Weighting Assignments Within an Assignment Group?

[agrant4]

For my courses, I weight each assignment equally. However, every assignment technically has different numbers of possible points.

It would save me a lot of time if I didn't have to figure out the percentages for each assignment before putting them into Gradebook. Thus, is there a way to equally weight each assignment within an assignment group despite them having differing point totals? 

[Chris_Hofer]

Hello  @agrant4  Welcome to the Canvas Community.  Thank you for posting your question.  To my knowledge, you cannot weight individual assignments within a weighted assignment group.  This seems to be confirmed in the first paragraph of the blue box of this Guide: How do I weight the final course grade based on assignment groups?

[agrant4]

I thought this was the case, but I wanted to check to make sure I wasn't missing anything! Thanks!

[orwinr]

Hi  @agrant4 , 

I have worked with lots of Canvas instructors in using weighted assignment groups. Why not just assign the same number of points to each assignment in the group? You could assign 10, 50 or 100, it doesn't matter as long as each assignment has the same number of points. Just a thought. Another idea, depending on how many assignments you have, is put each assignment in an assignment group. I worked with an instructor that only had 5 assignments in the course and they just put each assignment in its own assignment group, allowing for vastly different point totals per assignment but each assignment equating to the same percentage of the final grade. Just some thoughts.

[KBBC]

Hi Orwinr,

I have the same question as the original post. I have worked in the common learning systems, and all allow flexibility in weighting assignment individually, and within groups.

Your suggestion (assign the same number of points) is valid, but inconvenient, as the instructor has to grade, input grades into excel to convert the actual points to the arbitrary points required by Canvas (as you said, 10, 50, or 100), and then input into Canvas. It seems logical to me that Canvas should allow the actual points input directly, and then determine the weighting independent and via Canvas.

I don't think this is an unusual request. Kind an Apple vs Windows debate.

[mzkm]

I’m not understanding the complaint of having to manually calculated the adjusted scores if each assignment is worth the same.

In a discussion assignment or similar, just make them the same points.

In New Quizzes, the assignment score and the question scores are different. I keep everything 100pt, but if you made a New Quiz that was 50pt for the assignment and the questions totaled 10pt, then if a student scored a 50% (5/10) then they will get 25pt for the assignment.

I only understand your complaint if talking retroactively.

[KBBC]

I understand what you are saying, but there are many scenarios where this does not work nicely.

What about a scenario where three assignments are worth 7, 17, and 53 points, and I want them weighted 25%, 35%, and 40%? Applying your suggestion would make the points 25, 35, and 40, but the math is not user-friendly. I would need to record the grades in Excel and convert before uploading to Canvas.

The three other LMS I have worked on allow the freedom to input actual scores per assignment, and then determine the weight independent of score/points. I cannot imagine this is a difficult (nor uncommon) request for Canvas. Forcing instructors to “just make them the same points” is a lazy, inconvenient solution from a massive LMS.

I have students who are confused by grade book because I must make each assignment (and each part of an assignment, for multi-part assignments) it’s own “assignment group” to apply weighting.

[mzkm]

I’m still trying to grasp the scenario.

Are you saying you have instances where you have your category weights to have say summative exams worth 30% of the overall grade and inside that category you place the end of course final examination and you want it to be 20% of the overall grade, meaning every other summative exam summed together must only total 10% and their individual weights summing to 10% also get re-calculated? 
 
Or, in other words, you don’t want point-based assignments in weighted categories, you instead want weighted assignments where the categories are just tags?

I guess I can see that, it is just not how I grade. For instance, I have a HW+Classwork category worth 40% of the gradebook grade, and every single HW I assign is worth 100pt, and every single notebook check is worth 25pt. I do not worry what % of their total grade each notebook check is worth. However, I could see the benefit if I wanted to give a final exam and that if I wanted it to be worth say 20% of their semester grade, that unless I made that it’s own category worth 40% in the Q4 gradebook, that it indeed would take some calculations to figure out the point value if I placed it in my Test category that’s worth 35% of the grade.

I do not see how that effectively works though, as you would have to know the weights for every assignment beforehand to prevent severe gradebook recalculation (e.g.,  I set each notebook check to be worth 2% of the total grade, but then realize that I assigned more than anticipated and so I have to readjust them so that each is worth only 1% of the total grade).

[MatthewDunn]

Very good points.  Canvas is a horrible LMS.  I'm sorry that I'm forced to use it.

[BeckyAdams]

I have the same question, and my major concern is that I have this paired with an outside product, Pearson.  In that tool, the points for each assignment are determined by the number of questions I assign for each question.  Since this is an external tool, I can't simply weight each assignment equally.  Is there a way that each assignment within a group can be weighted equally rather than proportionally?  Thank you very much!

[StacyFrisbie]

I have the same issue.  In my course, I have 4 exams, weighted 15% each.  Then I have a final exam weighted as 25%.  My first exam only has 60 questions (because they take longer with calculations), 2nd-4th are 70 questions, and the final is 100 questions.  Students must achieve a 75% exam average in order to pass the course.  In our old LMS, I could set up the exams category this way and students could see their running exam average.  In Canvas, it's a real pain, because it assumes because exam 1 has fewer questions, it's worth less, when in reality, they are just more time-intensive.  Students also can't see their running total.

[mzkm]

You can set your course up to be 100 points for the whole grading period. Or 1000 points if you have a lot of small assignments.

So set your 4 exams to 15 (or 150) points and the final exam as 25 (or 250) points.

You can of course use a different multiplier.

And no, Canvas doesn’t treat more questions as more points. The “points” in the builder is different than the points in the initial setting page. You can do 20 “points” in a quiz but the actual gradebook pact can be say 50 points, and if a student gets 10/20 “points” then in the gradebook they get 25/50 points.

i personally have questions worth different “points” and it all adds to 100, yet the assignment points for the gradebook are only 20.

[ryanedw]

Many thanks to StacyFrisbie and mzkm, but could I ask mzkm to walk through this? It sounds like there's a way to reset each subassignment's point totals so that they represent the desired weightings relative to one another.

My problem: I've got two exams that are linked to Gradescope records, and their point totals are not the same, but I'd like them to have the same weight within a single Exams assignment group. The reason is that some students are out sick for one but not both of the in-person exams, and I'd like to excuse them and redistribute the grade weight to the other exam, not to all assignments.

With Gradescope-linked scores, the point total on the Canvas side can indeed be different, but then chaos ensues. I had the midterm exam incorrectly set to something like 50 points, when the Gradescope linked item had 60 possible points. Some students had more than 100% credit that way.

[StacyFrisbie]

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!  It worked!  You have helped a large college of nursing to improve our issues with the grade book, and for students to avoid frustration!  I profusely appreciate you taking the time to reply!