letter grades without assigning points

[shurwitz]

I would like to assign letter grades to my grading scheme without having to create an arbitrary points system. So, for example, a writing assignment would get a letter grade (A-, C+, whatever) and then the four writing assignments I have over the course of the semester will total 25% of the final grade. I do not want to have to assign points detailing what each writing assignment is worth (should it be 3 points? 26 points? 142 points??), I just want to say "A-".

Why can this not be done in Canvas?

[shurwitz · Accepted solution]

I guess I would use a 4 point scale (A=4.0, B=3.0, etc)

[abunag]

How do you mathematically do this?  If someone gets the following on assignments of equal weight: A-, A, C, B+, how do you mathematically calculate what the final grade would be without converting it into some numbering system?

[shurwitz · Accepted solution]

I guess I would use a 4 point scale (A=4.0, B=3.0, etc)

[James · Accepted solution]

 @shurwitz ,

There are at least two ways I could take your question and I'm not sure exactly what you're asking. I'll address both, but give more keyboard time to the first question.

Why do we have to have points?

If you're asking why you have to set up a numbering scheme, then you may want to review some of the discussion a couple of other places in the Community. They may provide some insight.

• How do I use grading schemes in my course?

As your post said, you cannot do away with the numbers completely in Canvas. The points are necessary so that you can weight the grades appropriately. A C+ on a major paper should count more than a A- on a participation grade. Even in your response to  @abunag ​, you created an arbitrary point system and answered the question of why points are necessary (probably without realizing that's what you were doing).

To understand why you need an arbitrary point system, let's clear the air first, let's remove the word arbitrary from the picture.

All point systems are arbitrary.

However, most choose to conform to a scheme that fosters student comprehension of what their grade is. Students have a difficult enough time figuring out their grade (without something like Canvas to help) with numbers for grades. Asking a student to average A-, A, C, and B+ together would be frustrating and futile. If they are weighted differently, it's nearly impossible for them. Even when you ask someone to compute their GPA, they have to go to points to do it.

If you are using a weighted gradebook and you have an assignment group called Writing Assignments that is worth 25% of the grade and you want each of the four papers to be equally weighted, then you put in any point value you want, just make them all the same. You could make them 3, 26, or 142 points. It really is arbitrary, but it needs to be there, if for nothing other than letting Canvas know all the assignments should be weighted equally.

Some people put in values like 3, 26, or 142 so that students disassociate the letter grade with a percentage. Others use a ridiculously high point value like 1000 so that students will take it seriously. But in the end, in your example, each grade is 1/4 of 25% of the grade, no matter how many points you make it worth.

I will add that Canvas has no idea what an A, B, or C is unless you add a grading scheme. If you really want to screw with students, you could reverse it and make F >= 90, 80 <= D < 90, 70 <= C < 80, 60 <= B < 70, and A < 60. I've also heard that one of our faculty uses a grading scheme with letter grades like M, T, J, S, and V so that students stop obsessing over letter grades.

A better question than "why do I have to create an arbitrary point system?" would be "can I display the letter grade without the number?" That was part of the first discussion I linked to. But even then, for the sake of students being able to compute and understand their grade, the point system really is crucial.

Why do we have to enter points?

If your question wasn't about why numbering schemes are necessary but why you have to enter them at all instead of checking a box that says "weight all grades equally", then you might look at  " modifiedtitle="true" title="Provide faculty with a choice in how weighting is applied to assignmen...

Since Canvas remembers the previous point value when you create a new assignment (at least it does for me), there's not really much to making all the assignments be equally weighted. It's been so long since I added the first assignment that I don't remember if there was a default the first time or not. I spent most of the time responding to the other way because this doesn't really add much complexity to the assignment creation process and it's important to grade computation.

You could add a button that says "weight these equally", but that adds to the complexity of the interface. Part of the draw of Canvas is that the interface isn't cluttered with a lot of options.

[shurwitz]

Thanks, James--

I think there are two issues at hand: the first is that I have a course grading scheme, which makes an A = 93%-100% an A- = 90%-92% etc. (or I could use the GPA-type 4.0, 3.5, etc). So Canvas has an answer to what does an A or a B mean. Second issue: But for each assignment Canvas demands we set a number of points, which is the arbitrary part. No matter what I write in for points, the B that a student receives on the final paper is still worth 20% of the end of term grade. There is no reason for me to make up a number of points for the assignment to be worth when we can say the student got a B or 85% or 3.0 for 20% of the final grade. Another issue is that doing so makes the students upset for every partial point that they "loose".

[awilliams]

You need to assign points to differentiate the value of one assignment versus others. To quote  @James ​ in his response to you:

The points are necessary so that you can weight the grades appropriately. A C+ on a major paper should count more than a A- on a participation grade

If you had the ability to not assign points, and just give letter grades, then Canvas would have to assume that every assignment was of the same importance, or should have the same impact on a student's final grade, or carries the same "weight" in the course. This would not be a desirable situation.

