Summary
This article describes how to weight your Canvas course's final grades based on assignment groups.
How Weighted Grading Works in Canvas
When you weight grades in Canvas, you weight them for each assignment group. The raw percentage of points that a student earned is multiplied by the weight, and that is the final value for the group.
For example, consider three assignment groups (A, B and C) weighted at 20%, 30%, and 50%. The total score would be (percentage A x weight A) + (percentage B x weight B) + (percentage C x weight C). If a student scored 87% in group A, 95% in group B, and 84% in group C, their final score would be (.87 * .20) + (.95 * .30) + (.84 * .50) = .879, or 87.9%.
Setting Up Weighted Grades in Canvas
Canvas uses what are called “Assignment Groups” to organize assessments, and view grades, in different groups.
You can create groups for different types of activities (i.e. all Discussions, all Quizzes, etc.), different units or modules of your course (i.e. a Unit 1 group with a Unit 1 Discussion, Unit 1 Quiz, etc.), or any other way that may be appropriate for your course setup and grading scheme.
Your groups can then be weighted with different percentages to determine students’ final grades.
To Create an Assignment Group in Canvas:
Select + Group button to create a new Assignment Group.
Once the Assignment Group exists, organize existing assignments and/or add new assignments:
Add existing Assignments to the Groups by dragging and dropping them on the Assignments page
Add new Assignments to the Groups by either:
Selecting the Plus / + button in the group header
Selecting the + Assignment button and selecting the group in the ”Assignment Group” dropdown on that Assignment’s edit page
Note: Each Assignment Group will be represented with its own column in the Canvas Gradebook (found by clicking “Grades” in the left-hand menu of Course Navigation Menu).
To Assign Weights to Assignment Groups in Canvas:
Navigate to the Assignments page.
Click the Options icon (three dots) to the right of the + Assignment button.
Check the Weight final grade based on assignment groups checkbox.
You will now have the option to add Weights to all the Assignment Groups. Enter the appropriate weights for each group.
Select Save. These percentages will be reflected in the group headers on the Assignments page, as well as the group columns in the Gradebook
To edit these percentages, as well as other options like ignoring a certain number of high or low scores from an Assignment Group, click the 3 dots in the right-hand corner of an Assignment Group header, and select Edit
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