Importing letter grades into gradebook

[ArunasJuska]

I hope someone could help me with suggestion on how to import letter grades from A to F into the grade book. I do not want the grade book to assign letter grades. Instead, I would like it to display the letter grades in a column/assignment that I entered in Excel. When I upload the *.cvs file, new columns/assignments with numbers get displayed, but not column/assignment with the letter grades. I tried to edit the Assignment/column and used different Assignment options such as Percentage, Complete/Incomplete, Points, Letter Scale, with to no avail, I get dashes displayed. I like to give grades for groups of assignments during the course and with larger classes it gets very tedious to enter grades by hand. Thanks so much!

[SusanNiemeyer]

The bottom line is this: grading in Canvas is based on numbers. You need to assign points for grades. That allows Canvas to calculate grades based on percentages. 

Therefore, you need to set up a point system to correspond to your letter grades. For example:

10 points = A+

9 points = A

8 points = B

7 points = C

6 points = D

0-5 points = F

Also, why are you putting grades into an Excel file and then transferring them over? It's really easy to enter grades into Canvas directly. You're creating a lot of extra work for yourself.

[ArunasJuska]

Thanks so much for a reply, I appreciate it very much. I am aware of how to set grading scale in Canvas, but this is not what I am asking about. My question is could I import into grade book an assignment/column that has text in each of its cells say Good, Excellent, Bad, etc.? Again, many thanks for suggestions. 

P.S. I do grades in Excel so I could differentiate assignments missed from assignments on which students got 0s, which have different weights assigned after missing 3, 5 or more assignments.

[SusanNiemeyer]

Again, you need to use numbers, not words like "Good, Excellent, Bad, etc."  I know that you're looking for a "work around," but the simplest, most straightforward solution is to use a point-based system for grading.

Also, I might suggest that you just give missing assignments 0s, and not spend time on giving different weights based on the number of missing assignments. It's not necessary to go to so much work, and I think this grading system will be confusing for your students. Again, think simpler.

[maguire]

Actually, you can make a grade scale that has words in it. I even make grading scales with the teachers' names in them, so that it is possible to have an assignment that lists which teacher is working with a given student in a course with hundreds of students and tens of teachers. In a combined course that has students in sections from many different courses, I made an assignment that has the course codes in it - to make it convenient in the grade book for a teacher to see which courses code each student they are supervising is enrolled in (as a given teacher may be working with students enrolled under different course codes). See, for example, insert_teachers_grading_standard.py and insert_course_code_grading_standard.py at https://github.com/gqmaguirejr/Canvas-tools 

You can insert grades and even comments from a spreadsheet or CSV as shown in insert_grades_and_comments.py (same github as above).

[JeffW · Accepted solution]

Hi @ArunasJuska 

As @maguire mentioned you may find a workaround using external methods. However simply working with Canvas, you cannot enter an alphabet based value in your spreadsheet and import it to your grade book, even if it matches the grading scheme titling you created.

[PeterDesnoyers]

If you don't understand why someone would upload from a spreadsheet, please try calculating "drop lowest two homework grades" in Canvas, or "higher grade on the final exam will replace midterm grade". Never mind the endless and error-prone clicking and typing necessary to enter grades into Canvas...

It looks like the only way to do it is to convert your letter grades into fake numeric grades - e.g. a spreadsheet column like this:

=IFS(A1="A",95,A1="A-",91,A1="B+",89,A1="B",85,A1="B-",81,A1="C+",79,A1="C",75,A1="C-",71,A1="D+",69,A1="D",65,A1="D-",61,TRUE,50)