Override Grade Not Converting According to Grading Scheme for Values 10 and Below

[kriol]

Hi,

We use a grading scheme that gives scores in whole and half steps on a 1 to 10 scale (e.g., 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, … up to 10). When teachers use the override feature in the gradebook, we have advised them to enter the student's grade as a percentage, assuming it will be converted automatically to the correct grade according to the grading scheme.

However, we've encountered an issue.

When a teacher enters the value "10" in the override column — expecting it to be treated as 10% and converted to a grade of 1.0 — the system instead keeps it as "10" and gives the student a grade of 10.0. We would expect this to be converted according to the grading scheme, but it doesn't happen.

Interestingly, if the teacher enters "11," it correctly converts to 1.1, and higher values (e.g., 65 → 6.5) work as expected.

The issue appears to be that when a number 10 or lower is entered into the override column, Canvas does not interpret it as a percentage and does not apply the grading scheme conversion at all.

Can anyone explain why Canvas behaves this way? Is this expected behavior, or a bug? And is there any known workaround or fix?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Best regards,
Kristbjörg

[Gabriel33 · Accepted solution]

I think it's due to how Canvas tries to guess what the teacher means.

If the Display Grade as uses a normal GPA scale (A, B, C... with +-), then you can either write in the letter grade, or a number, and Canvas can easily guess what you meant to enter. So if you enter "A", it keeps the "A" (and generates a number behind the scenes, I believe that'd be 100% if A's the highest). But if you enter "95", it will not find "95" in the scale, so it will set it as 95%.

But in your situation, the same entry of 10 can mean both scales at the same time, and Canvas is first trying to match it to the "scale", and only when it fails, does it try to match it to a percentage.

I don't know if there's a way to make Canvas not try to match it to the scaled grade first.
I wouldn't call it a bug myself, it's a design decision which could have gone either way (Excel has the same issue: just yesterday I copied a Canvas grade of 2 out of 3 into Excel, listed as "2/3" into it, it interpreted that as a date)

[Gabriel33 · Accepted solution]

I think it's due to how Canvas tries to guess what the teacher means.

If the Display Grade as uses a normal GPA scale (A, B, C... with +-), then you can either write in the letter grade, or a number, and Canvas can easily guess what you meant to enter. So if you enter "A", it keeps the "A" (and generates a number behind the scenes, I believe that'd be 100% if A's the highest). But if you enter "95", it will not find "95" in the scale, so it will set it as 95%.

But in your situation, the same entry of 10 can mean both scales at the same time, and Canvas is first trying to match it to the "scale", and only when it fails, does it try to match it to a percentage.

I don't know if there's a way to make Canvas not try to match it to the scaled grade first.
I wouldn't call it a bug myself, it's a design decision which could have gone either way (Excel has the same issue: just yesterday I copied a Canvas grade of 2 out of 3 into Excel, listed as "2/3" into it, it interpreted that as a date)

[kriol]

Hi, and thanks for your response. I understand now that this is one of Canvas's quirks or helpfulness. This may not cause any issues when using the GPA grading scale, since it's letter-based, but it becomes problematic when grades are calculated purely as numbers

In addition, Canvas treats whole numbers (below 10) and decimal numbers (below 10) differently.

When a teacher enters 9 in the override column, the system retains it as 9 and gives the student a final grade of 87.5%, the lower limit of the range assigned to the number 9 grade according to the grading scheme (9 < 92.5% to 87.5%). This is as explained in the instructions. The teacher might assume he is giving 90%. This is why I've emphasized in the instructions entering the override grade as a percentage (e.g., 60 instead of 6, and 65 instead of 6.5), but as many of us know, not all teachers read the instructions.

However, when a decimal number below 10 is entered, Canvas treats it as a percentage, adjusting accordingly. For example, entering 6.5 results in 0.5 (as 6.5% on the 1–10 scale).

Is there any way to disable this "helpful guesswork" in the override column?

[Gabriel33 · Accepted solution]

Have you tried adding a "%" sign after the grade? So if you want to give them a grade of 9%, write "9%" instead of "9"?

I just tried that, and it seems to be working on my end.

[kriol]

Thank you! When I add a "%" after the grade, the student sees the correct percentage. For example, when the teacher enters "6%", the student sees "6%", but the teacher sees "6", which suggests 6 out of 10, when it should actually display as 0.5.

I also tested importing final grades into our SIS, and the correct override grade was imported, the grade that the student sees. I'll definitely include this tip about using "%" in my instructions.

That said, I've found that teachers often try to figure things out on their own rather than read the documentation. In my opinion, this setup isn't very intuitive and could easily lead to grading errors.

Just for fun, here's a table with the results of a few experiments in Canvas using different methods of entering an override grade.

Override Grade Teacher Input	Teacher View	Student View	Comments
2	2	17,5%	The student sees the correct percentage based on the lowest threshold of grade 2.
2,5	2,5	22,5%	Both the student and the teacher see the correct grade. The student sees the correct percentage based on the lowest threshold of grade 2.5.
6%	6	6%	In the teacher’s interface, it appears that the student received a grade of 6 out of 10. The student sees the correct grade.
6	6	57,5%	The student sees the correct percentage based on the lowest threshold of grade 6.
8	8	77,5%	The student sees the correct percentage based on the lowest threshold of grade 8.
9	9	87,5%	The student sees the correct percentage based on the lowest threshold of grade 9.
10%	10	10%	In the teacher's interface, it appears that the student received 10 out of 10, i.e., 100%. The student sees the correct percentage, 10%, and when the final grade is imported to our SIS from Canvas, it's 1, equivalent to 10%.
10	10	97,5%	The student sees the correct percentage based on the lowest threshold of grade 10.
11	1	11%	100% Correct!
11%	1	11%	100% Correct!
35%	3,5	35%	100% Correct!
35	3,5	35%	100% Correct!
85	8,5	85%	100% Correct!

Best,
Kris