Extra Credit in Canvas

[mwiscount]

I'd like to see an option when creating an assignment, that we can mark/select the assignment is Extra Credit. With that designation, the assignment is worth extra credit points, but those points are not added to the total number of points of the course.

Presently, the extra credit points are added to the total, and we need to manually enter Final Grades in the Canvas gradebook because of this situation. If the Extra Credit is one point, we want to place 1% of Total in an Extra Credit assignment group, which holds the one Extra Credit assignment. That way, in the "Assignments are weighted by group:" on the Syllabus, it registers as 101% with the Extra Credit as an option.

However, again, in the Gradebook, it divides the total points earned by a student by 101 points instead of 100 points. Please advise if there is a way to change it. I've looked at the answer for how to enter an Extra Credit assignment, but the image shows no points for the Extra Credit assignment with an unweighted assignment group.

Or let's have the ability to assign an assignment group or module as Extra Credit, but I believe having this option on a specific Extra Credit assignment, is the best place for it.

Thanks in advance for your consideration and help. It is much appreciated.

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi @mwiscount ...

I'm not 100% sure of an answer for you, but it almost sounds like you'd want to see an enhancement to Canvas on how extra credit is calculated?  If this is the case, there are a number of existing Feature Ideas here in the Community around the topic of extra credit.  If you go to this page: Idea Conversations - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com) and then type in the words extra credit into the search bar, you'll see a bunch of already submitted Feature Ideas about the topic.  I would normally also suggest that you can submit your own Feature Idea, but since it looks like you are a New Member here in the Community, you cannot submit Feature Ideas just yet until you have more participation in the Community.

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Since I don't have much experience with grading (I was a former Canvas administrator and did not teach), I'll leave it up to others here in the Community to also help.  Hopefully they will have some suggestions for you.  Good luck!

[chriscas]

Hi @mwiscount,

I think you actually have everything set up correctly and may just have slight confusion on how things will be calculated.

If you're using assignment groups, you do want the extra credit to be it's own group, and have the total weight add up to 100% plus whatever the extra credit is worth overall.  The calculations are not divided by 100+x percent in that scenario though as you may think.  Each group has the points earned divided b points possible calculated, then multiplied by the weight of the group, then all those are added up to get the total score.  I have a couple very simplified screenshots here to demo this:

This shows that is a student just does the normal work, they still get that grade as the total

If they do the normal work and extra credit, they get the extra credit percentage earned added to their total.

So in the end, I think the system actually will work as you want if you have things set up as you described and as I showed in my simplified scenarios here.

-Chris

[gnoack]

In my courses, I simply create an assignment for extra credit and make it worth zero points, then give points to that assignment for extra credit (EC). Or, I add EC to an already existing assignment with points For example, If I give 6 EC on a 90-point assignment I enter 96. It doesn't cause any issues. But I don't use weighted groups. 

You could do this within your existing weighted groups without the EC group.  It wouldn't have the same effect on the total grade but would affect each group. In the end, I think it would be a minor difference. 

[Ron_Bowman]

@mwiscount 

In addition to the excellent information provided by @chriscas  and @gnoack ,

It depends on how you are using the gradebook (points based or weighted) and how you want to do the extra credit.  I think Chris's explanation is probably what you are looking for.

If you are using a points based gradebook, then your extra credit assignments will have to be worth 0 points and then you assign the points that the students earn (i.e. it looks like 5 out of 0).  With points based you have to make the extra credit assignments worth 0 points or their point total is counted into the class total.

If you are using weighted groups and the extra credit work is to be in its own group, then what Chris has is what you want - thanks for that information Chris.  I don't do things that way and have not had to think of how that would work.

The way I do extra credit is within each assignment group.  in that case, I make the assignment worth 0 points and then assign the points total earned on the assignment for the grade.  In this case, the total points earned is divided by the total points possible to get the score for that group.  Below is a screenshot where the 4 assignments listed (1 is extra credit worth 0) are in the group weighted 100% for the course

 Here the score is (8+8+31 + 3)/(10 + 12 + 31 + 0)*100% = 94.34% as indicated

Ron