students to drop their lowest score from several of my assignment groups (1/14 lowest quiz score, 2/5 lowest critical thinking tasks, 1/5 lowest exam score). So, if students do well on the X number required assignments in each group they can, potentially, skip the remaining ones in that group. Alternatively, students can choose do all of the assignments in each group and then keep their highest X required scores in each group. I find that this not only encourages students be focused early in the semester (do well 'up-front' may = less work later), but also offers flexibility in terms of their balancing school and 'life' responsibilities. Students are allowed to miss one assignment deadline from each assignment group for any reason (sick, car trouble, have to attend a wedding, internet went down, dog ate my homework) and use that as the assignment that gets dropped from that group. It also eliminates the need for creating make-up assignments. Unfortunately, this also wreaks havoc with students' (and sometimes my) ability to understand their current course grade across the semester.

Presently, in my case, as students' grades are posted across the semester, the system automatically "drops" their lowest X scores for each group (based on rules set for each assignment group). A case in point... I have a student who has already completed the required 3/5 critical thinking tasks this semester (90/90, 85/90, 90/90). However, two of these are grayed out in her Gradebook because the lowest 2/5 of these are 'ignored' – so only 1/5 is counted toward her course grade. This Gradebook issue does not resolve itself until the deadlines for ALL of the assignments in that Assignment Group have passed (near the end of the semester) – even though she is likely to skip the two remaining assignments in that group, and use those two zeros as her “dropped' scores. I realize, of course, that I could just set the Assignment Group rules at the end of the semester. But, as others have alluded to, students will think they are fine - until suddenly points (lowest scores) disappear from their Gradebook at the end of the semester.

Ideally, there would be some way that the 'not yet due' scores were grayed out until the submission deadlines pass in each group. Would an IF-THEN kind of thing, integrated into Assignment Group rule option, work? Something like...
IF "assignment is not locked" (in an Assignment Group) THEN "treat ungraded as zero"?
This way (I think), all assignments would start out as zero (and grayed out) in the Gradebook and, early in the semester, the X number of “to be ignored” scores would (of course) be the scores grayed out in the Gradebook. However, as the semester progresses, and students’ assignments are graded, higher (non-zero) scores replace them and are included in course grade totals - while the “to be ignored” scores (I think) have no influence on overall course grades until their respective deadlines pass? Refering to the example case from above, that student's 3/5 scores would be counted in her total and the two up-coming (likely to be dropped) assignments have no influence. In that same example, if that student decided to complete a 4^th critical thinking task, and that 4^th score was higher than one of the three previous scores in that group, the 4^th (higher) score would replace the lowest of the first three in that group.

Thank you again!
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Kristen Hughes Sep 19, 2017 10:36 AM
This is very serious! If I put in a zero, the assignment is not on the student's to do list!!! If I don't put a zero in, the student thinks they are doing great in my class and doesn't even look at their to do list. Please fix asap!!!! This is a disaster for my student community. I am resorting to sending lots of messages to students, but the items aren't in their to do lists!
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- Kimberly Smith @ Kristen Hughes on Sep 20, 2017 5:02 PM
  Hello Kristen,
  Could you please clarify which "zero" function you are referring to, and/or provide a few more details about your situation? For example, when I manually enter a zero to a student's assignment in the Gradebook, my students can still see the assignment in their 'To Do' list - as long as the deadline has not yet passed. This is also the case when add zero
  s using the 'Set Default Grade' function. Below is an example picture from the "Student View":
  Personally, I do not use the "Treat ungraded as zeros" function. There have been several suggestions posted requestion possible changes to how this setting works. However, currently at least (as understand it), using the "Treat ungraded as zeros" function should have no impact at all on what your students see. Stephanie (above) explains this function as "a hypothetical exercise that does not actually give zero grades to any students", and Richard has suggested renaming this to something more in line with what the function actually does, like "preview grades with ungraded as zero". So, it seems like something else may be happening in your case?
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  - Kristen Hughes @ Kimberly Smith on Sep 22, 2017 11:37 AM
    Kimberly,
    Thanks for the note, but I teach high school, and so ability to make up
    late work after the deadline is essential or many of my students would
    fail. So I am talking about the to do disappearing AFTER the due date if I
    put in a zero. The assignment is no longer marked "Late" in the assignment
    list. It just shows zero. So no students are doing missing work and many
    have Fs. Changing the due date is not a realistic option since it really
    was due back in the past, and there are consequences to handing in late
    work.
    
