[ARCHIVED] Grades view as total points NOT percent

[mgreenstein1]

In my classes, grades are determined by a student's total points. For instance, an A is 1000 points. The percentage of possible points does not matter. You can have 1000 out of 1000 or 1000 out of 4000. It's the 1000 that matters. This means that the percentage score is meaningless.

CANVAS automatically computes the percentage. I try to tell my students to ignore the percentage, but  it's really hard for them to do when the CANVAS app ONLY shows them the percentage and many students almost exclusively use the app to access CANVAS.

I can hide the total, but the total is really important (since it's their grade). Also, forcing them to compute it themselves would be just as confusing as the percentage being present. 

Is it possible to add a "do not show percentage" option to the CANVAS grades? 

Is it possible to have the app show grades in some way other than only as a percentage?

[lkolczun]

I have the same questions, i.e., you can have a selection of points versus percentages. Many of the students see that they have a high percentage and constitute that as having a good grade. The percentage reflects only what they have completed, it does not tell them that they have only done "some" of the assignments. You can have a student complete one assignment and have a 100% on that one assignment and yet not do anything further in his/her gradebook. They think that they have an "A" in the course when in fact that have only one grade in the course and have only earned so many points.

[greydon]

Hello @mgreenstein1

You should be able to change the displayed total grades from percentage to points by following this guide:

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-use-the-Total-column-in-the-Gradebook/t...

[chuber]

This does not work. This shows total points in the gradebook from the teacher view, but when a student looks at their own grade they will still see percentages for each assignment group as well as their percentage in total. And as OP stated, hiding totals from the course settings is also not viable because it hides all of those percentages, but ALSO hides the total points from the students. If that option could just be broken into two parts, my life would be a lot easier.

I also made a post about this over 3 years ago which has got a ton of feedback, but Canvas has still not changed anything. I still have to deal with students every term who assume that percentages are how their grade is determined despite all my statements otherwise.

[temacedo106]

The other issue for my students is that they have "free passes" to miss a number of assignments over the semester - depending on their individual situations/preferences. The percentages can't account for that. It is so confusing.

[MildredRoqueta]

Thank you for clarifying that this option is only visible to the instructor. I did not know that. I still find it useful as an instructor who uses points-based grades (no weighting), because I also provide students with the option to earn more points for extra credit assignments. It provides a simple way for me to add up all points to make sure the total is reflecting the extra credit points. However, I agree that it would be very useful if students could also see their total grade in points so they can also add it all up if they wish to (not that they like to do math🤔). Extra credits are already an extremely challenging thing to manage in Canvas whether you use weights or not.

[JulieLane1]

The solution showed does not work in some cases. I do not weight grades, but I drop the two lowest scores in one category. This is the only thing I can think is preventing me from showing students total points instead of percentages. It leads to confusion on the part of students, who then contact me very unhappy about their grades.

[TrishaMeyer1]

This Canvas Release may be of interest to those on this thread:

Canvas Release Notes (2023-09-16)

@mgreenstein1 

@lkolczun 

@chuber 

@temacedo106 

@MildredRoqueta 

@JulieLane1 

[TrishaMeyer1]

@JulieLane1