Need seperate content module grades in one course

[dmack]

I am building medical education courses which have multiple modules in one course which focus on a specific content area (3-5 content areas per course). I need to have each content module require 73% pass for the module, in addition to the total grade passing score calculated. (think of it as having 4-6 courses/gradebooks within a single course)

I also need to be able to track performance in the specific content areas individually (by module). Is there a way to set this up in Canvas? 

[Gabriel33 · Accepted solution]

The gradebook in Canvas doesn't really let you do this type of conditional calculation.

If you are willing to not allow a student to continue the course and see the next module unless they pass the previous module, you can use module requirements and prerequisites so that if a student doesn't get 73% in the first module, they can't go on to the next.
This fails, though, when a student passes the first 4 modules but not the last one, as the last one won't be blocking anything (unless you have a final exam worth roughly 20%-27% of the grade, depending on the number of modules).

If you have a single quiz/assignment per content area, then you could hack it using Mastery Paths (so if the student gets a grade lower than 73% in the quiz for a given content area, it assigns them an impossible quiz with a large enough weight that will fail them).

If you just want a visualization of which students got above 73% in which content areas, you might want to consider Outcomes and the Learning Mastery Gradebook, but note that the learning mastery gradebook does not affect the real gradebook, and the passing grade.

--EDIT--
You can also get a grade by module by making one assignment group for each module, but that's just going to give a new gradebook column with those grades, and there's no automated way to fail students who get less than 73% in an assignment group.