Absent in Canvas grade book

[BStutzman]

Does anyone have a good trick for marking a student absent in the gradebook.  For example, I give an assignment and if a student is absent, I want something in the column that shows that the score is missing because the student was absent.  It would be nice if I could change status labels in my gradebook so that I could add the ones that work for me.

[Ron_Bowman]

@BStutzman -

I agree about being able to modify the status label names.  However, I just looked (I really don't use those labels) and was surprised that they did not have one for absent - yet they do for missing.  Absent is of course different from missing. 

I would think that Canvas could add the absent label with very little effort on their part.  Maybe someone from instructure will see this and agree.

[HeatherAhern · Accepted solution]

Hi @BStutzman !

As you noticed, Canvas does not currently have a feature that would provide this kind of mark for you in the Grade book. When I was a teacher, one thing I did was add a comment like "Late/missing due to absence" so that if I wondered why it was missing, I could click on the arrow where you would normally add the flag and see the comment. Now, be aware that students can see this comment, I also used it as documentation. I am not sure if this idea would work for you, but I wanted to share. We are always looking to improve for our users so please feel free to contribute your feedback to our Ideas page.