How do I hide grades that were previously posted in the Gradebook?

The Hide Grades feature only affects previously posted grades for an assignment. Best practice suggests that instructors should use this feature sparingly (i.e. to hide grades posted in error). To hide all grades upon entry until you are ready to post them for student view, please set a manual posting policy for your assignment.

 

If you need to hide grades or submission comments that have already posted for students to view, you can hide grades and/or comments in the gradebook or in SpeedGrader. This lesson explains how to hide grades for an assignment that has already been graded and is currently displaying grades to students.

The Hide Grades feature only affects previously entered grades and submission comments. If you want newly-entered grades to be hidden from students, you can set a manual posting policy for an assignment or set a manual posting policy for a course. Assignment-level posting policies override course-level policies for that assignment.

When you hide assignment grades and submission comments, the student grades page displays a visibility icon so students know the assignment grade is hidden. Students will be unable to view their grades, including grade and score changes, instructor submission comments, Canvas DocViewer comments, and curved grades for the assignment, until the assignment grades are posted. Additionally, students will not receive grade or instructor comment notifications until the assignment grades are posted.  In Gradebook exports and reports, hidden grades are part of unposted grades.

The Hide Grades feature should only be used to temporarily hide grades and comments from student view while grading is in progress. It should not be used to conceal grades for longer than reasonably necessary.

If you do not want students to be able to view their total grade, you can hide the total grade from students. Learn more about managing grade visibility in your course and view the interactive Student Grade Visibility Flowchart.

Notes:

  • 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.
  • Anonymous and moderated assignments are hidden by default. Moderated assignments cannot be unhidden until final grades have been posted.
  • Students can see peer review comments when assignment grades are hidden. However, students can only see instructor comments if the instructor posts grades or submission comments.
  • If you post grades for an assignment with varied due dates, all students will receive score results at the same time.
  • Viewing the Total Column in the Gradebook may be restricted when multiple grading periods are enabled.
  • In Classic Quizzes, students will not be able to see their quiz responses in Quizzes while quiz grades are hidden.
  • In New Quizzes, hiding grades will not affect a student's ability to access their quiz scores. Student visibility of New Quizzes scores must be managed from the quiz settings menu.
  • If you have set an automatic post policy for an assignment or for your course, manually hiding grades only hides assignment scores already in the gradebook. Any scores added to the gradebook after manually hiding grades follow the selected post policy and are visible to students.

Open Grades

Open Grades

In Course Navigation, click the Grades link.

Open Assignment Menu

Open Assignment Menu

Hover over the assignment column header and click the Options icon.

Open Hide Grades Tray

Open Hide Grades Tray

Click the Hide grades link.

View Other Messages

View Other Messages

If student grades and submission comments are already hidden, the Options menu displays that all grades are hidden [1]. To post student grades, click the Post grades link [2].

If there are no grades on the assignment, the Options menu will display that there are no grades to hide or post [3].

Select Sections

Select Sections

To hide grades for specific sections, click the Specific Sections button [1]. Then select the sections where you want to hide grades [2].

Note: You cannot hide grades for specific sections in anonymous assignments.

Hide Grades

Hide Grades

Click the Hide button.

View Gradebook

Assignments with hidden grades display the Visibility icon [1].

A Visibility icon also displays in the students' Total column [2]. This indicates that the final grade differs from the final grade that students can view in their Grades page.

To post assignment grades, click the assignment's Options icon [3].

Notes:

  • The Total column only displays graded assignments that have been hidden. Assignments that are set as Not Graded are not affected.
  • Viewing the Total Column in the Gradebook may be restricted when multiple grading periods are enabled.