How do I assign points for posts and replies in a Discussion?

[msf43]

I have 13 possible discussion topics over the course of the semester. Each student must participate in 10 of the 13. To "participate," the student must answer a discussion question (worth 10 points) and respond to at least two peers (each response is worth 5 points). That much is all set up beautifully and it works without a flaw. HOWEVER, I don't know how to account for this structure in the grade book. How do I let the students know how they're doing on their discussions (short of periodic check-ins, which are what I've been doing)? Thanks!

[Robbie_Grant]

 @msf43 ,

Welcome to the Canvas Community!!!

I have found a resource that might help you:

https://community.canvaslms.com/message/58980-discussion-points-assigned-for-completion-of-minimum-p... 

Robbie

[gottliee]

Was this question ever answered satisfactorily? I have the same situation -- I am requiring students to respond to at least one discussion question per week -- and am not sure how to make this visible in their gradebook, where I would like it to be their Participation grade. Thanks! 

Also, it seems that if I haven't assigned a specific point value for Discussions, then even if I click "to do" it doesn't show up in students' to-do lists. Is there a workaround here? Thanks! 

[msf43]

Yes, I've got it working just fine now. I add the discussions the same way I would add any assignment ("discussion" is an option under the "assignments" function), and it appears in the grade book the way any other assignment does. It's much easier than I was making it out to be!

Good luck!

Michele

Michele S. Foss-Snowden, Ph.D.

Professor, Communication Studies

Pronouns: she/her/hers

California State University, Sacramento

Mendocino Hall 5015

6000 J Street

Sacramento, CA 95819-6070

T (916) 278-6134

F (916) 278-7216

msf43@csus.edu<mailto:msf43@saclink.csus.edu>

[gottliee]

Michelle, thanks for responding to my question! But if you don't mind, I have a further question -- in order to get Discussion responses recorded in my Gradebook, do I also need to set each individual discussion to be worth a certain amount of points? And if so, do you know if that can be done retroactively (i.e. could I go back and make every discussion that's already happened worth a point?) or can it only be done while each discussion is being set up? I'm going to experiment with this myself, but if you happen to know how it works I'd be grateful! 

Many thanks,

Evan Gottlieb

Professor of English

Oregon State University

[gottliee]

Oh, I think I see now that we're trying to do two different things. You are actually grading discussions, whereas I just want to give students 1 point automatically each time they participate substantively on a discussion board. And there just doesn't seem to be any way to have Canvas record the number of times they post automatically -- it just has to be done manually by yours truly and then added up to make a final score, I think. Oh well.

[msf43]

I see. Sorry I couldn't be more help!

Michele

Michele S. Foss-Snowden, Ph.D.

Professor, Communication Studies

Pronouns: she/her/hers

California State University, Sacramento

Mendocino Hall 5015

6000 J Street

Sacramento, CA 95819-6070

T (916) 278-6134

F (916) 278-7216

msf43@csus.edu<mailto:msf43@saclink.csus.edu>

[msf43]

Actually, I think there is a way to set an automatic score as a "rule" in the discussion. I created each discussion as a separate assignment, and then put all those discussions/assignments into a group. I then used the "rule" function to get Canvas to drop the three lowest scores for that given group of assignments. I'm thinking there has to be a way to create a "if x, then y" kind of rule there. My suggestion is to play around with the "rule" function!

Good luck,

Michele

Michele S. Foss-Snowden, Ph.D.

Professor, Communication Studies

Pronouns: she/her/hers

California State University, Sacramento

Mendocino Hall 5015

6000 J Street

Sacramento, CA 95819-6070

T (916) 278-6134

F (916) 278-7216

msf43@csus.edu<mailto:msf43@saclink.csus.edu>