New Gradebook Quirks to be Aware of?

[venitk]

Our institution switched everyone to New Gradebook a couple weeks ago. I don't have any experience with it. Are there any quirks that I should be aware of? For example, I know the late policy applies across the board to all assignments (so you can't have a late policy apply to discussions but not quizzes, for example). Is there anything else we should know about? Any features you really like or any that you've been telling instructors not to use until they work the bugs out? 

[valentinesking]

Katie,

I've been using the new gradebook for a few semesters now and prefer it over the traditional gradebook. Primarily I love the sorting options for each column. I do use the late percentage (per day) policy [but not the auto missing policy]. I'd rather use the set default grade after grading to set my 0s so I can "message students who" especially if they have missed more than one assignment in a row.

One thing that I've changed during use of the new gradebook is that if a student is marked late (let's say 2 days) and I want to not mark them down because perhaps they were sick --> I will change the status to "None" so no late points are taken from the student but then immediately after I will mark the "Late" status again so on my gradebook it is still marked blue. [The real submission date/time is in Speedgrader] This allows me to quickly look at the gradebook and see a history of multiple late submissions. Hope this makes sense. 🙂

[venitk]

Sky, can you clarify: it sounds like you're saying that if you set the default grade to 0 before grading, or use the auto missing policy, you can't message students who miss an assignment. Is that correct or am I misunderstanding? 

Also, if I understand correctly, you're saying the late policy won't auto-deduct points from students who are manually marked as late. Is that correct?

Thanks for your help with this!

[valentinesking]

Katie,

No, that is not what I was trying to convey. The new gradebook works pretty great. I was stating that I do not use the auto 0 for missing assignments as a choice because I prefer to go in and apply them myself (I was just clarifying what I did use as part of the new gradebook). Also, the late policy setting does automatically deduct points when they are late. Obviously I made a mess of my explanation; sorry. The information snugent‌ provided was great.

[snugent]

Katie

I have been training faculty on using the new gradebook for two semesters now. I have only gotten a few calls about using the new gradebook so I don't think you will run into any issues. As for the late policy you can setup policies for missing and late assignments. When you setup a late policy it will automatically deduct the points when you grade the assignment. Missing assignments will auto grade after the due date passes and the student doesn't have a submission. 

• How do I apply a Missing Submission policy in the New Gradebook?
• How do I apply a Late Submission policy in the New Gradebook?

[tvannorman]

Katie,

The professors I work with seem to like most of the features of New Gradebook.  There is however, confusion about how Late submission point deduction works when the student submits late and should receive a grade less than perfect.  There is a write-up/suggestion currently in Cold Storage called https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/10618" modifiedtitle="true" title="Late submission deduction o.... 

Be warned, this issue requires a lot of math to understand.

Basically, the idea is:

The assignment to be graded was for a total of 49.58 points and if the assignment was submitted late, 25% was deducted.

When a late assignment was graded, the student did not make 100%, they only had 39.22 out of 49.58.  New Gradebook gives the score of 37.19. 

If you take 25% off the top grade of 49.58 then subtract 10.36, their grade should be 26.83. 

If you take 25% off the earned grade of 39.22 and the grade should be 29.42.

In response, Canvas Support provided me the following:

The way the late policy works is that if the student had submitted late but has attained higher than the
75% of the total grade, their score will be deducted to meet the score of 75% of the maximum that they can get.

In the example, as the student scored 39.22, but was late after a number of hours, the late policy comes into affect as they had scored above 75% mark, this will deduct their score from 39.22 to 37.19.

Students however that did not attain a grade higher than the 75% mark will only get what they have earned, regardless how late that they had submitted.

[kimberly_smith1]

One thing I noticed recently about sorting assignment columns is that the "sort by late" option will group all of the late assignments at the top of the column, but those are not then arranged in order of most/least late. Rather, it appears to group the late assignments and then order those by student name. I was a bit disappointed by this, since it would have been nice to see 'at a glance' who had submitted just a few minutes past the deadline versus those that were much later.