At the end of each semester, it’s worth revisiting a few best practices regarding the Canvas gradebook. The following strategies will improve instructor efficiency and ensure students have a more accurate and timely understanding of their grades.

Enter grades as soon as possible

A student’s grade in Canvas is calculated from the numeric scores that have been entered into the Canvas gradebook. If any single score has not been entered, the student will not truly know their standing in the course.

Therefore, is it imperative that instructors enter grades into the gradebook as soon as is reasonable, even if the grade earned is zero. Avoid leaving gradebook fields blank. A dash (-) in the gradebook is not the same as a zero (0). Failure to enter the zero will likely present the student with an inflated grade.

Unhide and post all grades

Canvas allows instructors to suppress the instantaneous broadcasting of grades. (There are legitimate reasons for doing this.) However, failure to “unsuppress” those grades will, again, give the student a false understanding of their current standing in the course. To ensure all information has been released to the student, be sure to “Post” the grades for all assignments.

For more information, refer to the KB article, Examining the Grade Posting Policy.

Quickly submit grades for large-enrollment courses

For instructors of large-enrollment courses, the manual entry of grades into Faculty Center can be tedious, time consuming, and fraught with the perils of human error. Your friendly Canvas support team has developed a tool to help with this scenario. 

The feature is called the Faculty Center Grade Prep Tool. The button to engage the feature is located in your Canvas gradebook. For more information, refer to the KB article, Faculty Center Grade Prep Tool and Final Grade Preparation.

“Message students who”

From within the Canvas gradebook, instructors can send targeted Canvas communications (written messages) to specific sub-groups of students. From within the gradebook, click the three-dot button (ellipsis) for any assignment, and select, “Message students who”.

That opens a new Canvas communication message, with a drop-down field that allows you to hone in on a few key subsets of students:

• Students who “Have not yet submitted” the assignment.
• Students who “Have submitted”.
• Students who have submitted but “Have not been graded”.
• Students who “Scored more than” a certain value.
• Students who “Scored less than” a certain value.

This is a great way to reach out to students who haven’t yet completed an assignment or taken a quiz, or provide constructive feedback to those who have.

A little attention to the Canvas gradebook now can go a long way toward a smoother end to the semester. Keeping grades current, making sure they’re visible to students, and taking advantage of Canvas tools can help reduce confusion and make final grade preparation easier for everyone.