Minimum Grade

[MsMayo]

I am an instructor. Our district has a policy that states that no grade can be lower than 50%, regardless of whether the student did the assignment or not. While I am using the feature that automatically applies a minimum score for missing assignments, this is not always sufficient. For example, if a student takes a quiz and gets 49% or below, that is the score recorded, making it necessary for me to change this. 

The bigger problem arises when I use external tools. For example, Actively Learn allows me to upload the grades into Canvas, but missing assignments are scored as zero in their system, which makes it necessary for me to change all the zeros to fifties, which I have to do every time I upload the grades. 

This would be so much easier if Canvas had a tool that allowed instructors to set a minimum grade. This could be similar to the tool that allows us to set a minimum score for missing assignments. 

I have searched the Guides, but I am still not clear if this is an option. I would appreciate knowing if I am overlooking something. Thank you. 

[ProfessorBeyrer · Accepted solution]

I too find the interactions of third-party tools often inconvenient, @MsMayo. This is especially true in situations like you describe. If there was a way to set a minimum grade for all assignment submissions, I bet that would take care of both situations you describe (the earned 49% on a Canvas quiz and any data coming from a third-party tool).

Since that does not appear to be an option yet, I suggest proposing an idea for improvement via the Ideas and Themes process. In the meantime, another option is to download the grades, change the scores in MS Excel or Google Sheets, and then upload them back to Canvas.

I'm going to mark my reply as a solution. Please respond back if you have additional comments; I hope other colleagues in the community share their thoughts too.