Points - What are they?

[StepLAWTHE]

What are Points in Assignments and why do we have to use them if we are wanting to add letter grades to each individual assignment as well as the total grade? My school and I are new to canvas and I can't find an explanation to what the points are and why they are needed, only how to change/edit these. 

We want to be able to use the rubric to select a/b/c grades and then add a letter grade not points. Then we want to ensure those letter grades calculate to a final letter grade. 

[bengaynor]

At present Canvas only knows how to calculate grades based on percentages. You/your school can define the percentage-to-letter grade equivalencies in the course grading scheme. When you assign points, it calculates the grade based on the percentage earned, so on a 10-point assignment, 8/10 would be an 80%, and whatever you define as the corresponding letter grade is what shows up (likely a B/B-). 

According to the roadmap, they are currently working on letter-grade only solutions, though I don't know what those will ultimately look like/how they'll calculate final grades.

[StepLAWTHE]

Hello Bengaynor, 

Thank you for your reply and the link to the roadmap 😊

We are a school in QLD Australia and we need to use letter grading as we are a state school under the Department of Education. If I have two assignments which contribute to the overall grade of the module, and one is worth 70% and the other is 30% of their overall mark, would I still assign the 10 points to each? And then just assign different weight groups?

[bengaynor]

I would create an assignment group for each marking period (if you have them). In that assignment group, place all of the assignments for the marking period. If there is a 70% and a 30% assignment, either make them 70 points and 30 points, respectively, or 7 points and 3 points, or 700 points and 300 points... you get the idea. This also works if you don't use marking periods and the entire course is based on these two assignments.

[KarlijnvanA]

Hi all,

Can someone help me out? Because I think i made a variation of wat @bengaynor offered here, but it's not working as I expected it to work.

I have 2 assignments, both 10 points.

1 assignments resides in a group worth 20%, the other one in an 80% group.

For the 20% assignment I got score 1 out of 10. For the 80% assignment I got a score of 6 out of 10

Based on what I think @bengaynor says, I would expect the end grade for this course to be 50% based on ((8*6)+(2*1)/10)=50%. But Canvas says the end result is 53.2%. 

On the other hand, if i don't use weighted groups and just add 20 points and 80 point towards the assignments, it does seem to work.

Everytime I think I get this, it throws me a curveball 😞

[Ron_Bowman]

@KarlijnvanA -

What you are describing does not make sense.  I believe (like you think) you should be seeing 50%.  

You laid out the simple test case, but are you sure everything is as you state?  There has to be something somewhere causing the percentage to be off.

I tried your scenario out in my playground and got the 50%.  

Ron

[KarlijnvanA]

I think you are right @Ron_Bowman , it seems to be working fine in all other courses. So I probably did something wrong 🙂

[Ron_Bowman]

@KarlijnvanA -

I am not sure about the following, but I have a very vague recollection of a thread 1 to 1.5 years ago where someone had a similar situation.  If I recall correctly - which is highly suspect - it had something to do with copying an assignment from one course to another and somehow settings (i.e. scores) were going with it though hidden - it was something really strange.  I am just curious if this occurred in a brand new course with no imports or if you imported the assignments?  If they were imported, I would delete them out and create brand new ones and see if the situation persists.

The other thing to look at would be  a complete export of the gradebook to see if the csv file shows any information on stray grades.

Ron

[SusanNiemeyer]

Points are very convenient. 

• Maybe, you have an assignment worth 20 points. (16/20 points = 80% = B) 
• Maybe, you want to have a quiz with 10 questions. (8/10 points = 80% = B)
• Maybe, your students will take a chapter exam worth 60 points. (48/60 points = 80% = B)

The Canvas Gradebook is great in that it will tally up the points and come up with a percentage. Then all you have to do is line up the percentages with letter grades.

Also, check into Assignment Group Weighting. For example, I have set up a class's grading policy this way:

• Weekly Homework: 40%
• Weekly Quizzes: 10%
• Exam 1: 15%
• Exam 2: 15%
• Final Exam: 20%

[Ron_Bowman]

@StepLAWTHE -

If I understand you correctly, you plan on using rubrics to assign the grades for an assignment.  For that rubric, you would prefer that the when a criteria rating is picked that it be A, B, C, D or F.  Then the overall grade would be based of all the criteria scores and show as A,B,C,D or F.

Furthermore, for the entire class all assignment grades (as letters) are used to determine the overall course grade shown as A,B,C,D or F.

if that is what you want, that is not possible to do in Canvas.  Canvas needs numbers in order to compute scores.  numerical scores can then be converted to letter grades however you want to do that.  it is probably possible to setup a course such that letter grades are used(visible), but numbers will have to be used in the background.  Maybe someone has done something like this for a course already.

(following is a start of something that gets confusing quickly)  However, You can somewhat simulate that effect in how you set up grading.  You would need 5 ratings for each criteria with point values of 4,3,2,1 and 0 (representing A,B,C,D,F) Then for the assignment you would select display grade as a letter - and you will need a grading scheme for the assignment that will assign a letter based on the numerical score earned for the assignment.  

I'll stop there,  because it is getting confusing to me, and I would actually need to create an entire course setup to try it out with grading of various assignments and display of the grade values.  Everyone would still see numerical values in places, but also the letter grades in places as well.

Ron

[TrishaMeyer1]

Hi @StepLAWTHE ,

You may want to explore Grading Schemes. If your institutions allows you to do so, you can adjust your grading scheme to display something other than the traditional percentage and/or letter grade (A-F). You can adjust this at the course level and per assignment (the Display as option). 

It took me a while to figure out how to display scores in different ways, and it's too complicated to explain here. But you can start with this Canvas guide and explore the topic on your own. The first step is to determine if you have the rights to change these settings.

How do I use grading schemes in a course?

Note that I am not contradicting previous posters - Canvas does always use points to calculate scores. What you are able to manipulate is what shows up in the gradebook for students. Once you set your scale, you can type in a letter grade (e.g. B+) instead of a number of points. Canvas will assign the highest point value for that letter grade according to the scale you set, but you can set up your gradebook so that the students see the letters. (I think the total points will always display, though. It's explained in one of the guides on this topic.)