[Assignments] Allowing for Sections to Have Separate Assignment Group Weights

[J_Stallsworth]

Current Limitation: 

Currently, Canvas does not allow admins and instructors to weight (i.e. change the percentage of the assignment group) in separate course sections. The current solution is for admins to create an entirely new course shell so the different group weights can be applied. This can get confusing for faculty when trying to juggle multiple course shells for the same course title and prefix. 

Example Situation Modeling The Limitation:

I have a clinical course where enrolled students sometimes take a different number of credit hours for the same course. Student A might take the course at two credit hours, while student B may take it for three credit hours. Therefore, the assignments need to have different group weights to model the difference in the number of credit hours based on university policy.

Proposed Solution:

When creating sections in Canvas, allow the instructor to create separate (weighted) assignment groups for each section. That way, there is no need to create multiple course shells for the same course. This would save a lot of time for instructors (especially those in research and clinical courses where students are not all taking the same number of credit hours) so that they can use one shell, and just grade in the separate sections. 

[J_Stallsworth]

One of my colleagues made a great point that I had neglected to think about. Another benefit of this would be for those classes that are a mix of undergraduate and graduate students. There are often differences in how the assignments are weighted based on enrollment type, as well as differences in the number of assignments for each enrollment type.  

[bsr]

Oh no. I may be in trouble. I just tried to do this in my shell for this fall by creating assignment groups at different weights with duplicate assignments in them. I was counting on an "empty" assignment group for any given section just not figuring in. Will that not work? I mean, it's a total pain in the rear, and I'd rather be able to assign weights from within the assignment itself, but is this whole shell going to explode on me?

Example of what I just did and may regret terribly:

Assignment	Weight for Section A	Weight for Section B
Exams	50	90
Participation	10	10
Lab quizzes	40	0

Assignment group: Exams, Section A (50%) - Everything in this group assigned only to A
Assignment group: Exams, Section B (90%) - Everything in this group assigned only to B
Assignment group: Participation, all sections (10%) - Everything in this group assigned to "everyone"
Assignment group: Lab Quizzes, Section A (40%) - Everything in this group assigned only to A
Assignment group: Lab Quizzes, Section B (0%)

[James]

@bsr 

Canvas is not designed to handle assignment groups with different weights, but it may be salvageable. I'll let you decide how much regret you want to experience.

The problem is when students from both sections are assigned the work and the percentages for that assignment group are different.

The problem here are the exams. Since Participation is 10% for both groups, that's not a problem.

Solution 1: Separate Exams

If you had Exams A (50%), Participation (10%), Lab Quizzes (40%), and Exams B (90%) and students could take either exam A or exam B but not both, then it could work.

Canvas doesn't factor assignment groups that are unused into the grades. This means that if you made sure to only assign Exams A, Participation, and Lab Quizzes to section A and you made to sure to only assign Exams B and participation to section B, then the weights for each section would add to 100% and it would work like you want. If you mess up and allow a student to submit anything from the other group, then it falls apart unless you go in and enter an EX (excused) grade for them.

The problem are the exams. If you make it worth 50% of the grade, then section A will work but section B will have just Exams (50%) and Participation (10%). Since that only adds up to 60%, what you really get are Exams = 50/60 = 83.3% and Participation = 10/60 = 16.7% of the grade.

If you are using New Quizzes, then you could duplicate the exam so that there is a copy in Exams A and a copy in Exams B. Duplicating exams with Classic Quizzes is a challenge (it can be done, but it's not easy).

Solution 2: Shared Exams

Another option is to create an Exams B category worth 40% of the grade. That is If you had Exams A (50%), Participation (10%), Lab Quizzes (40%), and Exams B (40%).

Students in section A would get Exams A (50%), Participation (10%), and Lab Quizzes (40%) to get their 100%. Students in section B would get Exams A (50%), Participation (10%), and Exams B (40%) to get their 100%.

In the Exams B assignment group, you have fake assignments (no submission) where you duplicate the exam scores from the Exams A category. If you have any rules like dropping the lowest exam, then you would need to apply it to both assignment groups.

Another way to do this is to create a single assignment in the Exam B group and copy the total percentage from the Exam A assignment group into it. Don't apply any rules (it wouldn't apply since there's only one assignment) but any drop rules would be factored in to the Exam A total grade that you're copying over.

You can use percentages and not points since the points within the assignment groups don't matter between assignment groups, just within that particular assignment group. That is, if you have four exams, each worth 100 points in Exam A group, then you could have a single assignment worth 100% in Exam B group. If a student has 300 out of 400 in Exam A, then that's 75% and you would put 75% into the item for the Exam B assignment group. Whether you have 300/400 or 75/100, you still have 75% for the assignment group. Since Exam B is a mirror or Exam A, you take the 50% for Exam A plus the 40% for Exam B to get the 90% for Exams.

If you use this approach, be sure to communicate to the students the purpose of the "duplicate" assignments and that their grade may be incorrect for a little bit until you go through and transfer the grades.

[bsr]

Thanks, James!

It sounds like what I have done will work. I have already made duplicates of the quizzes/assignments for the different assignment groups, and it is precisely my intention to assign the exams within one assignment group only to the sections that get that group's weighting, so they won't show up for the other students in the other sections. As you point out, duplicating exams and assignments is a total pain, but I've slogged through that part already (worse than my example, because there are actually three different sections with different weights, and up to five assignment groups per section). My exams have to be separate, because I have undergrads and grads with different versions of the exam, and the grads have extra assignments that the undergrads don't have. But some things (e.g. lab assignments) are shared and weighted the same. 

As for regret, the set-up for weighted assignments with assignments in some groups assigned only to specific sections wouldn't be regrettable at all if duplicating things were easier, but I'm not touching New-Next Quizzes with a 12 foot pole and a can of Raid! I'd much rather put this bit of work in up front than manage three different course sites all semester. 

[rwnaressi]

Hi,

I often teach cross-listed classes that have both graduate students and undergraduate students. Most assignments and projects are common to both, but some are specific to graduate students. I would like to have two different grade weightin, one for each group. For example, the midterm is worth 15% for undergraduate students; but would be worth only 10% for graduate students, because they would have an extra graduate level assignment that is worth 5%.

Currently I can only create one weighting that is the same for all students. It would be great to be able to create two columns under grading. One named "Graduate" and the other "Undergraduate", and then there specify a different percentage for each assignment/test/project that is unique to each group of students.

There seems to be a workaround by copying the assignments and changing questions points, but that is just too much work for what should be very simple.

Please consider!

Best,