Finalizing Grades in Canvas

You must review a few things before your grades are ready to be calculated and released to PeopleSoft from Canvas.

• Have you set your course grade scheme?
• Have you given grades to students with dashes (-) for an assignment?
• Do you see the Final Grade column at the far end of your grade book?
• Is your course in the right Term?  Annual or multi-semester courses must be in the current Term for the process to work.
• Your Canvas course must be published for the process to work!

Setting a Grade Scheme

Setting a grade scheme ensures you calculate your grades according to your college/course standards and release a letter grade to PeopleSoft. Some colleges will have defined grade schemes for you to choose from. If your college does not, you can create your own. 

Note: In Brightspace by D2L, you can have a grade book scheme, each Grade item could have a scheme chosen including quizzes and assignments, and the Final Grade could have a different scheme as well. In Canvas, a single grade scheme for the course is set under the course Settings. Each Assignment can have a different grade scheme if desired; however, Quizzes only utilize the grade scheme for the course. The Final Grade in Canvas will be subject to the course grade scheme you set under course Settings.

View the article “How do I choose a grade scheme for my Canvas course?” (select a scheme)
View the article "How do I add a grading scheme in a course?" (create a scheme)
View the article "How do I add a grading scheme to an assignment?" (individual scheme for assignment)

Grading all Assignments

Giving a zero or excusing an ungraded assignment is critically important! If a student has not turned in an assignment, it will show as a dash in the assignment column.  ALWAYS mark a "0," or it won't be calculated against their Total grade. If it must be excused and not count against the student's grade, mark it "EX."

Why is this important?
For example, if a student turned in only one assignment the whole semester and received a 90% for it, and the instructor did not put zeros in for all the other assignments, the student would receive a 90% for a final grade.

When you go through the calculation process later on this page, the grade will correctly calculate as if you did put zeros, but you want your grade book to fully reflect the true grade all along. 

How to quickly fix missing assignments in Grades

The fastest way to enter zeros (0) or excused (EX) for missing assignments is to:

1. Click the three dots to the right of the assignment title in Grades and select “Set Default Grade.”
2. Enter a “0” or "EX", and do not check the box to “Overwrite already-entered grades”
3. Click "Set Default Grade"
4. Canvas will then fill in zeros for every student who does not have a grade for that assignment

More information can be found in this article "Entering Scores for Missing and Excused Assignments in Canvas."

Final Grade Column

We have automatically added a Final Grade column to each course in Canvas for HSC and the current semester.  This column is technically the Canvas Override grade column. If you do not see Final Grade column at the end of your grade book, check the Grade Settings Gear and the Advanced tab and check the "Allow final grade override" box and click Apply Settings. The Final Grade column should appear then. 

If you do not see the Release Final Grades button on the top of the grades, please submit this issue to IT Learning Spaces so we can ensure your course is the right Term to send grades to PeopleSoft. http://link.ou.edu/canvas be sure to include the direct URL link to your Canvas course.

To calculate and release your grades to PeopleSoft: 
Do not initiate this process unless you are ready to release grades!

1. Once you have set your course grade scheme and resolved any ungraded assignments, you are ready to calculate the final grade and release to PeopleSoft.
   1. Note: You can only release grades for students in courses they have been officially enrolled in the Canvas course via PeopleSoft. Manual enrollments are unable to process to PeopleSoft as they have no direct enrollment connection.  Students should never be manually enrolled in Canvas courses for semester-based courses.
2. Click the Release Final Grades button on the top right side of Grades.
   
   
    
3. You will see a pop-up appear with reminders about grade scheme and ungraded assignments with links to support articles.
4. Follow the instructions on the page and pay close attention to each step through this process.
5. When you are ready to begin the calculation, click the Calculate Final Grades button on the bottom left of the pop-up.
6. The next page will display a count while it is working. DO NOT leave the page.  NOTE: Large classes can take upwards of 1-2 minutes to complete.  Do not leave the page until it is finished processing.
7. When its finished calculating, the page will update to show “This operation was successful” when finished, and you can follow the instructions on the screen to proceed.
   1. NOTE: If during the calculating grades process you get an update showing an "unknown error" try the process again and if it continues please submit a ticket per the instructions. 
8. When the process has finished, you will click Reload Page per the instructions. It will refresh the grade book and you will now see the letter grade in the Final Grade column.  Should you need to adjust any of those newly calculated grades, you can do so until 3:00 AM the next morning before they are transferred to PeopleSoft.  It is recommended to enter in the numeric value you want the student to see when they view grades. It will convert to a letter grade based on your grade scheme once you type the number and hit enter.  The student will see this number as their Total view. 
   1. IMPORTANT: If you have a student that has an Incomplete, please make sure leave the Final Grade blank. You'll need to click in the Final Grade column for that student and delete the letter grade and complete the incomplete grade process as normal with Admissions and Records.
   2. If you need a grade change the day after you've released final grades, you must follow the Admissions & Records grade change process.
9.  This concludes the calculating and releasing of grades to PeopleSoft from your Canvas course. There is no release action other than going through the process.
10. Your course MUST be published for this process to fully work!
11. If, at any time, you need assistance, you may submit a request to our support form or you can sign up for a one-on-one consultation. 

Watch a video of the Calculate and Release Final Grades process in Canvas (no sound)

If you have issues working through the steps you can contact IT Learning Spaces Canvas support through the following request form: https://link.ou.edu/canvas