Change verbiage for "Treat Ungraded as Zeroes"

[nicole_stahl]

We've had a number of instructors be confused by this setting. Since the gradebook does not automatically put in zeroes for assignments that students have not completed, some instructors will see this setting in the gradebook and think that by clicking this option, it will automatically change all of the "-" marks to 0's for them.

When Final Grades are submitted, we receive a number of calls from instructors asking why the Final Grades appear differently from Webcourses. We then have to explain it's because they did not insert 0's into the "-" marks and/or misunderstood the "Treat Ungraded as Zeroes" option.

I believe it would be help for instructors if this option was changed to "View ungraded as Zeroes." This gives the idea that you are "viewing" the gradebook with 0's, which is what this option is intended for. By the word "Treat" it gives instructors the idea that it is actually making ("treating") those ungraded assignments as 0's. By changing the verbiage, this setting will be a little clearer for instructors.

Also, it may be even more helpful if after this setting is clicked a banner would appear at the top of the gradebook saying something to this effect: "This setting is only a temporary view. This does not change the actual scores within the gradebook." This would also help prevent confusion for instructors.

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

For more information, please read through the Canvas Release Notes (2021-02-20).

[gdefalussy]

Agree! This would reflect the student's progress in the accumulated grade rather than give the impression that they are failing at the first few weeks of a course.

[gdefalussy]

This is a repeat of the comment for Mark Lewis, but applies here as well.

Agree! This would reflect the student's progress in the accumulated grade rather than give the impression that they are failing at the first few weeks of a course.

[kona]

Here's an excellent example of why we need this fixed!!! - Gradebook: Calculated grade with and without "treat ungraded as zero" and assignments

[jkeohane]

When you fix the wording, you may also want to make sure that it is really treating them like zeros.

For example, when you tell Canvas to drop the lowest grade, if you put in a manual zero, it drops it.  But if you do not, it does not drop it, regardless of what the settings say.    This can be very confusing to the instructor who thinks that dropping the lowest grade allows a student to miss one assignment -- as it usually means.

[kona]

If you fix the wording then the wording would imply that you're not really treating them like zero's.

In this case I think it's either (1) fix the wording OR (2) leave the wording, but have it do what it says it will do.

Personally I can see the benefit of seeing what the grade would be if all blanks were zeros (without having students freak out because their grade just bottomed out) AND actually changing all blanks to zeros in the gradebook.

[vlcross]

YES!  As each assignment due date passes, the instructor should be able to set all non-submissions to 0.  This is absolutely an assignment-by-assignment need, not a global switch for the entire gradebook

[Stef_retired]

 @vlcross , unless I have misunderstood you, what you're saying here is not relevant to the feature idea. "Treat ungraded as Zeroes" is a view-only toggle that has tripped up many teachers. However, if you simply want to give all non-submissions for a specific assignment a 0 grade after the due date passes, you can do that by setting the default grade in the gradebook column for the assignment to 0; that will not overwrite previously-entered grades if you do not wish it to do so. Please refer to How do I set a default grade for an assignment?

[vlcross]

Perfect. that is exactly what I needed. thanks

VC

[michellemeazell]

Is there any progress on making this happen - at the very least change the verbiage (that should be an easy fix!).  We had an email go to our Provost yesterday from a student because the instructor set this - the student saw this on their end, but their real grade was a grade lower. 

[venitk]

I personally don't see a use for "Teachers want to be able to see what a student's grade might be if they didn't turn in any of the missing assignments." I'm not sure what benefit that would have.. of more benefit would be the ability to see what a student's grade currently is, based on the assignments completed so far, and the ability to have missed assignments automatically become 0s in the gradebook (in other words, if an instructor has 200 students in their class and 20 quizzes, they don't want to have to comb through the gradebook and manually mark each missed quiz as a 0).

I'm coming at this discussion late and I'm just still trying to learn about New Gradebook, so I apologize if this discussion is no longer relevant.