[ARCHIVED] Can I create a column for text (not factored into the grade) that students can see?

[sfreng]

I would like to create a column in the gradebook to keep information like--has the student used a late coupon (student can turn in 1 assignment a day late without penalty), or has the student used their eliminate 1 option perk (student can ask professor to eliminate 1 of the mc options on a question), etc. Basically, I'm creating a list of power-ups that students can earn throughout the semester, but I need to be able to 1) keep track of them and 2) let them know which one's they've earned.

I know about the Notes column, but I need to students to be able to see the column as well. Thanks!

[mzimmerman · Accepted solution]

Aside from Notes, there aren't really any "freeform text" columns in Canvas the way there are in Blackboard.  All columns are displayed as scores, points, or some variation of a grading scheme, such as letter or complete/incomplete.

The only way I can think of that you might do this in a way that students can see is to come up with a grading scheme that, in place of "A", "A-", "B+" etc. has an entry for each "power up" and all possible combinations of "power ups" that you might want to award.  Say "eliminate 1 option" is "E" and "1 late assignment" is "L", you'd need "E", "L", and "E L".  It doesn't matter what the percentages are, since you're not actually counting points.  You just need a valid "grade" for any list of power ups that you want to show.

Of course, that's much more manageable if there aren't too many "power ups", or else there get to be a lot of possible combinations to keep track of...

The other option would be to look at badging tools, but I don't really have any experience with those.

[sfreng]

Thanks for the response! Unfortunately, I don't think that solution will work given the number of power-ups I was planning. Its frustrating, I've seen requests for a notes-like column that students could see in the gradefile for some time and it still isn't a reality. Doesn't seem like it would be that hard to add.

[Ron_Bowman]

@sfreng -

If you are using a percent based grade book, create an assignment group worth 0%. Then put an assignment in there for each thing you want to keep track of.

go through and assign a grade of 0 to the assignment and then when they use it, change it to a 1 or whatever.  the assignment could be made worth 0 points as well.

So, for points based gradebooks, you would create the assignment group, give the assignment 0 points possible.  You would still use 0 for unused options, and for used you could enter in 0.01 (I think that is as low as you could go).  The overall grade for the students is not affected by the addition of 0.01 points

Maybe this idea will work - I do not know.

Ron