Automatic grades for post and reply

[Nancy_Webb_CCSF]

This Canvas idea Automatic Grading - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com) doesn't mention Discussions Redesign, but could it be added to features planned for the future?  Make Automatic grading for Post and Reply discussions possible, points given for posting when the post or reply is made.  Using the gradebook to set default grade will give points to everyone without regard to whether posts were made.

Besides replying or commenting, teachers then need to go to speedgrader to enter points so it's time consuming.

[lshulman]

I'm not sure I fully understand what you are saying.

I get the value of having points given two times: for initial post and then for replies. But how would that work within the same grade column in the grade book? Or would there then be TWO columns for each graded discussion (one for initial post and the second for replies)? 

And what sort of "automatic" grade would be given? Would you just be grading based on the posts being done? What if one wants to grade posts based on QUALITY? In that case, the grading cannot be "automatic" as the teacher has to make individual decisions for each post. 

And why would the grade book "give points to everyone" even if they have not posted? Wouldn't that appear as a "missing" assignment and any "grade" posted would be based on grade book setting for "missing" assignments (which I would set to 0%).

I find that even "complete/incomplete" is not "automatically" graded as such. Rather, I have to select the option for "complete" or "incomplete" whether the student posts or not. I can leave it blank if they do not post. Only time "incomplete" is an automatic grade is if the student did not post at all AND I have the grade book set to grade missing assignments as "zero" percent.

[Nancy_Webb_CCSF]

Hi @lshulman 

You might want to read the original Idea conversation which would answer most of your questions. Automatic Grading - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com).  I am simply wanting to have the same idea apply to Discussions Redesign as well as original Discussions.  All the ideas brought up there, such as being able to assign different points for post and reply, would be useful.

What if one wants to grade posts based on QUALITY?  Then you would not use the automatic grading feature. It is only for those who want to reward participation. As you point out, this would work really well with complete/incomplete grades, where it is simply indicating the student did the assignment and you are not giving variable points for quality.  This would be an optional setting.

And why would the grade book "give points to everyone" even if they have not posted?   This would happen if you used the Set Default Grade option in the gradebook, one way to automatically give points to assignments.

how would that work within the same grade column in the grade book?  Points for post and response would be part of the same grade total, one column in the gradebook. At least that's how we do it now with manual grading.

Thanks!

[Jeff_F]

What thoughts do we have for such a system being configured to auto assign points but also have an instructor capability to deduct points for off topic content, spelling issues, etc.

[charlotte_jones]

We just had this question in our large FD here at UCF. Would love to hear if this feature is in the works!