Canvas Grading Schemes

[CristinaValero]

I am reaching out to inquire about an inconsistency we’ve observed in how grading schemes are displayed on Canvas. In several courses, the grading scheme appears labeled as “Canvas Default grading scheme”, which doesn’t reflect the customized grading scale we use at IE University.

Specifically, we’ve noticed that:

• In some courses, final grades appear as alpha classifications (e.g., Honors, Excellence, Pass), which aligns with our institutional standards.

• In others, the grades are shown using a different format (e.g., A, B, C), creating confusion for students who are trying to understand how their performance is being evaluated.

Could you please clarify:

1. Why this discrepancy occurs across courses?

2. Whether the “Canvas Default grading scheme” is being applied automatically in some cases?

3. How we can ensure consistent application of the IE-specific grading scheme across all Canvas courses?

We would greatly appreciate any guidance on how to correct this display and avoid confusion for students and faculty alike.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Best regards,

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hi there, @CristinaValero ...

I am not sure if this will fully answer your question, but I thought I'd chime in.  At our College, we have a "template" course (How do I enable a course as a course template?) where we have pre-defined our main grading scheme at the Canvas account level.  Then, in our template course, we have set our College grading scheme in the course "Settings".  Before a semester starts, when brand new course shells are created for the up-coming semester, that template course is copied out to all courses for the semester.  The course includes some basic pages to help our instructors get started building content, but it also includes that setting for the College's grading scheme...so that it is the "default" for all courses.

I'm not sure if anything can be done from a programming aspect to update a grading scheme for courses that already exist.  If that's possible, that is beyond my scope of knowledge.

Anyway, I hope this will be helpful in some way...for what it's worth.  Hopefully someone else might be able to chime in if there are other back-end ways to change this for existing courses.  Good luck!