    Kristen
    
    On Wed, Sep 20, 2017 at 4:03 PM, kimberly.smith@sfcollege.edu <
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    - Kimberly Smith @ Kristen Hughes on Sep 22, 2017 6:09 PM
      Ahhh... I see.
      Does this still happen if you set the available "Until" date beyond the "Due" date?
      I just tested this within 'Migration' course, and it seems that assignments will remain in the 'To Do' list until after the available date passes. Personally, I don't accept 'late' assignments (I let them drop lowest score(s) from each assignment group instead) - but this is what I am seeing. Within the assignment itself, I did this:
      I then manually added a "0" for this assignment to the Test Student.
      Looking at my Test Student in 'Student View', I see this (even though it is now Sep 22 - after the deadline).
      Of course, it may be that using the 'Set Default Grade" option acts differently in relation to the 'To List' after the Due date? I tried to check this in my 'Migration' course as well, but the Gradebook (for some reason) wouldn't assign a default as zero to the Test Student. This may just be because it was the "Test Student", or because Test Student is the only student in that Gradebook. Anyway...
      
      It may be that you have already tried setting the 'Until' date to beyond the 'Due' date. If not, and you try it, please let me know what happens to the To Do list. I have some other assigning zero/Gradebook things of my own I am trying to work out
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      - Kimberly Smith @ Kimberly Smith on Sep 22, 2017 10:00 PM
        P.S. When you allow "late" submissions (by extending the 'Until' date beyond the 'Due' date), you should also see a "LATE" notation within SpeedGrader.
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        Kristen Hughes @ Kimberly Smith on Sep 23, 2017 9:56 AM
        Did not know that. Thanks, that is helpful.
        KH
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Laura Gibbs Sep 23, 2017 10:31 AM
General suggestion: it would be really helpful if for each of the feature requests related to the Gradebook, someone from Instructure could comment IN THE BODY OF THE FEATURE REQUEST at the top of the page about whether this feature will or will not be available in the new Gradebook that is coming soon.
Apparently my school is implementing the new Gradebook this year.
I'm not sure it really makes sense to be voting on feature ideas that might be coming already in the new Gradebook, and I honestly don't have time to investigate that myself. It would be great if that could be made clear in the feature request box up at the top.
Or should I assume that any Gradebook feature requests open for voting are NOT features available in the new Gradebook-to-come?
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Adriano Cavalcanti Dec 6, 2017 1:11 PM
This feature has been in discussion since 2015. Why it was never implement so far? It is an important feature who will enormously directly benefit all students and instructors who use Canvas.
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- Clint Jacobsen @ Adriano Cavalcanti on Dec 8, 2017 8:52 AM
  Great question!
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  - Adriano Cavalcanti @ Clint Jacobsen on Dec 8, 2017 2:31 PM
    Maybe I should talk with my students taking my classes on front-end, back-end, and server-side development, to found a start up and have a better product/service than Canvas tech development team is providing at moment -- to implement this very simple feature. The way Canvas is dealing with this request it simply shows a complete disrespect to all professors and students, not watching for the best interest of the higher education community.
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    - awilliams @ Adriano Cavalcanti on Dec 8, 2017 3:01 PM
      Hey Adriano. I hope you are having a good Friday! I can tell that you are curious about the feature idea process and even have some critiques. It is good to hear that you have some experience with software development. We have been trying to help you learn more about our system not only as it functions here in the Community, but as a whole within the Canvas product. We want to help you understand because we value your input and want it to be impactful.
      
      Based on your statements it seems you may still not have read over the documents that best explain the system. With your experience in software I am sure you can understand the importance of documentation and understanding the system before critiquing it. Here are the two documents again:
      How does the feature idea process work?
      What is the feature development process for Canvas?
      
      Once you have read those and understand the scope of the input Canvas considers for product development (including Open source contributions, Community input, direct user research, etc) it may help explain why we think the current process is a respectful one to all parties involved, including professors and students, even if it means sometimes ideas evolve for a long time before any code is written.
      
      If you have specific suggestions on the process we would love to hear them in the Meta Community Group, but further comments in this idea related to the process instead of the idea are not helpful. It may also be good to review the guidelines for this Community; What are the Canvas Community guidelines?
      
