Different class grades calculated for some student from one week to the next

[BradleyHomoelle]

Hello,

We are having an issue with some of the final course grades calculated in Canvas for several students at our school. Here is the context:

- I performed a grade export at 8:00 am on October 16th for all the course grades in the school

- I performed a subsequent export on October 22nd for all course grades in the school. 

- The course grades between the two exports were compared

For several students, come of the grades in courses differ by around 1 % between the two exports. 

I looked at the gradebook history and the teacher did not change or add any grades in the gradebook that would have affected the course averages in the exports.

I hand calculated the current course grades for one case and the current course grade seems correct.

So there are two possibilities:

- Canvas calculated the course grades differently between the two weeks. The course I checked had no assignment category weights so those could not have been changed either. 

- Some of the assignment grades were modified from one week to the next without the teacher's knowledge. However, no changes showed up in the gradebook history.

Has anyone run into a similar issue to this? Thanks for any help you can provide!

[chriscas]

Hi @BradleyHomoelle,

Something you may not have looked at that could cause a change like this is the points possible for each assignment.  The points possible could have been changed, which would cause the overall grade to change, but doesn't create a gradebook history log event (the gradebook history seems to be created when a score is changes, not when the points possible is changed, even though it kind of results in a score change).

Let us know if you think this could be the issue...

-Chris

[BradleyHomoelle]

Thank you for the reply! I do not think this would be the issue since changing the points for an assignment would have changed the grades for all the students in the course rather than just the 1-3 that I am seeing.

The 22nd was after the Amazon servers decided to not work anymore for a couple of days and I am wondering if the something happened with that. It is a reach, I know. However, since teachers do not have a written record of their grades and I cannot access the version of the gradebook that existed on October 16th and compare it to October 22nd, I cannot see if there are any differences between them.

[james_whalley]

@BradleyHomoelle I was also wondering if it may be possible that any of those students submitted auto-graded work? Something like a multiple choice quiz that wasn't worth very much or even one that had multiple attempts allowed and a new attempt that was slightly higher that came in. Do the individual assignment grades match between the two exports for the students in question?

[BradleyHomoelle]

@james_whalley Thank you for the reply! That is what we first thought as well but the gradebook was locked between the two exports and there is no record of the student reattempting the assignment or a grade change for any assignments before the lock. 

Unfortunately, the exports only included the term grades and did not have individual assignment grades. I would love to have that information to help track down the possible issue! If anyone knows of a way to turn back the clock so I could see what a gradebook looked like on a certain day in the past, I would appreciate the help!

[chriscas]

Hi @BradleyHomoelle,

Given your timeframe, your Canvas Test instance may have very close to the info you need.  The data there is updated once monthly, with the last time being around Monday Oct 20.  The How do I access the Canvas test environment as an ... - Instructure Community - 739 guide will let you know how to log in to your school/institution's test environment (assuming you are allowed).  You'll just navigate to the course in the test instance, and you'll see the gradebook as it existed in production Canvas on Oct 20.

One bit of advice is to exit the text environment tab in your browser as soon as you're done so you don't later mistakenly work in the wrong environment.  There should be a banner letting you know you're in the test environment, but it can sometimes be missed when we're focused on a particular task.

I hope this helps!

-Chris