how remove ungraded assignments from current total shown

[aylouie]

The Total shown in gradebook factors hidden assignments into the grade shown.  This means that what students see is artificially lower grade than they really have, because it includes possible points into the total for assignments that are hidden (and ungraded).  Many students get confused about this.  If an assignment is hidden, it should be excluded from the running total to calculate the grade, so that students have a more realistic view of their current progress.  I have specific example of a student who has perfect score on all assignments to date, but as soon as the due date for current assignment passed, her grade plummeted to a B+ because there is now an ungraded assignment being counted as a zero grade in the total. Why do this?  Just show the current grade and exclude ungraded and hidden grades from the total!

If there is a setting the instructor can change to do this let me know.  I tried to contact support and they just said to hide total grade.

[Gabriel33 · Accepted solution]

Thanks for clarifying it's on the instructor's side.

In that case, the option should be available in the "Individual Gradebook" (which is not something I usually access, so I don't usually notice it myself)

See How do I view assignments or students individually... - Instructure Community - 1247 for images on how to access it.

[Gabriel33]

On the student's end, there should be a checkbox to "Calculate based only on graded assignments". Can you check if that is what you are looking for?

See, for example, the section on "View Current and Total Grades" on this article: How do I view my grades in a current course? - Instructure Community - 493  

[aylouie]

The problem is on the instructor side, the gradebook only shows the grade with ungraded items counted as zero, so I have found when I write to a student about their current grade, what I see is much lower than what they see, and I have no way to change it to what they see.  There apparently is supposed to be a checkbox in gradebook settings to assign zero to ungraded items or not, but that checkbox does not show in our campus's version of Canvas.  I am digging deeper on campus level to see if that was a choice that could be turned back on.

[Gabriel33 · Accepted solution]

Thanks for clarifying it's on the instructor's side.

In that case, the option should be available in the "Individual Gradebook" (which is not something I usually access, so I don't usually notice it myself)

See How do I view assignments or students individually... - Instructure Community - 1247 for images on how to access it.

[aylouie]

This does not really work, there are nearly 300 students in the class, having to individually go to student view to find their current grades would be a night mare. I can do that in the spreadsheet. I want to be able to toggle like students do, and it is a mystery why instructors do not have the same checkbox access.

[Jeff_F]

Hello - @aylouie - would you please expand on what is meant by 'hidden'? I sense you are using a Canvas feature such as Hide Grades but there is also Grade Posting Policy. 

I just read over the following guide, and it states:

When assignment grades are hidden, students will not receive grade change or instructor comment notifications for the assignment. Students will also be unable to view their grades, including grade and score changes, instructor submission comments, Canvas DocViewer comments, and curved grades for the assignment. Students can still see and submit the assignment and will be informed on the student grades page that assignment grades are hidden.

...  If you make changes to an assignment with hidden grades, the total score as you see it (in both the Gradebook and the student Grades page) will be affected. However, students will not see any changes when they view their Grades page. Once you post the assignment grades, the total grade in the student's view will update accordingly.

As I read it, students should not be seeing course score changes due to grades being assigned to hidden assignment grades.

But it sounds like you are seeing different behavior. If that is accurate then perhaps a support ticket is in order.

How do I hide or post assignment grades in SpeedGr... - Instructure Community - 1000

[aylouie]

I hide assignment grades until they are all graded, then release them to students.  I thought by doing this, it would give more accurate grades as I would be hiding this assignment from the total grade, but as my question outlines, hiding only hides from student view, it does not hide from how instructor's gradebook calculates the grade. Gradebook assigns zero to ungraded and factors it into the total, artificially lowering grade.  See my reply to above response, the checkbox to "calculated based only on graded assignments is not available in instructor's view.  It should be, not sure why it is not.

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @aylouie,

When you say "I hide assignment grades until they are all graded" do you mean you set the assignment's grade posting policy to manual?  I ask this because a lot of people get confused on terminology here.  Using the "hide grades" idem in the menu will only hide grades you have already entered for that assignment, it will not hide any future grading work you do for additional submissions for that assignment

Now with that being said, others have pointed out that you are correct when grades are hidden the total you see will be different than what students see.  If you do a gradebook export to CSV, you'll see additional total columns, with the "current score" I believe being the one students see.  While it may be nice if this was on the web gradebook too, it could end up causing more confusion for a majority of teachers, so I probably wouldn't expect this area to change in the near future.  You never know though...

I hope this helps!

-Chris

[aylouie]

Yes the assignments are all set to manual, and once each assignment is graded I post the assignment grade.  The problem was that in the only grade view i can see on Canvas, it calculates ungraded assignments as = zero, so the grade I saw was artificially lower than what the students see.  yes you can download the (very overstuffed) csv file and find the different versions of total grade (confusingly named), but unlike students, you cannot toggle to calculate based only on graded items. Class is done and grades posted so this is old news now 🙂