If your course treats every single assignment as equally important (which I find hard to believe), you could assign the same amount of points to every assignment. Then, you could set up a grading scheme that matches what you want each letter/symbol combination to represent in percentages. Then in course details you can enable a grading scheme and select the one you created. When you create your assignments, you would set the "Display Grade As" to "Letter Grade." Once you've done this, when you are in the gradebook you can use your letter/symbol combinations to grade the assignment. Canvas will figure out what the percentage is and do the math appropriately.

Here's an example of this on a 4 point assignment.

If you would like further guidance on the steps I mentioned please let me know. I hope this helps answer 1) Why you need points and 2) How you can grade with letter/symbol combinations instead of points.

[shurwitz]

That does help, thanks. It's incorrect that every assignment is worth the same amount as I have checked "Weight final grade based on assignment groups" so that different assignments are, in fact, given relative importance by canvas for the students' final grades. I think that this should make the actual point value assigned to each paper or test unimportant. Your example is good though because I can probably use that 4 point system you suggest and then have canvas apply the correct weight for the final grade. Right?

Final question: Can I hide the point value from students so that they just see the letter grade and the relative weight for the assignment?

[James]

I fail to see the issue with your first issue. It sounds more like a statement than an issue.

For the second issue, you are correct, you do need to assign a point value, even if it is the only assignment in that category. But what you assign to it is completely up to you and since it's the only assignment in that category, the actual point value is mostly irrelevant. I say mostly because I think Canvas rounds grades to 2 decimal places (or maybe it just shows 2 decimals), so if you made it worth 0.01 points, then you would not get the results you wanted.

You may understand that the point value is irrelevant, but your students don't. This is evidenced by your statement about them being upset for every partial point that they "don't earn". There is a psychological aspect at play here that you can use to your benefit. You make that final paper worth 1000 points because it's really important. You can make it worth 1 point so that students don't stress out over it. You can make it worth 100 points so that it looks like a percent and matches your grading scheme (this one has comprehension benefits to the students). The one I like the best for you what you've described so far is to make it worth 20 points because it's worth 20% of the grade. That can be extended to other areas as well -- if your four assignments are worth 25% of the grade, then make them worth 6.25 points each. That is creating an arbitrary point system that is beneficial to the students because it gives them the relative weight in an easy to understand manner.

From a design perspective, though, you cannot display a form with logic like this: If you're using a weighted gradebook and this is the only assignment in the assignment category and you're displaying the grade as a letter grade, then don't ask how many points it's worth. Think about how confusing that would be and how much extra work it would create for the majority of the users. The first time anyone created the first assignment in an assignment group, they would not be asked for the point value. Then, when they create a second assignment in that group, they would have to go back to the first assignment and add the points at that time. My suggestion (in italics) would only go as far as people are willing to "play nice" and are "passing it on because they said they would."  But at some point, someone would (to borrow the words of my three year-old) ask "Seriously?" [sorry the inflection doesn't come through in text].

What that means, is that for the few people who have a weighted gradebook and have only one assignment in a group, that you have to put down something, anything (within reason), for the points inside Canvas. However, if you have a category that only has one thing in it, there is a good chance that you probably don't need to use a weighted gradebook in the first place.

For the third issue, there is good news for your students. When you give a letter grade, Canvas assigns the maximum number of points possible for that letter grade, so there is no partial points that they lose other than what you decide.

Here's an aside about setting up your gradebook. As I was writing about how you could make the final paper worth 20 points because it was worth 20% of the overall grade, some thoughts occurred to me. They may not be directly related to your issue of not wanting to enter a number, but they may benefit other people reading this discussion.

In my experience, students have the most trouble understanding the gradebook when their instructor doesn't understand the gradebook. Although people who "get it" think the gradebook is the simplest thing ever, they need to remember that there are people who, while experts in their area, just don't get the math behind the gradebook. You can sit there and explain it to them and draw it out on paper and they'll leave saying they have it and then next semester, it's messed up again. This is where faculty can benefit from an instructional designer, who can help make sure the gradebook is configured properly. If you don't have an instructional designer, see your Canvas Admin or a knowledgeable colleague and have them double check it.  Generally speaking, the more complicated you make it, the more likely you are to screw it up. A messed up gradebook that doesn't match what's in the syllabus, is an invitation for a grade appeal with a good chance of losing.

I cannot count the number of times our Canvas Admin has told me of an instructor who said they can't do a points-based gradebook because the final paper has to be worth 20% of the grade and the four writings have to be worth 25% of the grade, and so on. What they are describing can easily be done with a point-based system. If you take what I described earlier with making the percent match the score on the assignment, then it's super easy and easily understood by the students.

Then there are other instructors who insist "I can't do a weighted gradebook because I have 1000 points, my exams are worth 600 points, homework is worth 200 points, and the final exam is worth 200 points." What they just described was a weighted gradebook -- exams 60%, homework 20%, and final exam 20%. The problem is that they don't understand the math well enough to know that they just described a weighted gradebook.

