When is a Canvas Grade NOT the students academic result and is there a need for the difference to be clearer in the LMS ?

[paul_fynn]

I work in a UK HE institution that has been using Canvas for almost six years, and where the institutional policy is that Canvas is the official submission  or 'capture' route for both student assignments and grades and feedback which are then reprocessed to the Student Information System.

• I am posting to share my own views on this (which may not be those of my institution) and seek opinion from other HEI users as to whether the naming of 'Course Grade' is felt to be an issue
• In our case considerations around this have led us to put on hold the release of the Student View of 'New Analytics' dashboard.

We have two potential issues here in this New Analytics example of 'Course Grades'

From https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Student-Guide/How-do-I-view-New-Analytics-in-a-course-as-a-student/ta-p/450

1. What Canvas refers to as a 'Course' is, in our institution, the overall award (in our institution a Canvas Course reflects a unit of delivery we call a Module), so the student who sees the nomenclature 'Course Grade' may misconstrue this to represent their cumulative Grade, GPA or overall award classification.

2. The second issue that the Grade shown in Canvas New Analytics reflects a calculation from within the Canvas Course, and does not fully reflect regulatory context ie the grade that the student will be awarded after the application of penalties, moderation and boards, and may not reflect the way that  an individual assignment score is calculated

To illuminate point two further, which is to explain why the Canvas grade is not the result that our institution reports to the Student Information System (and which may confuse the student when presented in Canvas):

1. The student may have incurred a sliding scale penalty for late submission, which we calculate outside of Canvas
2. The student may be submitting a capped reassessment, where the penalty cap will be applied outside of Canvas and may limit the work to a passing grade (some reassessment students may be resubmitting without penalty)
3. An assessment may be a zero credit "read and sign" type activity which we may need to set as a 'complete/incomplete' grade - however this seems to require a points value and would then modulate the grade and be included in the Canvas Course Grade
4. An assessment may be a zero credit pass/fail element which must be passed (sometimes for an external body 'fitness to practice' check) at a level above the passing grade for the unit or delivery or award (eg 40% for the academic award, 75% for the fitness to practice assessment) - again seems to require a points value
5. Whilst Canvas checkbox 'do not count this assignment for grading' may offer a partial solution path, this requires that we are able to guarantee that all colleagues use this correctly

• It would be useful to hear other examples of where there are differences between the current Canvas Grade presented and the final Grade that will appear in institutional systems and the student transcript.

In a perfect world Canvas Grades would be a universally applicable rational technical model that fitted all regulatory institutions and grading systems/names, and the Canvas Grade would plug straight into the official result, SIS, and degree classification - but the diversity of institutional approaches and regulations, and breadth of ways in which assignments are used,  is likely to mitigate against that for all but the smallest and simplest organisations.

Might it be beneficial to draw a clearer distinction between the technical calculation that appears against individual Canvas assignments (and that is aggregated for individual Canvas Courses), and the regulatory calculation that is transferred into the Student Information System as part of the students Grade or GPA ?

• What, for your institution, is the name of the official unit of calculation that work is marked against ?
• Which are the most important places in the LMS for any distinction to be clear to students between 'unofficial' Canvas Grade and Institutional result, ?
• Would an approach which added words to the effect of * This may not be your official grade or similar allow students to understand more clearly that the number presented as Canvas Grade is a local provisional score rather than an official, formal institutional result?

Thanks for your views ...

Paul

[RecycledElectro]

> What Canvas refers to as a 'Course' is, in our institution, the overall award (in our institution a Canvas Course reflects a unit of delivery we call a Module), so the student who sees the nomenclature 'Course Grade' may misconstrue this to represent their cumulative Grade, GPA or overall award classification.

If you redesign your Canvas so a course in Canvas matches what you call a course, it will be easier for the students to understand.

> The student may have incurred a sliding scale penalty for late submission, which we calculate outside of Canvas

Canvas allows you to set late submission penalties in Canvas. Alternately you can adjust the grade manually and enter an explanation in the Notes field.

If you do not enter the grades into Canvas correctly, the average will be wrong as well.

> The student may be submitting a capped reassessment, where the penalty cap will be applied outside of Canvas and may limit the work to a passing grade (some reassessment students may be resubmitting without penalty)

You can manually adjust the grade in Canvas.

> An assessment may be a zero credit "read and sign" type activity which we may need to set as a 'complete/incomplete' grade - however this seems to require a points value and would then modulate the grade and be included in the Canvas Course Grade

> An assessment may be a zero credit pass/fail element which must be passed (sometimes for an external body 'fitness to practice' check) at a level above the passing grade for the unit or delivery or award (eg 40% for the academic award, 75% for the fitness to practice assessment) - again seems to require a points value

You can set grading categories. I almost always have a category for "Not counted in grade" that counts for 0% of the grade. This can be done under "Assignments."

> Whilst Canvas checkbox 'do not count this assignment for grading' may offer a partial solution path, this requires that we are able to guarantee that all colleagues use this correctly

Ensuring faculty compliance might take several steps:

1. Figure out how to make it work, and double-check that that really works.

2. Write up how to make it work in clear terms, using screenshots. Maybe also record a video.

3. Send your write-up and/or video to all affected faculty.

4. If you are an administrator, check in on their courses. If you are a teacher, either sit down with them 1-on-1 to check, or ask them to add you as an instructor so you can verify that they have it right.

I hope this helps, and I apologize for my Texan. (I dare not call it English.)

[paul_fynn]

That's a very good answer to a completely different question Texan @RecycledElectro, and likely suggests that you don't consider 'Canvas Course Grade' an issue for your organisation and/or are prepared to make the users fit the software rather than making the software fit the users, but thank you.

Attempting to be more specific...

The appearance of  "Course Grade" is problematic for us because it ascribes a score to a Canvas unit of delivery where our institution regards a Course (and course grade) as the aggregation of several individual units of delivery.

It is further problematic because what the students undertake in Canvas will never be translated directly into the students final degree classification, Grade Point Average, Course/Award Grade or whatever you want to call it. It will be part of the data that informs the interim, unit and final grade, but is not the final grade.

Canvas has quite a specific role in presenting materials within our Managed Learning Environment. The calculations are made in different parts of our MLE, in particular the Student Information System which supports the calculation and reporting of grades and penalties which may originate in Canvas, and eVision, which reports the moderated, agreed and assigned grade back to the student

Institutionally we have no interest or appetite for training Canvas (and our teachers and students) in all the nuances, intricacies and detail that would be required to harmonise the two such that Instructure's title "Canvas Course Grade" was meaningful rather than misleading or incomplete.

• On that basis, what might a more neutral or agnostic title look like for the number that is generated in a Canvas Course as the aggregation of both formative and summative student activity ? 
• As an alternative to changing the name, should there simply be a disclaimer added wherever the Course Grade appears to the effect that "this may not be your final grade' or similar

Is this a problem that is shared by other Higher Education Institutions ?

If so what would your preferred solution be ?