Add Assignment Columns Directly in Gradebook

[ciannicelli]

  Idea open for vote Wed. May 4, 2016 - Wed. August 3, 2016  Learn more about voting...

A useful tool for instructors in Canvas is to have the ability to quickly add assignment columns in the Gradebook section instead of having to go to Assignments or Calendar.

For example, the Gradebook could have a +Column button. The +Column button in the Gradebook could ask you two basic questions:

• Assignment Name
• Point Value

Instructors could quickly create assignments this way and input grades immediately. This would save some time and effort for those who need to create Placeholder Assignments but do not want to go back and forth between Assignments or Calendar and the Gradebook.

  Comments from Instructure

From Christi Wruck

We have thrown this idea around several times. Currently, we do not have plans do this at this time. The goal of Canvas is to be a full teaching and learning system, and if we add the ability to add assignments, and then discussions, and then quizzes, and then modules, and then assignment groups and then... to the gradebook, we are at risk of becoming a gradebook system instead of a Learning Management System.

 

[jomontuori]

We have instructors who also create assignments (and therefore gradebook columns) after the fact, only as they score exams. And they too feel frustration because they can't simply create a gradebook column and move on.

In my attempts to develop best practices, I explain that posting all assignments — online, on paper, and no submission — in advance of the due date allows students to find, review, and manage all of their work in one place. Including when and where to take their midterm exams. The Calendar, as well as the Assignments view, provide robust tools for students (and faculty). Using it well may be a challenge, but is SO worth it to students' workflow management.  Knowing that this helps students juggle their often difficult assignment loads — and thereby do better work — is a powerful argument. Most instructors embrace this practice once they are educated as to "the why."

In fact, my mantra for year two of Canvas implementation is "why use Canvas" (rather than "how to use Canvas"). That approach motivates instructors to learn "the how."

OK, I'm stepping off my soapbox now. A tangent, for sure, but I wanted to share this because I also have many faculty who like to do things their way; gaining my own understanding of "why" helped me tremendously in my role of instructional tech coach.

[kona]

Another thing to consider is that if most (if not all assignments are in the gradebook) then the "what if" tool becomes much more useful/helpful for students. If all assignments aren't entered into the gradebook then it's hard for students to figure out what grade they're really getting in a course. Just because they're getting an "A" now doesn't mean that when the Instructor adds that 200 point book review and they fail it that they'll still be getting that A. Many students don't understand this and having the assignments in place so students can play around with their grades for different assignments really helps them learn/understand this.

Side note, as I've been following along I know the original suggestion said to only ask two questions when the assignment is created, but that's not the way the gradebook works. If you don't pick an Assignment group and are using a weighted gradebook then you're really going to mess things up with your gradebook. Even if you're using a points based gradebook, but have your assignments organized by assignment group, adding a random assignment anywhere to the mix of things will be confusing.

I'm not necessarily opposed to this since you can technically do the same thing from the Calendar or from Modules (which wasn't mentioned before) in addition to Assignments, but in general we find that the least number of mistakes happens when Instructors add their assignments to the Assignments Index page to start with. This way they can quickly and easily see that they are adding the assignment in the right place. It's when they start randomly adding them to the Calendar or Modules that things get out of place (in the assignment groups) and things then start calculating incorrectly.

[ronzanim]

I agree with those that sustain that not all grades are assignments. The main example for me is participation. I take not of students' participation daily but I don't want to grade them every single time because I want the flexibility of considering the overall performance of the semester when I grade them in participation. Being able to add a column to the gradebook directly would allow to give a final participation grade.

I would love this feature to be implemented also for workbook homework in a language class. All the homework is done online in the e-workbook that comes with the book. That already keeps track of the performance for each assignment. I wish I could simply add a column in the gradebook at the end of the semester so that the daily homework is factored in, without having to add over 30 assignments.

I guess being able to create a weighed assignment group without any assignment inside and being able to manually enter the grade for that weighed group would be a partial solution

[kona]

 @ronzanim , there's no reason you can't just add these two things with a grade to the gradebook. You just need to add it via the "Assignment Index Page."

1. Go to Assignments page (on the left navigational link).

2. Go to the assignment group you'd like to add your final participation grade or e-workbook grade and click the "+" button.

3. On the box that pops up leave the type as "Assignment," give it a name (ex: Participation grade), due date (optional), and the number of points the assignment is worth. Click "Save & Publish."

4. Go to your gradebook (Grades on the left navigational link) and you'll see your new Assignment listed and you'll be able to enter in the total points earned.

Hope this helps!

[ronzanim]

Thank you  @kona , I appreciate the explanation. However, I don't think what you suggest solves the problem I tried to describe and other people in this discussion mentioned. I might be mistaken but if you do as you described, then the assignment shows up in Syllabus as well as if it were a specific thing to do, even if it has no due date. In the case of participation, it constitutes its own group, it's not made up of specific assignments, it's weighed and a teacher probably does not want to assign a grade to each student after each class (I believe it's common for seminar classes heavily based on discussion to give a participation grade that stands on its own at the end of the semester) . If I want participation to appear in the gradebook not only I have to create a group in Assignments but also create an assignment within the group where I can insert the grade, as unfortunately it is not possible to manually enter grades in the weighed columns of the Group Assignments (right?). Maybe there is a way not to have it show up in the syllabus? Or maybe the problem does not exactly belong to this idea but instead to an idea to manually insert grades in a weighed grade group column? Thank you!

[kona]

...unfortunately it is not possible to manually enter grades in the weighed columns of the Group Assignments (right?)

