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In the Total column how do I see what the total possible points is?
(Total column in the grade book).
If you have a points based gradebook then go to the Grades page, scroll to the Total column, hover over where it says Total and there will be a pull down arrow. When you do this you'll get the option to "switch to points."
Side note, if you want to know the total points possible for each student - so where their percent grade is coming from - then you can leave it as a percentage and just mouse over a student's percent grade in the total column.
I did that. I still don't see total possible points anywhere.
On Tue, Aug 22, 2017 at 1:07 PM, stefaniesanders <instructure@jiveon.com>
@pscott1 ,
Were you able to find an answer to your question? I am going to go ahead and mark this question as answered because there hasn't been any more activity in a while so I assume that you have the information that you need. If you still have a question about this or if you have information that you would like to share with the community, by all means, please do come back and leave a comment. Also, if this question has been answered by one of the previous replies, please feel free to mark that answer as correct.
Robbie
I don't think Canvas has total possible points in their software. This is a big deal as I have to enter grades through points in my grading system at school.
In my school grading system that is not Canvas I want to be able to enter the points earned and the total points possible for each module by each student. I don't see how I can use Canvas with my school grading system without the solution mentioned above.
Hi Matt,
Could you use an assignment group for each module, to track the percent complete? Or use the progress tracker? Or do you need to score each module specifically (and not assignments/quizzes), and separately?
Canvas does not export the student's total points or the total points possible. It varies from student to student because of excused, dropped, or unsubmitted assignments, so there is not just one number for the entire course.
Canvas does make available total course grade (through the API or through New Analytics and potentially some other places). The score for each of the assignment groups can be obtained by downloading the gradebook.
If you are using a weighted gradebook, then the concept of total points (for the course) is meaningless and Canvas doesn't give it to you. If you are not using a weighted gradebook, then it will also give you the totals for the entire course.
It would be very convenient for instructors to be able to see their total points possible for the majority of the class as it's meant to be, excluding special cases like dropped assignments and so on. Canvas should make this denominator easier to see at a glance. When designing a course, it is helpful to have several checkpoints where we can tell if we are proceeding according to plan, or if we've accidentally missed something. The grade total is one of those checkpoints. For example, if I see it is set to 900 possible points, and I meant for there to be 1,000 possible points, then I know I've missed something somewhere. I used the denominator feature a lot in Blackboard, and it was very helpful. It was a simple hover over the total column. I was dumbfounded when I saw that it doesn't exist in Canvas (without some difficult digging.)
Click the Display drop down menu [1] and check the box next to Points possible [2]. Step Three: Click anywhere on the screen to collapse the drop down menu. A row located below the last student titled Points Possible appears.
Agree completely - this is come up several times from faculty as we have switched from Blackboard to Canvas.
After much searching, I too am incredulous that there's no straightforward way to check total points possible in a course. That seems like a basic function that should appear in the Gradebook by default. When I build courses in Blackboard, one of my final steps is always to view the gradebook and verify that the total possible points match what's in the syllabus. Omitting this function seems like a recipe for error. With all the discussion around this, why hasn't Canvas added it yet??
One thing you can do is use the Student View tool to have a Test Student row in the gradebook. Then enter perfect points for your test student for all assignments (you might have to publish unpublished assignments) and then use the tip Kona provided of clicking on the final grade cell for the Test Student to see how many total points are available in your class.
I too, would like an easier way to look up the entire class total points with the points the students earned. I found that you can locate the total points by going into the gradebook, click on the students name and a pop up on the right shows up. Click on grades and it will it will show you the students earned points and the total class points. This works great, but it is time consuming with large classes.
Great.
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