In Canvas, some of the default settings to calculate the total grade in your course may be different than what you're expecting. We highly recommend checking these settings prior to your course starting in order to verify your grades will calculate correctly.
- Apply missing submission policy
- Change weighting of grades by assignment group
- Display total grade as points instead of percentage
- Additional resources
Apply missing submission policy
How do I apply a Missing Submission policy in the Gradebook?
The default behavior for Canvas to calculate the total grade is to ignore any student assignments that are missing. This may cause confusion/inadvertent calculations in your gradebook as the total grade may list 100%, even though the student is missing an assignment.
You can change this behavior by following the steps below and setting the default grade. In most cases, instructor usually set this to 0% to reflect no points earned for that missing assignment.
1. Click 'Grades'.
2. Click the gear wheel in the upper-right hand corner.
3. Click the first checkbox, "Automatically apply grades for missing submissions."
4. Enter 0 or whatever automatic grade percentage you wish to apply.
5. Click the blue 'Update' button.
Change weighting of grades by assignment group
How do I weight the final course grade based on assignment groups?
If you want to weight grades based on the specific assignment type in your course, follow the steps outlined above.
Display total grade as points instead of percentage
How do I use the Total column in the Gradebook?
If you’re interested in displaying the total grade as point values, follow the steps above Display as Points. Please note, viewing total grades as a point value is available only if you use unweighted assignment groups in your course. When assignment groups are weighted, points cannot be displayed for the total grade.