Changing Assignment Point Totals

[nelson25]

What happens if I change the point totals of a completed assignment?  Does this affect scores already put in? Will it cut off scores over the new total value?

I would like to lower the "Total" for an assignment from 30 to 25, but many students have gotten totals higher than 25 already, and they deserve those points.  Would changing the "total" wipe out their points?

[If this seems like a weird situation, let me explain: I have an assignment worth 100 points, and I've divided it into parts. So essentially students see three assignments, worth 50, 25, and 30. What's that you say?? That doesn't equal 100? Now you see my problem: I have bonus points worked in, but I still want the denominator of the calculation to be 100, not 105.]

So if I change the 30 point category to 25, that fixes it, so long as Canvas accepts scores over 25. (and so long as it doesn't resize the grades).

I don't know how else to accomplish this. This assignment (all 3 parts for 100 points) is one of 10 similar assignments that will make up 20% of the total grade. As it is now, students are getting a percentage score based on dividing by 105, which is wrong. But I don't know how to change that.

Steven

[scottdennis · Accepted solution]

Hi Steven,

If you have an assignment worth, say, 30 points and a student has earned 30 points and then you change the assignment to be worth 25 points, the student will still have 30 points (out of 25) in the gradebook.

[Laura_Orsetti]

Hello,

What happens if you go the other way?  I happen to have an assignment that is worth 25 in a course, but the instructor wants it changed to 30.  How will that affect the students who already completed it and got the 25?

[scottdennis]

Hi Laura,

The last time I tested it, which was a few months ago, Canvas would take the student's percentage score on the original submission grade and apply it to the new total, so they would go from 100% of 25 to getting 100% of 30 points.

[kona]

 @Laura_Orsetti , the students score will drop and, for example, if a student had a 25/25 (100%), then they would now have a 25/30 (83.3%). The Instructor would need to go in and manually update/fix all the students grades to make them correct.

[scottdennis]

Oh, really?  Thanks, Kona.  Thats not what I remember - either my memory is faulty or that has changed at some point - chances are it is my memory!

[kona]

 @scottdennis  &  @Laura_Orsetti  just to be safe I double-checked and when you change the point value to get the following warning message, "If you change an assignment's points possible you must regrade the assignment." I went ahead and changed the point value and the student grades did not change, only the total value/points that the assignment was worth.

[WesModes]

Yeah, but it should give you an option to rescale the grades.

For instance, the Roll Call Attendance. If you forgot to change the point value from 100pts, there is no way to go back and "regrade." Yet, Canvas provides no way to rescale the grades. 

This is pretty fundamental part of an LMS. Another way in which Canvas is wholly inadequate. Go ahead and suggest that I submit this as a possible feature request through your completely broken and rigged feature request process.