 @ronzanim , I'm not sure if I understand you on this, but if you create an assignment within a weighted assignment group then yes, it is possible to manually enter grades for this assignment - I actually do this in my class all the time for participation points. No, you can't enter a grade in the weighted column (the actual assignment group column) because that is the placeholder (overall calculation) for all grades from that assignment group, even if you only have one assignment. It isn't uncommon for faculty to have weighted assignment groups and only have one assignment in the group that they then enter the grade for that specific group. <--Is there an actual reason that there is a problem with doing this or just that you don't like that you have to do it because of the syllabus issue (see below for more on that)?

Yes, all graded assignment will show up on the syllabus page. If you want to block that the only way around it is to not publish the assignment. Granted the students wouldn't be able to see their grades, but it also wouldn't show up on the syllabus. <--This is actually one reason some faculty choose to NOT use the syllabus page. They don't like the way assignments are listed and it's easier to not use it than use it.

If you are specifically interested in hiding different assignments from students on the syllabus page then I would recommend checking out the response to this idea - - it provides the most up-to-date information and what you could do in moving forward and creating a new feature idea for this.

Regardless, I'd agree that what you want isn't actually this idea.

Hope this helps!

[maryann_clark]

User new to Canvas here....I want to add a column to my gradebook for Participation & Attendance. It is not an "assignment" and it makes no sense to me why I have to include it as one!

[kona]

 @maryann_clark ​, are you providing points for it? If so, then it has to be entered as some type of assignment (assignment, discussion, quiz) for it to show up in the Canvas gradebook. Ultimately you can name the assignment anything you want, the term "assignment" is just the word Canvas uses to refer to something that is graded and should be in the gradebook. It does not need to literally mean it is an "assignment."

[kmeeusen]

Hi  @maryann_clark ​

First, welcome to Canvas and to the Canvas Community!

As Kona stated, don't get hung up on the terminology Canvas uses. In Canvas jargon, an assignment is anything with a grade value attached, and includes: Assignments: both submitted online or not submitted at all (like an observation of attendance and participation), Quizzes, and graded Discussions. You can learn how to add an extra column for this at How do I create extra assignment columns for non-submission assignments in the Gradebook?  The nice thing about using a Canvas Assignment to track attendance and participation is that you can add points to it throughout the term, and even develop a Canvas grading rubric to help with that What are Rubrics? .

My advice - avoid the Canvas Attendance tool. Very undeveloped and you can't include participation.

If you don't wish for students to be able to view your attendance/participation notes or don't wish to attach points to it, have you considered using a Google Form to collect that information somewhere outside of the gradebook. If you embed a Google form in a Canvas page, then you could hide that page from students, if desired.  Here is a short video on how to do that  Embedding Google forms/spreadsheets into #Canvas - YouTube  Another option you can use if you don't wish for student to see your Attendance/participation notes is to use the Notes column in the gradebook How do I use the Notes column in the Gradebook?

There is a cheat sheet for Canvas Terminology available at Canvas Glossary that you might find helpful.

I hope this helps, and enjoy your new adventure.

KLM

[scottdennis]

Just to be clear (jargony?) the term for the tool that Kelley is recommending you steer clear of it "Roll Call"

[maryann_clark]

Yes I understand that and I don't want it listed as an assignment. I just want to add it as a column in the gradebook and assign points to it there.

Maryann Clark

Decision Sciences Department

Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics

University of New Hampshire

10 Garrison Avenue

Durham, NH 03824

paulcollege.unh.edu

[wenger_4]

Scott (or anyone),

Is there a way to include the roll call attendance in the total % shown in the last column of the gradebook?

I was able to set group weights for the other columns but couldn't figure out how to incorporate the roll call column.

Thanx for the help.

- rafe

[DaleDrees]

Strongly agree with you macaulayl​! So many problems that I encountered with this using other LMS's!

[scottdennis]

Hi Rafe,

The assignment created for Roll Call will affect the overall score but not until you actually take attendance for the first time.  You can read more about that here.  I hope this helps you!

[cbarger]

I think it would be really useful to be able to add columns from the Grade Book. Not sure how I feel about columns that are not linked to anything, but it would be great if they connected back to the assignments and created "place holders" like the calendar and modules allow. Many of the instructors I work with build their course this way. I think it allows a flexibility in thinking and building/managing the courses.

[aabian]

If adding a column from the gradebook page introduces too much complexity, then we should at least have the ability to easily duplicate or copy assignments in order to maintain consistency.

[DaleDrees]

I hope this does not happen as this was one of the many problems we had with other systems like Blackboard. Too many times of helping someone figure out why their Gradebook was not adding up correctly due to Gradebook columns added in the Gradebook and not tied to anything. I love that Canvas is setup that you can only add a column to the Gradebook through assignments. At our school we shut off assignments (as well as pages, files, discussions, quizzes) so the only place a student can access anything is through Modules. Assignments helps to keep everything organized with groups and helps to keep an effectively clean Gradebook. 

[kmeeusen]

I very much agree dreesd​!

Even with Canvas, we experience way too many orphaned assignments impacting the gradebook but unable to be submitted by students. Sometimes these can take hours to locate and clean up. I know this type of feature can seem attractive to some faculty but it is a land mine!

I have already voted this one down.

KLM

[jbrady2]

dreesd​ and  @kmeeusen  I also agree that I would not like to see this change.

I only have one faculty member who has actually expressed that this is a feature missed from our previous LMS, and she only used it to create a column in the gradebook to use for tracking and informing the students of their current number of absences.  However, with the recent implementation of the Do not count this assignment toward the final grade check box,

she can once again create a column to inform the students of their absence, albeit by having to create an Assignment, but that is a minor issue.

[Stef_retired]

I have been holding fire on this one for a long time, and finally decided to vote it down. I can foresee it causing far more problems than it would solve.