Can canvas handle extra credit yet? Frustrated.

[fcurry1]

My students regularly feel that they are doing worse than they are because Canvas doesn't seem to have a method of setting an auto-graded quiz to be extra credit. 

Has Canvas fixed this, and I am just missing it?  There have been promises that this feature was coming since we first adopted Canvas many  years ago.

Extra credit is a basic feature of most classes.  If there is still no way to do this, then it is unbelievable if Canvas still doesn't have a way of handling this smoothly.

If the Canvas team is reluctant to add this, can they could at least remove a check within the grade book so that we can enter negative scores?  That would allow us a hack to fix it, even if it is an ugly solution.  [This is probably just a matter of removing one line of code that checks for negative points.]

So my questions:

• If this feature already exists, could somebody tell me how to access it?
• If this feature "is coming" could somebody on the Canvas team give me a non-fictional date as to when to expect it?  It has been more than 4 years. 

I remember when we were deciding whether to go with Canvas or Blackboard, and I was on the Canvas side of things.  But Blackboard has this feature--so I might have been on the wrong side of things.

4 years is enough time to bring AAA titles and enterprise-level software from conception to release.  A product with state-wide contracts should be able to handle a basic feature like this.

[gnoack]

I don't know of any automatic way to do this, but any quiz can be graded manually with the speed grader and you can give more points to any question to give student more points than the total. 

I'm not sure what you mean by negative scores, do you mean making the quiz worth negative totals?

One workaround is to add an extra-credit column to your gradebook to enter extra credit points. I've done this and it was a pretty simple solution that worked. 

[fcurry1]

Ideally I would like to be able to mark a quiz/assignment or individual questions as extra credit.

Failing that, if Canvas would allow me to create an assignment with a negative score, I could create a grade book column called "EC correction" or something and make it worth -X where X is the number of points I offer in extra credit throughout the semester.  This would change the points possible Canvas uses and correct the percent.  Though this hack isn't the best way to do things, even this is prevented by Canvas.

The problem isn't making an EC column.  But I have some EC quizzes---they are worth a particular number of points because they are multiple choice and auto-grade.  There is no way that I know of to tell Canvas not to use those points when calculating percentages for students.

As a result, students think that their scores are lower than they actually are.

[gnoack]

Those features would be nice and make it easier. 

I'd have to see the math with the negative points.  I've always just added points to the total points possible. 

Would you be able to accomplish what you want using assignment groups and weighted grade groups?  You would have one assignment group for extra credit and make that group more than 100% of the total weighting.  So you could have all assignments in one group and the group weight is 100%. This would just add up your points for a total.  You could then have a second group weighted 2% or whatever.  I did test it and it does give the student grades a boost.  The math is a bit different than if you just count points, but it would be automated if your quizzes were in that group. 

[fcurry1]

That might work, but it would be a mess and just begging for errors.  It would also make it difficult to alter EC assignments because I would have to recalculate the weightings.

This is a basic--truly fundamental--feature that Canvas should have. 

I was hoping that maybe they finally added it and I just didn't know how to access it.

This really shouldn't be that troublesome of a feature to add, and it should be high priority.  Offering extra credit is hardly an uncommon practice.

[gnoack]

Alternatively, you could put the autograded quizzes in an assignment group with a weighted group of 0%. This would remove the points from your total.  Then you could add the points back in to the other group. 

[gnoack]

Yes, being able to mark a couple of questions in an exam as extra credit, or just a checkbox for an assignment to exclude the points possible from the course total would be a much needed feature.  Unfortunately, it's not there yet.