How to get "complete/incomplete" grades to show in exported gradebook

[leslie_irvine]

In my classes, I use a combination of number grades on quizzes and "complete/incomplete" on other assignments. In Gradebook on Canvas, the "complete/incomplete" grades show as nice, green checkmarks. Perfect! But when I download the grades, the checkmarks show up as zeros, as you can see in the image. Obviously, this is no good! Can anyone help me resolve this? 

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hello @leslie_irvine, @mattias_alveteg, and @Olaf_ ...

Full disclosure...  I am a Canvas admin for our College's Canvas environment, and I do not teach course.  So, my experience using the Gradebook isn't as strong as those that do teach courses in Canvas.  That being said, I would like to try and offer some insights...

First, it is unfortunate that Leslie's question has been unanswered.  There may be reasons for this...including that she may have stumped Community members with her question.  So, it is possible that folks here in the Community don't have a good solution to suggest...and thus it has been unanswered.

Next, as you know...Excel is all about rows/columns/cells of data.  Based on the screenshot that Leslie has provided in her OP (Original Posting), I am assuming that the grades she is asking about are in the columns labeled "Critical Re"...as those are the ones that have zeros for student grades in the CSV import image.  When you set up an assignment in Canvas with a "Complete/Incomplete" designation, you can also specify the total number of points possible for the assignment.  For example, in my screenshot (below), I have set this assignment at 10 points, but I have also set it with the "Complete/Incomplete" setting.

As an instructor, when I grade this, assignment, I have the option of choosing either "Complete", "Incomplete", or "Excused".  For this example, I chose "Complete" for Frodo Baggins, and it automatically assigned him 10 points (at least, in the CSV export) because that is the total points I had assigned to the assignment when I created it.  In the Canvas Gradebook, I see the green checkmark (as you've described).

In your example with the "Critical Re" assignments, it looks like you've set the total possible score to zero.  And, even if you then mark a student's assignment as "Complete", it will fill in a zero because that is the total possible points you set for the assignment.

I completely understand how having some other marking in this column in the CSV export would be more desirable that showing a raw score.  The programming to have some kind of image (such as a check-mark instead of a number) is not in my scope of knowledge, and I'm not even sure if a CSV export could include images in Excel tables...if that was desired.  As a thought, you might want to consider creating a new Feature Idea here in the Community so that other folks have a chance to evaluate it and see if it's also something they'd like to see implemented by Instructure.

• How do idea conversations work in the Instructure Community?
• What is the feature development process for Instructure products?
• How do I create a new idea conversation in the Instructure Community?

I hope some of this will be of help to you.  Please let Community members know if you have any other questions about this...thank you.

[mattias_alveteg]

I would go further than saying "this is no good" and say that this is a serious bug in Canvas. As a teacher, one should be able to rely on the LMS to export correct data rather than spitting out zeroes. Coming from another LMS, I was stupid enough to trust Canvas to be able to export the gradebook and thus accidently reported students as having passed a course even though they had not.

I find it a bit alarming that you wrote this on April 16 and until this day (June 22), not a single reply…

[Olaf_]

Dec 12th not a single reply or advice

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hello @leslie_irvine, @mattias_alveteg, and @Olaf_ ...

Full disclosure...  I am a Canvas admin for our College's Canvas environment, and I do not teach course.  So, my experience using the Gradebook isn't as strong as those that do teach courses in Canvas.  That being said, I would like to try and offer some insights...

First, it is unfortunate that Leslie's question has been unanswered.  There may be reasons for this...including that she may have stumped Community members with her question.  So, it is possible that folks here in the Community don't have a good solution to suggest...and thus it has been unanswered.

Next, as you know...Excel is all about rows/columns/cells of data.  Based on the screenshot that Leslie has provided in her OP (Original Posting), I am assuming that the grades she is asking about are in the columns labeled "Critical Re"...as those are the ones that have zeros for student grades in the CSV import image.  When you set up an assignment in Canvas with a "Complete/Incomplete" designation, you can also specify the total number of points possible for the assignment.  For example, in my screenshot (below), I have set this assignment at 10 points, but I have also set it with the "Complete/Incomplete" setting.

As an instructor, when I grade this, assignment, I have the option of choosing either "Complete", "Incomplete", or "Excused".  For this example, I chose "Complete" for Frodo Baggins, and it automatically assigned him 10 points (at least, in the CSV export) because that is the total points I had assigned to the assignment when I created it.  In the Canvas Gradebook, I see the green checkmark (as you've described).

In your example with the "Critical Re" assignments, it looks like you've set the total possible score to zero.  And, even if you then mark a student's assignment as "Complete", it will fill in a zero because that is the total possible points you set for the assignment.

I completely understand how having some other marking in this column in the CSV export would be more desirable that showing a raw score.  The programming to have some kind of image (such as a check-mark instead of a number) is not in my scope of knowledge, and I'm not even sure if a CSV export could include images in Excel tables...if that was desired.  As a thought, you might want to consider creating a new Feature Idea here in the Community so that other folks have a chance to evaluate it and see if it's also something they'd like to see implemented by Instructure.

• How do idea conversations work in the Instructure Community?
• What is the feature development process for Instructure products?
• How do I create a new idea conversation in the Instructure Community?

I hope some of this will be of help to you.  Please let Community members know if you have any other questions about this...thank you.

[Olaf_ · Accepted solution]

Thank you Chofer for your time and effort.

This will help me and my colleagues well.

Kind regards,

Olaf

PS: ( maybe this message will appear twice, because the first try I got an error posting this reply

[Olaf_]

Hello,

The grade option seems to work. It shows up in the exported csv-file.

What I find strange it seems to overrule what grade the student sees not , complete or incomplete but the grade.

That I see when I use the Canvas test student. But I have to verify what a real student sees.

My colleagues and I would like to see that the student sees a complete or incomplete  as his grading.

Is this possible?

Regards,

Olaf

[mark_vanorder]

I was trying to see if complete/incomplete could be used for a discussion in a fashion similar to a graded survey where students received points automatically if they entered something.

After reading this thread it doesn't appear that works and the basic use case for complete/incomplete doesn't make sense to me.

I think that you could achieve the result to the initial question by just creating a grading rubric where the single criteria had values for complete and incomplete and assign a point value to complete and zero to incomplete.  Then you just use Smartgrader to quickly check for completed assignments.

[leslie_irvine]

Thank you! I'll experiment with this. I appreciate your time and expertise.