How do you weigh the Total/Final grade in Canvas using Assignment Groups?

Answer

In a new Canvas Course shell, there is initially only one Assignment Group called "Assignments", worth 100% of the final grade. It is possible to weight the total grade by creating additional Assignment Groups (i.e. one Group for quizzes, one for exams, etc.) and assigning each group of assignments a percentage of the final grade.

Canvas calculates the grade of the "Total" column in a Gradebook by dividing the points accrued from graded Assignments into the total number of possible points.

Example: In a simplified Gradebook and Assignments page seen below, Joe earns 14/15 points for a Quiz, 0/5 points for forgetting to submit a Graded Discussion response, and 27/30 points for attendance which comes to a total of 41 out of a possible 50 points, or 82%. Note that all three Assignments are under a single Group named "Assignments" and are therefore all weighted the same. Canvas will automatically convert the "Total" column to a percentage value by default.

How to Create Additional Assignment Groups

We can add more Assignment Groups by clicking the "+Group" button in the top-right corner of the Course Assignments page header. Once we have created and given each Group a name, we can move Assignments between them by clicking and dragging the "8 dots" button to the left of the name of each assignment.

We then need to activate the option to "Weight final grade based on assignment groups" by clicking the three dots to the right of the "+Assignment" button, clicking "Assignment Groups Weight", and then giving each Assignment Group a percentage weight of the Total grade.  

For our example with Joe, we will create three Groups: one each for Quizzes, Discussions, and Attendance. We will assign the Quiz group to be worth 50%, Discussions to be worth 30%, and Attendance to be worth 20%. Now the final grade is calculated by the designated weight of the average grade of each Assignment Group.

Joe's "Total" grade went down because even though the "Joe's Graded Discussion" assignment is still only worth 5 points, the "Discussions" Assignment Group we created is now worth 30% of the Total grade.  

 

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  • Last Updated Aug 02, 2023
  • Views 281
  • Answered By Matt Underwood

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