Override final grade

[johnpj]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

It would be convenient if instructors could override the calculated final grade. Many faculty use the gradebook export to send grades to the student information system and there are sometimes factors in determining a final grade that are based on the discretion of the instructor.

This idea has been added to our product plan for Q1 2019 and will influence development within Canvas. To find more information about this idea’s related priority, please follow Priority: Gradebook Enhancements‌

:smileyinfo: Adding this idea to our product plan means we will be working on it, but it does not guarantee that it will be developed exactly as defined by the idea, or that it will be added to the production environment.

Read more about the feature idea process:

• Adaptation: Feature Idea Process Changes
• How does the feature idea process work in the Canvas Community?
• What is the feature development process for Canvas?

Comments from Instructure

For more information, please read through the Canvas Release Notes (2019-02-16) .

[eshay]

Since the override of a final grade is still not available, I need suggestions as to how to lower a final grade for a few people.  As I mentioned previously, my students must pass both the cognitive exam part of the course, as well as the practical portion of the course, in order to pass the course.  I have students who have an overall passing final grade but have failed the course, due to a failure in one of the individual components.  I am required to have the failing score of 69% in the final grade column on Canvas (school policy) for the students to see, but... I am unable to do this without completely changing valid exam scores.  Any suggestions?

Thank you, in advance!  EBS

[garth]

 @eshay ​ I have just had to deal with this very problem for a program that had multiple criteria for passing a course (i.e. more than just a passing grade), and came up with a solution that was accepted.

Here are the basic steps (assuming those who read this understand how to use weighted assignment groups).

In this scenario, I am creating an assignment group that will easily allow you to decrease the final grade by 10% increments.

1. If you don't have any weigthed assignment groups, create one worth 100% and place all assignments in it

2. Create a new assignment group, I call mine "Course Adjustment" worth 40% of the final grade.  Your Weighted Assignment Groups should now add up to 140%

3. Create a new assignment in the "Course Adjustment" group worth 4 points, I called mine "Final Course Adjustment".  Make sure you include a full description of the intent of the assignment, I made sure specific details of penalties were included from the course syllabus so there was no confusion to students.

4. Now you are ready to adjust the final grade, use the gradebook to enter scores:

- Score of (-1) decreases the final grade by 10%

- Score of (-2) decreases the final grade by 20%

- Score of (-3) decreases the final grade by 30%

- Score of (-4) decreases the final grade by 40%

- If you do not enter a score, the final grade will not be adjusted

It's a simple solution, flexible and easy to manipulate, and was easy for the faculty to understand (which was important).

I wrote up a document with screen shots, but will need to strip out institution specific infomation before I can share.

My son gets married tomorrow 

After that, I'll get something posted with adjusted screen shots.

I hope this helps.

[johnpj]

That sounds painful

[eshay]

Thank you very much.  I'll have to play with it and see how it works for us.  Yes, I'd love to see your document with the screen shots.

Enjoy your son's wedding!!!

Merry Christmas, Happy Channuka and Happy Holidays to all!

Eva

[Stef_retired]

This is pretty amazing,  @garth ​, and congratulations on your son's marriage; I hope you'll post some photos in I Heart Pandas​!

I've long wanted such a grading system--a pass-fail override for something specific--and I am wondering how to weight all the other assignments, since I use a weighted grading system. Would I have to put all of my assignments in a single assignment group worth 100%, and use the points for each assignment so that they contribute proportionately to the grade?

It's not necessary to answer right here; I'm looking forward to seeing the document you create, and maybe we can hash out use cases in the comments section there.

Thanks for brilliantly thinking outside the box!

[garth]

stefaniesanders​ and  @eshay  I have posted my solution here:

• Override / Adjust the Final Grade

I hope it makes sense, please give me feedback, I'll clarify where needed.

Hopefully it will be helpful : )

[dstolz]

For God's sake, please add this feature already!

[cohenf]

Thanks,  @garth ‌

[pian_townes]

This would be nice.  I currently can go in and change a grade but when I re-export grades to my grading book, the initial grade returns causing me to repeat the same steps.  

[schenk]

To be honest, I was shocked to see that this is not a feature. At our institution we are using a set grading scheme for all courses. This is derived from the german shool / university grading scheme. As such we have to adhere to this scheme. 

So to give some more perspective, course grades go from 1.0 to 1.3 to 1.7 to 4.0 and then to 5.0 which is fail for individual assignements. Then we have another grading scheme for final grades that incorporates all steps between 1.0 (1.1, 1.2,1.3...) to 4.0 and then jumps to 5.0 again. The final grade is calculated by averaging the individual assignments and is rounded down. 

So you see that the canvas default way of automatically calculating a percentage based grade we will never be able to accomodate this. 

So we absolutely need at least the funtionality to adjust the final grade. Even better would be some minor spreadsheet like functionality. Like calculating the average of all grades and then decide which rounding to apply. On the actual number and not the percentage value. 

And since I see that a lot of you are perfectly fine with the way it currently works. Why not leave the functionality as is in general and introduce an "expert mode" that you need to enable that gives you the flexibility (override grades, custom colums, grade scheme per column etc) that a lot of people need.