Grading Assignments in Canvas

Owned by Nate St George (Unlicensed)
Last updated: May 30, 2019
2 min read

Summary

This article will describe several ways to grade assignments in Canvas.

Instructions

Canvas provides several different ways to grade assignments:

  • SpeedGrader: This is the best way to grade every submission for a specific assignment.
  • Default Grade: If you want to give every student the same grade for an assignment, or if many students will get the same grade, Default Grade is the way to go.
  • Manually Grade a Single Student: This is how you'd want to check or change a grade for a specific student's submission.

SpeedGrader

SpeedGrader presents each student's submission sequentially, allowing you to set or change grades quickly and easily. There are multiple ways to access SpeedGrader for a particular assignment:

Access Through Grades

  1. Go to the Grades page.
  2. Find the table header for the assignment you want to grade.
  3. Hover over the header and click the dropdown arrow that appears.
  4. Select SpeedGrader.

Access Through Assignments

  1. Go to the Assignments page.
  2. Find the assignment you want to grade in the list.
  3. Click on the assignment name.
  4. In the Related Items menu on the right, select SpeedGrader.

Once you've accessed the SpeedGrader, the process is fairly simple.

Using SpeedGrader

When SpeedGrader is initially opened, it will show the first student's assignment.

  • To navigate to the next student's submission: Click the right arrow at the very top right of the screen. This area is how you will navigate through the submissions.
  • To navigate to the previous student's submission: Click the left arrow at the very top right of the screen.
  • To navigate to a specific student's submission: Click the dropdown where the current student's name is and select the desired student from the list.
  • To hide students' names while grading: Click the gear icon at the top left of the screen to open Settings. Select Hide student names in the SpeedGrader.
  • To set a grade:
    • Quiz: Change each question's points earned. At the bottom of the page, you can fudge the points if necessary.
    • Assignment/Discussion: Set the grade in the box on the right.

Default Grade

  1. Go to the Grades page.
  2. Find the assignment for which you want to set the default grade.
  3. Hover over the assignment's name and click the dropdown arrow that appears.
  4. Click Set Default Grade.
  5. A window will appear that allows you to enter the default grade. You can also tell the system to overwrite grades that have already been entered.

Manually Grade a Single Student

  1. Go to the Grades page.
  2. Find the cell that intersects with the assignment and the student you want to grade and click it.

  3. The student's grade is now able to be changed.

    If you want to add a comment, click the small comment blurb icon at the top right of the cell.

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