Ungraded Assignments

In Angel, ungraded assignments caused significant confusion among faculty. Faculty needed to submit a zero if an assignment was not turned in. The situation is the SAME in Canvas.

Michigan Tech put together a great explanation of the issue:

It’s important for faculty to understand how the Canvas gradebook treats ungraded assignments. By default, ungraded assignments are NOT included in any assignment total calculations. This means that when assignments are left as “ungraded” (shown with a ‘-‘ dash), they are treated as if they never happened. At first glance, this may seem problematic, but Canvas is really designed to allow faculty to enter assignments well ahead of when grades exist. Many faculty members enter assignments for the whole semester right at the start, which builds a nice calendar and set of reminders for students as due dates approach. Not including upcoming ungraded assignments is done by design, but Canvas assumes that for any past assignments some score will be entered – even if that score is zero.

Some of you may have noticed an option called “Treat ungraded as zeros” on the gradebook Options menu (gear tool) in your gradebook. It should be emphasized that while choosing this option does show the INSTRUCTOR how things would look if all ungraded assignments were zeros, it does NOT “stick” when you leave the gradebook, or affect what is seen by students. It’s therefore important to actually enter a zero grade when a student doesn’t complete an assignment, rather than to leave it ungraded.

"Please – don’t give students a false sense of well-being by leaving blanks in the gradebook when assignments aren’t submitted. And please don’t enable them to finish a course with a much higher grade than they deserve. Enter a zero until the assignment is submitted and graded, so (Canvas) can provide an accurate representation of the pulse, or standing, of students in our classes."

- Michael Zemany (Champlain College Program Director, Healthcare MGMT)

Please watch this video which explains how to address the issue of ungraded assignments.