How does Canvas calculate an average quiz grade?

[laura_broussard]

I gave 7 quizzes. Five were 100 points each. The last two were 21 points and 24 points. I want each quiz to count equally in the average. Canvas is calculating the average quiz grade from the total number of points, which slights the last two quizzes. Can I direct Canvas to calculate the average the way I want?

[Allie_Dilts]

Hi  @laura_broussard  

Have you created assignment groups in your course? If you check out How do I create rules for an assignment group?, we explain the following: 

Canvas considers how the rule most negatively or positively affects the student's overall score. A rule to drop the lowest score will remove the assignment score(s) from a student's group percentage calculation that will result in the best possible score for that group. A rule to drop the highest score will remove the assignment score(s) from a student's group percentage calculation that will result in the lowest possible score for that group. Dropping both the lowest and the highest score(s) removes any outlying scores and calculates a student’s grade based upon the remaining middle scores.

Dropping scores is based on the impact to the total points for that assignment group. In some cases, the point value may be considered more important than percentage score when determining which assignment to drop. For example, if a student earns 100% on a 50-point assignment, 65% on a 100-point assignment, and 50% on a 24-point assignment, the student’s total score is 127 out of 174 points, or 73% for the assignment group. If an instructor sets a rule to drop the assignment with the lowest score in the assignment group, Canvas will drop the score that gives the student a better total score for the group. Even though the 50% score is the lowest percentage, the assignment with the 65% score will be dropped, giving the student a score of 62 out of 74 points, or an 84%, for the assignment group.

Hopefully that helps clarify how Canvas calculates grades. If you have any follow-up questions, or if your Canvas experience doesn't seem to follow these same rules, you can reach out to us and/or request some help from Canvas Support. 

Thanks, 

Allie 

[James]

 @laura_broussard ,

If you want quiz grades to count equally within an assignment group, then they need to be the same point value.  There is no switch you can flip to make all of the assignments within an assignment group be counted equally.  There is a feature idea open for this: https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/4174-assignments-within-weighted-groups-treated-with-equal-val... 

 @Allie_Dilts 's comment explains how drop rules are used, but I did not see anything in your question about wanting to drop any of the quizzes, so it doesn't really answer the question.

Even though there is no simple box to check, you can accomplish what you want if you are using weighted assignment groups and are not dropping any grades. 

The score for each assignment group is based on the assignments within it. If there is only one assignment in the group, it becomes worth 100% of the points for that assignment group.

Let's say that quizzes are worth 35% of the grade in the course. Since there are seven quizzes and you want all of them to be worth the same point value, that would make each one of them worth 35/7= 5% of the grade. You would need to create three assignment groups to make this work.

• Have an assignment group worth 25% of the grade and put the 5 quizzes worth the same amount into them. These should be the only assignments in that group.
• Have an assignment group worth 5% of the grade and put the 21 point quiz as the only assignment in it.
• Have an assignment group worth 5% of the grade and put the 24 point quiz as the only assignment in it.

I picked 35% because it made for convenient math, but if quizzes were worth 20% of the grade, then you would take 5/7*20=14.29% for the first group and 1/7*20=2.86% for each of the last two groups. Actually, that makes 20.01% of the grade, so I would probably round the group of five to be 14.28%.

If you do want to drop some of the quizzes, then you would need to create two fake assignments to hold a scaled version of the quiz scores that are worth 100 points. Make their type no submission. Put these in with the other 5 quizzes.

Create an "not-graded" or "administrative" assignment group worth 0% of the points. Move the 21 and 24 point quizzes to this assignment group. Convert the 21 and 24 point assignments to be worth 100 points "score/21*100" or "score/24*100" and enter these values into the two fake assignments.

Then you can set up your rules to drop grades.

By the way, this is also way I currently recommend giving extra credit on a quiz -- creating a fake assignment that can have extra credit. The points for quizzes are determined by the points within the quiz and this doesn't allow for extra credit.