      Have a great weekend!
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      - Adriano Cavalcanti @ awilliams on Dec 8, 2017 3:59 PM
        Currently... request pending for almost 3 years, plus 131 votes up and counting. Thank you.
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- Renee Carney @ Adriano Cavalcanti on Dec 8, 2017 9:26 AM
  Greetings Adriano Cavalcanti and Clint Jacobsen
  I believe we have answered this question a couple times for you already this week, but I'll go ahead and answer it again here!
  Product Radar is an acknowledgement that we see an idea has been deemed important by the community and should be considered in prioritization processes. It does not guarantee that and idea will be moved into a queue for development. You can read more about the process in the following documents:
  How does the feature idea process work?
  What is the feature development process for Canvas?
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  - Clint Jacobsen @ Renee Carney on Dec 8, 2017 10:01 AM
    Great, thanks! 3 years on teh radar, though... Viper would have had Maverick & Goose or Iceman & Slider either shoot me down by now, or drop me off at the bar. #lostThatLovnFeeln #cougersInAflatspinHeadedOutToSea
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  - Adriano Cavalcanti @ Renee Carney on Dec 8, 2017 2:25 PM
    This feature/fix has over 100 votes up. Non sense that it is still not implement, specially as it has been pending since 2015. Now we are almost in 2018, and soon it will be completing 3 years since its birth. Is Canvas development team policy to wait until a request become over 18 years old to finally implement it - or what?
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    - awilliams @ Adriano Cavalcanti on Dec 8, 2017 2:43 PM
      Hey Adriano. I am going to respond to your other comment above in more detail but I wanted to say, the short answer is that the amount of time since a specific community idea has been created is not representative of the staging within the product roadmap.
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Clint Jacobsen Mar 15, 2018 10:14 AM
This gremlin surfaced for an instructor again at our institution. This discussion and Kona's illustration & solutions helped quite a bit. In the end, though, it, the "treat ungraded as zero" curveball, really **really** needs to be sorted out. If it adds any emphasis (et. larger Instructure), in my experience, when instructors find that "treat ungraded as zeros" does not on their students' end (does not impact scores shown in student grades), usually half or 2/3rds of the way into a term, you lose an instructor advocate for Canvas. They vocally, openly, and adamantly question why an LMS is used at all, how accurate the Canvas gradebook calculates grades, whether Canvas and educational technology as a whole is affecting student learning positively, and so on. Grades & gradebooks being the hallowed ground that they are, the teachable moment of 'oh, so you're using "treat ungraded assignments as zeros" feature doesn't actually' in this context is a catalyst to very severe volatility that works against the whole effort to it all.

Please strongly advocate for a fix to the issue, or, to anyone that readily has the ability, fix the issue.

Also, a "visual indicator in the gradebook that would differentiate between a zero that was given for a failed assignment versus a zero for not submitting the assignment" would be a pedagogically sound feature to add, something that can be readily quantified and graphed in canvas analytics (& Canvas Data), and it's pretty surprising it isn't already something developed & implemented; the difference between a student earning zero points on an assignment and a student not attempting that assignment at all being as night & day as it is.
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- Kimberly Smith @ Clint Jacobsen on Mar 15, 2018 11:04 AM
  Hello Clint,
  I really like your idea of differentiating between a zero for a failed assignment versus a zero for no submission. Is there a feature request somewhere for this? I would vote up on it
  
  Based on your comments, I think you (and the teachers at your school?) might be interested in an issue in the New Gradebook which, in my view, is related. That is, the New Gradebook adds red late/missing labels to students' Gradebooks automaticallly - even if the assignment was one that was submitted on paper, or one that was not actually required (e.g. student allowed to select 10/15 to complete), creating confusion for students and parents. In the New Gradebook (coming soon to a Canvas near you), these labels must be removed by the instructor manually one at a time, on a student-by-student, assignment-by-assignment basis (so potentially very labor intensive). An idea to allow instructors to turn this feature off is open for voting at A global option to enable/disable Missing and Late Status labels in the New Gradebook . Along the lines of accurate an Gradebook, your teachers might also be interested in Include a Keep Highest Scores Rule (instead of Ignore Lowest) in Assignment Groups
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  - Clint Jacobsen @ Kimberly Smith on Mar 15, 2018 11:54 AM
    thanks for the tip. got an idea on how that is depicted in canvas analytics? the instructor needs a visual on it to discern any patterns in student behavior; to identify intervention potential.
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    - Kimberly Smith @ Clint Jacobsen on Mar 15, 2018 1:19 PM
      I'm not sure how this will be managed in analytics. At my institution, instructors have the option to deploy the New Gradebook as beta in their courses (via Settings > Feature Options). After briefly checking it out, I decided to stick with the current Gradebook for now. You may find the answer at New Gradebook Users Group or perhaps New Gradebook: FAQ . Hope this helps
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Treat zeros as ungraded for both teacher and student views

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