[ARCHIVED] Edited grade and now it doesn't count

[DavidOglesby]

My students completed a midterm (quiz), but afterwards I decided to change the grading. In the Canvas gradebook I manually added 2 points to every student's score, and then I went into the quiz and removed the points for two of the questions. Now all the students' scores are marked by the icon that they don't count toward the final grade, and indeed, I can verify that those scores no longer count. I can't find any option on the quiz to allow those scores to count toward the final grade. I can still see the scores if I click in the box for an individual student, and I can see the new scores in the grading history. Can anybody tell me how this happened, and how I can fix it so those new scores can count? Thanks!

[kmeeusen · Accepted solution]

Hi @DavidOglesby 

Not sure what you did, but suspect you  set it as a practice quiz; or for a New Quizzes quiz, you set the assignment to not contribute to the grade.. Unfortunately, we have no way to troubleshoot this on our end. To edit this feature these guides should help, depending on the quiz engine used:

• Classic Quizzes: What options can I set in a quiz?
• New Quizzes:

  How do I edit an assessment in New Quizzes? Also, for New Quizzes, you will need How do I edit the assignment details of a New Quizzes assessment?

Good luck,

Kelley

[James · Accepted solution]

@DavidOglesby 

Here is some information about what goes on behind the scenes. I'm speaking about classic quizzes here.

You didn't say how you removed the points for the two questions. If you went into each student's individual quiz and removed it, then there should be no problem. That takes a lot of time, so most people would opt for simply removing the points possible on the quiz itself. 

Editing the point values on a quiz after it has been taken is something that is strongly discouraged. The notes section at the top and regrade restrictions a little lower in the What options can I use to regrade a quiz in a course? lesson from the Canvas Instructor Guide explains some of the issues.

You didn't say what type of questions the two you removed the points from were, but you can only regrade multiple choice, true/false, and multiple answers type questions and then only if the items are not linked to a question bank. Adding or deleting responses within a question makes it impossible to regrade.

Going through the gradebook and adding 2 points to everyone's score technically adds 2 points to the fudge points for the individual quizzes.

For classic quizzes, changing the point values on questions will change the point values for the quiz as well. If you had a 100 point midterm and deleted 2 points worth of questions, it would now be a 98 point midterm.

Changing the point values to 0 on the quiz without also changing the point values in the individual submissions essentially turns existing scores for those questions into bonus points (on top of the 2 points you gave everyone). That is provided that Canvas can handle it at all because of the question type.

There is no option to make a graded classic quiz not count towards the final like there is with other types of assignments. You can make it a practice quiz as Kelley ( @kmeeusen ) mentioned or an ungraded survey, but those don't show up in the gradebook at all, so I doubt that is what has happened.

What might happen if you change the items on the quiz itself is that it might throw it into a situation where it needs graded. One thing to check is that you are properly interpreting the icons in the gradebook. The How do I use the icons and colors in the Gradebook? lesson provides additional information and the very first one is an "Assignment Icon" that looks like a piece of paper with a circle on it. That means that the assignment needs graded.

The fourth bullet point there says

A quiz was submitted in Classic Quizzes, but is not fully graded (contains questions that must be manually graded, or an auto-submitted quiz score has been deleted and needs to be reassigned); can also display if a quiz has been edited and includes major changes that affect the quiz score, such as deleting questions or deleting quiz answers, and requires a grader to manually resolve

There is also a note in that icon lesson about the visibility icon at the top of the column with a link that takes you to the How do I hide grades that were previously posted in the Gradebook? lesson with more warnings and notes than actual text content.

[kmeeusen · Accepted solution]

Hi @DavidOglesby 

Not sure what you did, but suspect you  set it as a practice quiz; or for a New Quizzes quiz, you set the assignment to not contribute to the grade.. Unfortunately, we have no way to troubleshoot this on our end. To edit this feature these guides should help, depending on the quiz engine used:

• Classic Quizzes: What options can I set in a quiz?
• New Quizzes:

  How do I edit an assessment in New Quizzes? Also, for New Quizzes, you will need How do I edit the assignment details of a New Quizzes assessment?

Good luck,

Kelley

[James · Accepted solution]

@DavidOglesby 

Here is some information about what goes on behind the scenes. I'm speaking about classic quizzes here.

You didn't say how you removed the points for the two questions. If you went into each student's individual quiz and removed it, then there should be no problem. That takes a lot of time, so most people would opt for simply removing the points possible on the quiz itself. 

Editing the point values on a quiz after it has been taken is something that is strongly discouraged. The notes section at the top and regrade restrictions a little lower in the What options can I use to regrade a quiz in a course? lesson from the Canvas Instructor Guide explains some of the issues.

You didn't say what type of questions the two you removed the points from were, but you can only regrade multiple choice, true/false, and multiple answers type questions and then only if the items are not linked to a question bank. Adding or deleting responses within a question makes it impossible to regrade.

Going through the gradebook and adding 2 points to everyone's score technically adds 2 points to the fudge points for the individual quizzes.

For classic quizzes, changing the point values on questions will change the point values for the quiz as well. If you had a 100 point midterm and deleted 2 points worth of questions, it would now be a 98 point midterm.

Changing the point values to 0 on the quiz without also changing the point values in the individual submissions essentially turns existing scores for those questions into bonus points (on top of the 2 points you gave everyone). That is provided that Canvas can handle it at all because of the question type.

There is no option to make a graded classic quiz not count towards the final like there is with other types of assignments. You can make it a practice quiz as Kelley ( @kmeeusen ) mentioned or an ungraded survey, but those don't show up in the gradebook at all, so I doubt that is what has happened.

What might happen if you change the items on the quiz itself is that it might throw it into a situation where it needs graded. One thing to check is that you are properly interpreting the icons in the gradebook. The How do I use the icons and colors in the Gradebook? lesson provides additional information and the very first one is an "Assignment Icon" that looks like a piece of paper with a circle on it. That means that the assignment needs graded.

The fourth bullet point there says

A quiz was submitted in Classic Quizzes, but is not fully graded (contains questions that must be manually graded, or an auto-submitted quiz score has been deleted and needs to be reassigned); can also display if a quiz has been edited and includes major changes that affect the quiz score, such as deleting questions or deleting quiz answers, and requires a grader to manually resolve

There is also a note in that icon lesson about the visibility icon at the top of the column with a link that takes you to the How do I hide grades that were previously posted in the Gradebook? lesson with more warnings and notes than actual text content.

[DavidOglesby · Accepted solution]

Thanks! I was indeed able to get the grades to count by going through the Speed Grader one student at at time and asking for a regrade. It was a bit tedious, but straightforward. I will not edit the scores directly in the grade book any longer!

--David

[James]

@DavidOglesby 

Editing the grades directly in the gradebook isn't an issue with classic quizzes -- it just adjusts the fudge points for you. Editing the quiz itself is what causes problems.