Grading in Canvas

Learning Intentions

Participants who complete this module will gain an understanding of the Canvas gradebook, speedgrader, DocViewer within speedgrader, how to passback scores to Skyward, and how to check student work for plagiarism. 

 Success Criteria

Participants will know they are successful when they can:

• navigate around the Canvas gradebook.
• view student submissions and scores within their Canvas gradebook.
• passback scores from the Canvas gradebook to Skyward.
• enable Unicheck to assignments to check for plagiarism. 

Canvas Gradebook

Task: Watch the video below and try out some of the gradebook features shared. 

The Gradebook helps instructors easily view and enter grades for students. Depending on the Grade display type, grades for each assignment can be viewed as points, percentage, complete or incomplete, GPA scale, or letter grade.

Only graded assignments, graded discussions, graded quizzes, and graded surveys that have been published display in the Gradebook. Not Graded assignments are not included.

The default view in the Gradebook is to view all students at a time, but you can also view students individually in the Gradebook Individual View. However, Individual View currently does not support settings and options from the Gradebook.

310 - Gradebook Overview (Links to an external site.) from Instructure Canvas Community (Links to an external site.) on Vimeo (Links to an external site.).

Canvas SpeedGrader

Task: Make sure you can access your Speedgrader. Even though you don't have anything to grade yet, practice accessing it in your gradebook. 

SpeedGrader allows you to view and score different types of assignments quickly and easily. The teacher can provide feedback, make audio or text comments, and annotate student assignments. Watch the following video to get an overview of how SpeedGrader works:

524 - SpeedGrader™ Overview (Links to an external site.) from Instructure Community (Links to an external site.) on Vimeo (Links to an external site.).

Accessing Speedgrader

To access Canvas's SpeedGrader while on the main course page, click on the assignment/quiz/discussion you wish to grade under "To Do." This will take you to SpeedGrader. You can also access SpeedGrader from an assignment.  While viewing an assignment, a SpeedGrader button will appear on the right side of the screen.  

Navigating Speedgrader

Navigate SpeedGrader and take advantage of all it can do by using the tools below:

1. Student List:  Navigate through students using the arrows or the pull down list to find students quickly. Students whose assignment has been graded all have a green checkmark by their name.  Students who have submitted an assignment which has not been graded will have a checkmark box located by their name.  Finally students who have not submitted an assignment will have a a lightly shaded checkmark box.
2. Assignment Name:  Displays the assignment and due date. 
3. Submission Information:  Submission information includes the date and time the assignment was turned in.  If the assignment has been submitted multiple times, the teacher can see each submission.  If the assignment was turned in late, a message will be displayed under the date that states, "Note: This submission was LATE."
4. Grade:  Enter the student's score here.  If the assignment has a rubric a box will be under the grading area.  To use the rubric click on the box and select the appreciate criteria.  Canvas will input the students score based on the rubrics grading scale. The score will save automatically once entered.  
5. Comments: SpeedGrader allows for a variety of ways for teachers to offer feedback to students. The teacher and student can communicate back and forth via text, audio, and video.  Be sure to submit the comment before going to the next student.
6. Body of Assignment:  View the students assignment.

SpeedGrader Settings

Complete the following steps to choose your settings for SpeedGrader:

1. Click on the gear icon in the upper left hand corner of SpeedGrader to access helpful settings that allow you to customize how you see your students and their submissions.
2. Many teachers like to select to organize assignment submissions by submission status. This choice places ungraded submissions at the top of the list and graded assignments at the bottom. It can help you see what still needs to be done for that assignment.

SpeedGrader DocViewer

Task: Watch the video below and familiarize yourself with how Speedgrader DocViewer works.

Another great feature of SpeedGrader is DocViewer that allows you to comment directly onto documents submitted for assignments. Students are able to see your comments and annotations right within Canvas. Watch the following video to learn more:

Canvas Passback

Task: Secondary teachers - review the procedures below on how to set up and use Canvas passback. Check one of your assignments that you can created to make sure it is set up to passback to Skyward. (Elementary teachers skip this task.)

Canvas passback is currently only available for secondary teachers and is a way for teachers to transfer grades from their Canvas gradebook to their Skyward gradebook. The videos below provide directions for how to prepare Skyward & Canvas, passback instructions, and some troubleshooting tips. 

Preparing Skyward & Canvas

Passback Instructions

Troubleshooting Tips If You Run Into Issues with Passback

Unicheck & Canvas

Task: Open an assignment that you created and enable Unicheck to check for plagiarism. 

Unicheck is an Internet-based plagiarism-detection service that checks the submitted documents for plagiarism. 

Unicheck Download Unicheck