[Gradebook Settings] Allow discussion to not count towards final grade

[lshulman]

Assignments allow for us to check "Do not count this assignment towards the final grade" while still entering a grade/points. This allows for "progress report" grade. 

I would love to see this option added to quizzes and discussions as well!

For now, all I can do for discussions that are not graded is to make it worth zero points and mark "complete/incomplete" and manually enter comments that might include a letter grade. But, in the end, I want to average all those letter grades to come out to one general "discussion" grade for the entire semester. At this point, I have to figure that average manually and manually enter that grade. Canvas could do this math for us, if only we could enter grades for individual discussions that "Do not count this discussion towards the final grade"

[awilliams]

Hi  @lshulman , thanks for taking the time to make this suggestion! I believe this is already possible with discussions using by not setting the discussion as "Graded" as described in How do I create a discussion as an instructor? and I believe you could use a Survey to have students respond to quiz questions without being graded, How do I create a survey in my course? 

Alternatively, if you are using weighted grades, you could create an assignment group worth 0 points and put any assignments you do not want to count towards the final grade in this assignment group. Since this is already possible I am going to mark this idea for archival. 

[lshulman]

Uh, "weighted" will not work for me. That will not allow me to include "extra credit" and "late penalty" columns and have those points included in the point totals.

And using a survey instead of a quiz won't work because survey questions do not indicate right or wrong answers.

And not setting the discussion as "Graded" means we cannot enter any points! Thus feedback in terms of a grade (that is not included in total points) is not possible.

The point about discussions is that I DO want to "grade" each discussion, but only for the sake of a "progress report" for the individual discussion while not having that grade included in the point total. At end of the course I would simply average those "progress report" grades to end up with a single discussion grade for the entire course. I have a grading policy ("Fair F" = 50% not zero) where if a student participated in (for instance) half the discussions, I would not give an F for discussion. If they did excellent (A quality) discussion then they should end up with a C. But if each of (say) 10 discussions = 10 points each, half of those at 10 points only=50/100 = F. Not what I would give if I were doing the math.

Again "weighted" grading might solve the problem but creates other problems (not being able to include extra credit or late penalty points)

- Laura Shulman

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[Stef_retired]

 @lshulman ‌, thanks for your response. We've opened this idea for voting as a request to have a "Do not count this assignment towards the final grade" check box in the settings for graded discussions similar to the one already available for assignments (including New Quizzes).

[Steven_S]

 @lshulman I noticed you mentioned that weighted assignment groups cannot be used with extra credit or late penalties, but I do that every semester. 

In my class late penalties are deducted from the individual late assignment, and in the new gradebook it can even be automated for online submissions.  That part works the same regardless of assignment groups.  It is also possible to deduct points when grading a rubric (even with negative numbers) but the built in late policy makes that so much easier!

I allow extra credit on various assignments by awarding more points than the assignment value, and that also is not influenced by assignment groups.  Just attach a rubric with more points than the quiz is worth, and do not choose to make those values match when the error pops up.

I allow replacement assignments as another form of extra credit, and the assignment groups actually facilitate that.  I just put all of the main and replacement assignments into the same group, and program that group to drop the same number of assignments as there are extra credit opportunities.  (This works best if all the assignments in one group, including the extra credit, are worth the same number of points.  If you publish these at the beginning of the semester a default grade of zero should be entered so that the extra credit starts out as dropped until the students earn an extra credit grade.)

I also allow bonus assignments.  Those assignments have a value of zero and are added into an assignment group with other assignments.  For example, I ask students to write a book summary (2% of their final grade), and then a rough draft of their term paper (4% of their final grade), a bonus peer review of an anonymous rough draft (2% extra credit), and a final paper (14% of their final grade).  So I put the 100 point book summary in a 2% assignment group along with a zero point peer review assignment.  Then when I grade a student who earns 100 points on the book summary and also 100 points on the peer review would have a 200% average in that group.  Since the group is weighted at 2% that student has a potential final grade of 102%, which does not change the low end of the range for which I assign an A.

That is a lot, when your original problem was wanting to average discussion grades with extra credit and late penalties. 

• You can put all the discussions into an assignment group and an average will be calculated even if you do not weight your groups, but then the grades you enter will count towards the total displayed.
• Although you could set the discussion group to be worth 0%, weighting grades allow you to set its value as exactly what it is worth, so if the discussion average will be 10% of the final grade, you can weight the group at 10%.
• Late penalties and extra credit will work with the weighted assignment groups as described above.  It is also possible to make an assignment group for bonus and penalty points. 
  • Just make sure your other groups total 100%, and set the weight for the bonus point group for the percent over 100% for which you want extra credit to count. (For example if you want a possible extra credit of 5% and possible penalty of 5%, set the weight of this group to 5% so that your assignment groups total 105%)
  • Then your extra credit can have a normal point value (not a zero point assignment) because it will be adding points above 100%.  (Try not to enter grades for any bonus assignment before every assignment group contributing to the main 100% of the grade has at least one graded assignment.  Then pre-enter zeros for ALL bonus assignments, even those not yet due, before entering any actual bonus grades.)
  • Add zero point assignments to the same group for any penalty you are tracking.  These will only work if you also have at least one graded assignment worth points (not a zero point assignment), and so the penalties entered will not be deducted from the final grade until you have at least entered a zero for one of the bonus point assignments in this group.

I know it's not lite on set up, but in the end canvas should do more than just calculate the discussion average; it should also apply that percentage correctly to the final grade.

[Steven_S]

Also, if you drop the three lowest scores for the discussion assignment group in your example, you can achieve the fair F you describe.  (50/100=50% but 50/70=71%)  It will also raise the average of some students who did better than an F by also dropping three of their lowest scores, but it seems fair (to me) to offer equivalent adjustments to all students.

[Steven_S]

Even with all the work-arounds for making the gradebook work, this idea worth adding because of the label created for students when "do not count" is checked.  That label is the most effective way of communicating to students that something that we are tracking in the gradebook does not count towards the final grade.  There are other work arounds for that, but it would be better to be consistent and always show the same label for every assignment that does not count.

[lshulman]

"not setting the discussion as "Graded" " will mean the discussion then does not show up in the grade book. I want to easily see if students have done a discussion or not. The grade book seems to be the easiest "one stop" location to see what students have and have not yet done. Also, if I want to leave feedback on the quality of work students have done in discussion, that can be done as a "comment" but ONLY if the discussion appears in the grade book. 

To get a discussion to appear in the grade book it has to be marked as a "graded" discussion. I am asking that we have the option to say these "graded" discussions "do not count toward total"

[lshulman]

apparently barely anyone has voted on this. Maybe it is just that not many people actual saw this idea?

[janellal]

I actually would like this feature too. Because I do practice activities for my Eng 1A students, I usually have to create it through "discussions" so that students are able to give feedback and interact with each other online. I want these activities to be "graded" because I want all my students to them, but I don't want these activities to count towards their final grades in the class since they are for practice. I know that I can just put them as regular discussions or put a 0 for grade, but I feel that if I do that students will be less inclined to do the activities if they feel that it is not in some way graded or credited to their participation in the class.

[hburgiel]

I want this feature to.  I need the discussion to show up on the student's to-do list, which means I need a due date.  To get a due date, it has to be "Graded".  If it's Graded, it has to go in the gradebook.

Am I missing something?  Is there another way to get the forum onto the to-do list?