[Assignments] weighting in assignment groups

[jlamb1]

It seems this has been a reoccurring request for some time now, but is not generating the votes needed to get attention. Perhaps it is time to try again!

Canvas would benefit greatly from being able to allocate a weighting to individual assignments within an assignment group. At present, rather than an overarching "Geography" assignment group for HASS, I have to put each individual assignment in their own group to distribute task weighting for the course. HASS also covers economics, politics and history - that makes for A LOT of assignment groups to break up the weighting for tasks.

In my view, it would be much simpler to have the Assignment Group that aligns with the unit or module being taught and has a weighting for the overall course, and an individual assignment weighting function within the group without having to fiddle around with the points. I think most teachers would agree that there is enough of a workload without adjusting and readjusting points to weight assignments according to their worth. I for one wold love to be able to do this with a quick click of a button instead of laboriously pouring over numbers.

Please vote up on this - it is clear that many people are asking for this function in many different ways.

Gradebook: weigh assignment within assignment group

"Lock Grade" option in Gradebook

Weighting Assignments

[gharbor]

Totally agree... if we are to use Canvas for authentic continuous reporting, students & parents want to see a running total of their grades. This functionality gives instructors the basic tools to do this without having multiple Assignment Groups for each task.

#gradebookenhancements_new 

Speaking with Deactivated user‌ today https://community.canvaslms.com/community/instcon?sr=search&searchId=335a8194-fa97-469b-82f4-28f27b8...‌ is worried about over complicating the Gradebook, I think that this could be added simply and intuitively without loss of usability.

[mgill]

"Speaking with Julian Ridden today InstructureCon is worried about over complicating the Gradebook"

With respect, every other LMS i have used both as a student and as an instructor has the ability to do this. if CANVAS feels that adding weights in assignment categories will "over-complicate the gradebook" i guess we will need to look for a new LMS. again, this is basic standard functionality with every other LMS except Canvas, it seems.

We have been pretty happy with Canvas, but their focus seems to be on mobile app updates and aesthetics, not usable functionality. it is very frustrating.

[gharbor]

Micah,

Whilst I agree with you in relation to this request I do see that we wouldn't want the Canvas gradebook to end up like the Moodle Gradebook which was hyper functional but basically unusable by a regular teacher. There does come a point where a spreadsheet really is a better solution for very complex grade calculations and then final marks are entered into Canvas with feedback..

I do however agree that having weighting for individual tasks is a "bare minimum" feature of a gradebook.

Ultimately this will only get over the line if there is enough community support so keep sending this link to people at your institutions and ask them to vote it up.. that way it can't be ignored.

[john_svoboda]

Pretty crazy this was not baked in.  New to Canvas and sure feels like a platform for grade to high school, not college grad school.  Lots of automated convenience for the teacher with a large number of students, not so much flexibility for a mix of heterogenous assignments.  The auto-generated calendar is a terrible choice.  Nice graphics tho.

[scottdennis]

Hey John,

Welcome to Canvas and to the Canvas Community.  I hope that as a whole your experience with the toolset and here in the community is a positive one.  Not to get too far off topic but, out of curiosity, what do you see as the downside to having an automatically updated calendar?  Are you not wanting some assignments to populate?

[john_svoboda]

I teach multiple versions of the same course.  Undergraduate and graduate.   they have different components And are taught alternating semesters.  And it is simply Nonsensical That unpublished component should still appear in the calendar.  I also experiment And don't necessarily want my students be seeing Components until actually decided to employ them.  Sorry for the rough Wording  Right hand is broken so this is beingSpeech dictated.

[cholling]

 @john_svoboda ‌ -- don't have anything to add to your comment, but wanted to say sorry about your hand. That must be really rough.

[scottdennis]

Hi John,

Are you certain that your students are seeing unpublished assignments in their calendar views?  They shouldn't be.  Sorry to hear about your hand...

[thompsli]

Are the individual assignments unpublished, or are they just in an unpublished module/removed from modules entirely? I've had the issue in the past where I removed something from a module when copying a course and tweaking it but didn't remember to "unpublish" it first, and then students still got at it because it showed up on their Calendar (and grades page - I hide the "Assignments" and "Quizzes" pages from students) even though I wasn't using it that term and had removed it from the Modules page (where I do all of my course planning/monitoring/organizing).

It's really annoying when that happens, especially since it seems that Canvas won't let you unpublish something once students have taken it so I ended up having to delete it entirely rather than save it within the course unpublished in case I wanted it again next time (exporting it to Commons lets you save the quiz for possible future use, but that's an annoying work-around).

[john_svoboda]

Yup,

They keep asking me about taking unpublished quizzes in their calendar, that I use with undergrads only.  I can type 50%  now!