Question using Gradebook

[heathermilam]

I published a test which my students have already taken, but before I published it I forgot to assign the correct points for each question. I have since went back into the quiz and assigned each question the correct amount of points. However, the Speedgrader grade is not showing up in my gradebook and it won't let me manually put in the grade either. I am researching with no luck!

[James · Accepted solution]

 @heathermilam  

Changing point values after the students have taken the quiz is problematic. There are some things people should and shouldn't do to make fixing it easier, but people don't know that until they've already done the thing that makes it hard to fix.

This lesson from the Canvas Instructor Guide explains more about it: What options can I use to regrade a quiz in a course? 

Part of the notes at the top of that lesson says:

Additionally, changing the point value for a quiz question also does not trigger a quiz regrade; the student's submitted quiz will show the updated point value, but the current grade won't change in the Gradebook.

Canvas' suggestion to let the students retake the quiz is laughable to faculty.

Make sure you've refreshed the gradebook page as it is not automatically updated as you change things in SpeedGrader (grades in both places are determined when the page loads and changes made to one don't reflect in the other until your reload the second source).

I am not sure why it will not let you change the grade in the gradebook, but that may be a good thing. The way the lesson from the Guide reads, changes to the quiz won't reflect in changes to the gradebook so you might want to go back and make the change in the gradebook. I do know that, for normal times, changing the grade in the gradebook for a quiz updates the fudge points for the quiz. I am not sure about here where the point values have changed, it may end up wiping out the changes you've made to the quiz in SpeedGrader. I just don't know and I'm hesitant to try something that could mess up a lot of hard work.

A safe way to handle works best if you are using a weighted gradebook.

1. Clearly communicate to the students ahead of time what is happening so they don't freak out. I'm a big proponent of transparency -- I screwed up, I'm taking ownership of that, and here's what I'm doing to make it right.
2. Make an assignment in the same assignment group as the exam. If the actual exam was "Exam 4" you might call this one "Adj Exam 4" or "Exam 4 Adj." Make it worth the points that the exam should be worth. Make it no submission.
3. Transfer the correct grades into Adj Exam 4.
4. Create an assignment group called "No Grade" or "Administrative" or something else. Make it worth 0% of the course grade.
5. Move the original Exam 4 into the "No Grade" assignment group. The point values quizzes are determined by the questions within the quiz. You should not go through and set every question to 0 points because you won't know how the students did. There is no option to "do not count towards final score" with quizzes like there is with regular assignments. Moving it into an assignment group worth 0% of the grade allows you to keep the responses but not count towards the grade.

Doing it this way allows you to keep any rules about dropping grades that you might have in place. 

Some people might rename the bad exam to something like "Bad Exam 4" and then name the new one "Exam 4." I didn't suggest that because you may want to copy this course to use in the future and you might forget what had happened and think you should delete the bad exam.