Allow 'Treat ungraded as 0' in New Gradebook

[jeremy_stevens]

It would be very useful to be able to use the 'Treat ungraded as 0' feature of the current Gradebook in the New Gradebook, especially once the New Gradebook becomes the default in January 2020. I understand that not having this option seems to be by design, however there are use cases relevant to our tertiary institution that I would like to outline to see if they gather support among the Canvas Community. Please feel free to add your own use cases in the comments if this is relevant to you as well.

Our teaching staff use the Total column in the Gradebook to view how well a student is doing overall in their unit attempt. Not having the 'Treat ungraded as 0' feature in the future will mean that:

1. At the start of a teaching period – if say, 2/5 assignments have been completed by students and graded – the Total column will display a grade that is the scaled-up version of where they are sitting, working on the assumption that the other assignments are to be ignored. It would be possible for someone to achieve 100% in both completed assessments, and the Total column would then display a score of 100%. This is not an accurate reflection of where the student is at in terms of their overall completion of the unit and means the instructor has to do manual work, or ensure they set up assignment groups in particular ways, to try and figure out an accurate representation of student progress.

2. At the end of a teaching period – once all assignments have been completed by students and graded – the Total column will display a scaled-up grade for any students who have not completed any assignments or are missing grades. For these students, in reality, their non-submission is equivalent to a score of 0 – however in the New Gradebook, the Total column will not reflect this. This makes it difficult for instructors to review their cohort's progress and standing once the teaching period is complete, before those grades are to be formally sent to the SIS for release.

The only suggestion I've seen so far to mitigate against these issues is to use a Missing Submission policy.

How do I apply a Missing Submission policy in the New Gradebook?‌

This is not an adequate solution in our case.

In the case of example 1 above: at early stages of semester, students won't actually have 'missing' submissions – those submissions will be due in the future. A Missing Submissions policy would not apply.

In the case of example 2 above: Missing Submission policies do not apply to No Submission or On Paper assignments, LTI assignments, or assignments that do not have due dates set. We also cannot force Missing Submission policies at the account level, or via API when each individual Canvas course is created, to ensure consistency across our institution for such a crucial display issue. This would mean that even if it were an acceptable solution in other regards (and as per example 1, it isn't quite there in this case), we would be asking all of our institution's instructors to apply the same Missing Submission policy, and ensure that the exceptions to the policy as above also had 0 grades implemented where students had not submitted work. Not only is there scope for error here across large institutions such as ours, but this seems a disproportionate amount of effort to ask instructors to go to simply so that they can see an accurate reflection of their student's total grades for the overall unit.

This is a crucial issue for us, as we need instructors to be able to see how their students are doing throughout, and at the end of semester – this information informs moderation, future assessment design, learning outcomes, and reporting to faculty.

Others have suggested that the Missing Submission policy feature be amended (https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/13954-apply-missing-submission-policy-to-all-assignment-types?...‌), and while I agree that it could use further flexibility, in our above case it would not quite solve our problems. It would be a simpler solution to allow the new Gradebook to set 'Treat ungraded as 0' to on or off instead. I understand that the Gradebook CSV Export is still calculating the Unposted Final Grade anyway – so the 'Treat ungraded as 0' score is still there in the system, just not being displayed at the UI level.

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

For more information, please read through the Canvas Release Notes (2021-02-20) - Canvas Community 

[jeremy_stevens]

Thanks for mentioning this, Rosie! I had no idea it worked that way.

[mostra]

Treating "ungraded as a 0" is essential because a student needs a realistic and accurate assessment of their grade in the class. They need to know per assignment their progress.   Without the O, it is misleading and allows students to make inaccurate assumptions on their progress.  IE:  Students will think they have an A in the class, when in reality it is a F because the assignments not done do not appear as a 0.  

From a faculty point of view, it is the same issue.  It is misleading.  It is time consuming to go into each assignment, after it is closed to input a 0.  Class of 80 + students, this is time consuming  on top of the assignment grading, messaging, etc. It is not user friendly. 

Students deserve to know their progress per assignment which includes the 'total points in the class' being always present.  This is imperative for all of us. Again, as a teacher, I should not have to figure out what the total points in the class.  As teachers, we do make changes in the assignments when needed - adding or modifying or even deletion. Therefore, the total points must also be available - user friendly. 

Need to include:

1. Treat assignments not submitted (not done) with a 0 immediately after the until date. 

2. Show the total as points on the student and faculty grade page.  This way all of us are in sync with each other.

I truly hope this gradebook issue gets resolved so it is more user friendly for students and faculty.  It must be created from that point of view vs. technical convenience. 

[abigail_smith_2]

100% agree.

However, in the old gradebook, we have discovered that "Treat Ungraded as Zero" only affects the instructor's gradebook.  The students still see a running total.  This has caused some major problems at the end of the semester, as students have a different "total" on their page than what the instructors see.

If they add TUA0 to New Gradebook, they should definitely make the setting apply to both students and instructors.

[mostra]

Right on ......I went into Canvas and voted to change the gradebook. What was Canvas thinking when they did this erroneous change?

Rosemary

[kkoblik]

I want to make a pitch for having the "treat ungraded as 0" for each assignment--like on the menu with "curve," "mute assignment," "speed grader" functions. I typically don't want to set the entire gradebook to 0/F at the beginning of the semester, but I'd like to be able to take an individual assignment once I've graded the submissions and treat the rest as 0 so students don't have a falsely rosy picture of their grade progress and I don't have to worry about going in and adding 0 to all students who have not submitted. If there was one simple button I could click for each assignment, that would be amazing. 

[Stef_retired]

 @kkoblik ‌, for your use case, using the Gradebook tools at the top of the assignment column to assign a default grade of 0 to students who have not submitted the assignment after you've finished grading the submissions accomplishes what you're after. These are the instructions for the New Gradebook, and the process for the old Gradebook is essentially the same: How do I set a default grade for an assignment in the New Gradebook? Just remember not to enable the "Overwrite already-entered grades" checkbox.

[kkoblik]

Good to know--that does indeed solve my use case! I'm glad I commented!

[Stef_retired]

I'm glad to hear it,  @kkoblik !

[matthew_metcalf]

Not having this functionality could be a train wreck for some of my students! They look at their percentage in the "new gradebook" and think they have a 90%- which is true, but ONLY for the assignments they have submitted. I have a liberal late policy, so when they blow off assignments (think their grade is high) and those missing assignments turn to zeros at the end of the semester, their scores will go from 90% to 65% (or lower). Yikes! At least when we have the option to show Ungraded as 0's, it makes their status painfully clear.

[rosenbma]

I agree with Matt Metcalf and the foreseeable issues my students might have. The problem with other online formats was/is they did/do not do anything painfully obvious - Metcalf made it clear - this is a painfully obvious tool for students to keep track of their work and grade. 

Additionally, if the "treat ungraded as 0" is not in the grade book it adds hours to my workload. I teach no less than 100 students!  What is the problem of having "treat ungraded as 0" in the grade book as an option? Why can't we have it for those who need it? 

For my sake and my students - please, please, please, give us this option!