There are places for both kinds of gradebooks, which is why Canvas offers both. One place a weighted gradebook is beneficial is when you don't know ahead of time how many assignments you will have or how many points each one will be worth. For example, I have participation grades in my statistics class, which may be scheduled or added on the spur of the moment. But I don't want the participation to be more than 5% of the grade no matter how many points go into them. Another place it is beneficial is when you want some assignments to show up in the gradebook but not count towards their final grade -- you can create an assignment group worth 0%.  On the flip side, a weighted gradebook is overkill for some classes. In my Finite Math and Differential Equations, I have every assignment mapped out at the beginning of the semester and have manually adjusted the point values on them so that are weighted the way I want them to be weighted and I use a plain non-weighted gradebook.

The two-system gradebook doesn't cover every possible way to do gradebooks. There was an interesting discussion in   with one professor sharing how Canvas could not manage his grading system.

However you decide to setup your gradebook, communication is key and if you do a good job of explaining things to students, they get it (for the most part) or you can explain it to them if they don't. Be pro-active and explain things before it becomes an issue and it will help mitigate the problems students have later on. What I would do in your situation is make sure that I tell the students "Canvas requires a point value. It doesn't really matter what the number says, it's the letter grade that's important, but I have to put in a score to get Canvas to recognize the letter grade."

Okay, I wouldn't say that exactly as I have to be intellectually honest with people and the number does matter because an A- of 92% is different than an A- of 90%. I would say something more along the lines of "Grades get in the way of learning, but I have to put something down for you."

I had a thought that "Letter grades are really Likert scales" and as such we should not be assigning point values to them at all. I've long argued that you should not report an average for ordinal data, but that's what people who give a letter grade and then want to convert that into a class grade are doing. Grades work best when you go the other direction - a convenient way of converting numbers into letters so that people can understand them. People who try to assign letter grades without numbers are trying to reverse the table and that is fraught with difficulty. The primary one being that the difference between letter grades is not uniform and that an F includes everything from 0% to 59%, while the others are 10% each. What people who assign letter grades instead of numbers are are trying to do is take a letter that represents a range of values and find the average of those. We talk about grouped data and frequency tables with classes in statistics. We found averages of those, but the best we could do would be to use the middle of the interval since we had no idea whether most of the values were at the top, the middle, the bottom, or spread evenly throughout.  Canvas assigns the top of the interval, giving the benefit of the doubt to the student. That was the argument made in .

That throwing away precision by assigning only a letter grade is an issue of significant figures. The idea of significant figures revolves around the notion that you cannot report accuracy or precision in a final answer when it wasn't there in the initial measurement. That loss of significant figures by assigning only a letter grade cannot be recovered later on. Now, that may be acceptable, maybe you don't have the resolution to distinguish between an 95% A and a 94% A, so you just call it an A. When I grade papers, I can do that, even subjectively, because I say "This is a B paper, but it's better than this other group's B paper." But it isn't really accurate to blame points for why students are complaining about partial credit. You're doing that when you assign a B- instead of a B.

Again, much of the problems can be eliminated if you understand what you're trying to accomplish, make sure the gradebook accurately reflects that, and you communicate any potential issues to your students.

[shurwitz]

James,

You have hit on the exact issue "'Letter grades are really Likert scales' and as such we should not be assigning point values to them at all." I think that is the real problem that I am facing, thank you for defining it for me.

I am an experienced Canvas user and have taught using a straightforward system that added up to 100-points for three semesters. The problem this semester is the subject matter and the ways I am using to assess progress do not conform well to precise measurement. Long essays and oral presentations, for example, are better graded on a Likert-type scale, whereas exams or labs have more definitive correct (utterly non subjective) answers and can be given points without difficulty. I "get" the grading systems that you outline above; my struggle is in forcing precision on a subject topic that works better measured using a scale/range.

I appreciate your point about trying to assign a final grade being tricky using such a scale but the scaled grading system works better for my current class than for others I've taught. I don't want or need the level of resolution to distinguish between an 96% A and a 94% A, and I just want to call it an A.

Thanks for your detailed thoughts.

[Stef_retired]

 @shurwitz ​, the grading scheme you've found in Canvas is a standard template and may not necessarily reflect the recommended grading scheme at your school. For more information on creating, editing, and employing grading schemes in Canvas, please refer to this lesson from the Canvas Guides: How do I create a grading scheme for my course?  You can check with your school's Canvas admin to see if they have created an account-level grading scheme for its instructors.

[JeffreyBachant]

I do all my calculations leading to assigning letter grades on my own spreadsheet.  I just want to define a column "letter grade" and populate it for each student when I upload my spreadsheet in .csv.  But from what I gather you can't just do that.  Canvas demands that you use their grade book system.  That really sucks. Maybe I'm wrong and just can't figure out how to do it.  At least you could do it in Blackboard.