Assignment side bar intended to show unassigned assignment groups?

[CameronWall]

Hi,

I have assignment groups, which total to 60%, assigned to all students. I then have two more assignment groups, each worth 40%, with students being assigned only one of these two assignment groups. This means that each student has assignments assigned to to them totaling 100%. 

When they go to the site home page, they however see on the sidebar that the 'Assignments are weighted by group:' totals to 140%. As well as this, they see the assignment group for an assignment which they are not assigned to. This may lead to confusion for students.

Just wondering if this is an intended feature., or if I am using assignment groups incorrectly.

Thanks.

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Good morning, @CameronWall ...

I can see why this might be confusing for your students.  Although it is possible to assign specific assignments to only certain students in your course, I don't believe you can do the same with assignment groups.  For example, in your first assignment group worth 40%, I cannot find anything that would allow you to assign specific students to that assignment group.  Assigning students is something you do at more of the assignment level ... not at the assignment group level.  I tried a similar setup where I had three assignment groups (75%, 25%, and 25%).  I added one assignment to the third 25% assignment group, and I assigned a dummy student account to that assignment.  Then, I logged in as a different dummy student account.  In that student's gradebook, on the right side of the screen I could still see all three assignment groups totaling 125%.

I'm not sure if this will be of help to you or not...but thought I'd chime in to confirm that I'm also seeing this.

[BrianLester]

@Chris_Hofer is correct I believe.

Are you currently 'manually' assigning individual assignments to the two different groups of students?

One possible approach might be to create sections: 

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-add-a-section-to-a-course-as-an-instruc...

You could then choose which section gets which assignment easily...

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-assign-an-assignment-to-a-course-sectio...

You could put all the 40% assignments in one assignment group but assign each one to just the relevant student group (section)

Since your different types,  sectionA / SectionB of 40% percent assignments would now be in a single assignment group you'd need to think about how you name that amalgamated assignment group - You could use a generic title such as 'group/section specific assignments'

[BrianLester]

@Chris_Hofer is correct I believe. See this solution to a related question from @kona "only assignments can be specified by section" 

Are you currently 'manually' assigning individual assignments to the two different groups of students?

One possible approach might be to create sections (if you haven't already done so): 

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-add-a-section-to-a-course-as-an-instruc...

You could then choose which section gets which assignment easily...

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-assign-an-assignment-to-a-course-sectio...

You could put all the 40% assignments in one assignment group but assign each one to just the relevant student group (section)

Since your different types,  sectionA / SectionB of 40% percent assignments would now be in a single assignment group you'd need to think about how you name that amalgamated assignment group - You could use a generic title such as 'group/section specific assignments'

[CameronWall]

Thank you @Chris_Hofer and @BrianLester for your responses. I think your solution would work well Brian.

I assumed that the assignment group 'total' for a student would not include any assignment groups that have a 0% weighting for that student (because none of the assignments within that group are assigned to that student). Perhaps Instructure can rethink how this works, unless there is an unintended consequence I have overlooked? 

[BrianLester]

Hi,

I set this up in a test class with 3 weighted assignment groups a common 60% group and a 40% A group and a 40% B group

I created 3 trial assignments (all 'no submission') one in the 60% common group and one in each of the 40% groups.

I graded these quickly using 'set default grade'. (Everyone got 100% on the "60%" But the section-specific 40% all one section 75% (=30 points toward total), the other section all scored 50% (20 points) toward the total. Totals display correctly as 90% for all of the first section and 80% for all of the second section. So your approach will grade correctly. (I'm not addressing the question of grading periods - care is needed when combining the use of weighted assignment groups with grading periods- not including an assignment from one of your groups in a given grading period may cause surprising totals).

So method seems to work in terms of grades, but there's no way to stop students seeing 140% etc; even though it appears that Canvas will show 'correct' grades.