Assignments Page
Points vs. Percentages
Assignment Groups
Assignments
Draft State

Assignments Index Page

The Assignments Index Page is where you set up your gradebook and also allows you to view all of the assignments in your course. To access this page click on the Assignments navigation link in your course.

On the Assignments page Instructor can add their different course assignments and organize them into groups called "Assignment Groups" and much much more!

Assignment Page

For more information on the different ways you can use the Assignments page see the following guide - How do I use the Assignments Index Page?

For more information see the following video:

Assignments Overview from Canvas LMS

Assignment Groups

assignment groups.gif

On the Assignment page Instructors can organize their assignments into Assignment Groups. Instructors normally create and name their Assignment groups based on how their assignments are organized on their Course Syllabus.

Why Use Assignment Groups?

The information below explains why you would use Assignment Groups differently based on whether your gradebook is calculated by points or percentages/weights.

Points based gradebook

The purpose of the assignment groups is organization, it makes it easier for you and your students to find assignments.
Ultimately it doesn't matter how your group your assignments for this type of gradebook because the course grade will calculated correctly regardless.

Percentage/weighted gradebook

The purpose of the assignment groups is to allow you to weight different assignments by different percentages.
For this type of gradebook it is very important that you set up your assignment groups (and their weight) to match exactly what you have on your syllabus. In addition, it is important that the assignments are in the correct assignment group. If you don't set this up correctly the course grade will not be calculated correctly.

How to Create Assignment Groups

For directions on how to add Assignment Groups see the following guide - How do I add an assignment group in a course? **Remember, this should match what you have on your course syllabus!**

Additional Resources

How do I weight the final course grade based on assignment groups?
How do I create rules for an assignment group?

Assignments

Assignments are the different things you have students do to earn their course grade. There are many different types of assignments you might have students do, but in general you should be able to generalize them into one of the five types included in Canvas.

Assignment Types

There are five types of assignments to pick from when adding course assignments to the Assignment page. Depending on which type of assignment you choose, you will have different options and give students different ways to submit assignments.

Assignment Creation

The five different types of assignments include:

Assignment - this type of assignment is where students can submit a file, type responses into an answer field, upload media recordings, and/or submit a website URL.
Discussion - this type of assignment is to be used for Discussion forums and allows students to respond to something (like a question) from the instructor and then interact with their peers in a back-and-forth asynchronous discussion.
Quiz - this type of assignment is used for exams, quizzes, and/or surveys given in Canvas.
External tool - this type of assignment is used for linking to outside resources and is not normally used.
Not graded - this type of assignment can be selected if the assignment needs to be done, but no grade will be assigned.

IMPORTANT: If what the students are submitting not upload via Canvas, (this might include in class presentations, pop quizzes, participation points, etc) the assignment regardless of what type it is (quiz, test, written assignment, class discussion, etc) has to be added to the gradebook as an "Assignment." If it is added as a different type you will end up having to delete the assignment and recreate as a regular "Assignment" type it to have your gradebook work correctly.

For more information see the following guide - What assignment types are available in Canvas Courses?

Adding Assignments

For directions on how to add assignments see the following guide - How do I create Assignments?

The options and developing the content of your Assignments is discussed in more depth under Module 6. For right now, we are just discussing how to set-up the placeholder/blank shell for your different assignments.

Additional Resources

Points vs. Percentages

Grade Calculation

Gradebook

There are two ways you can have Canvas calculate your students grades: points or percent/weighted. The Assignment page default is points, but it is easy to switch this to a percentage/weight based gradebook.

The following information explains how to set your gradebook up based on how you want your course grades to be calculated.

It is VERY important that the way you set up your grade calculation matches exactly how you say grades will be calculated on your course syllabus.

Points Based Gradebook

Point based grade calculation is the default setting for the Assignment page. If you are using a points based gradebook then you do not need to make any changes to the Assignment page before you start adding your groups.

For a points based course it does not matter how your assignments are grouped, the course grade will be calculated based on the number of points each assignment is worth and the students average score for these assignments. Yet, it is still good to group assignments or put them in a specific order to help you and your students keep track of what's going on in the course.

Percentages/Weighted Gradebook

The way you set up percent/weighted grading for your course grade in Canvas is to use groups on the Assignments page. Groups are used to show how the different assignments in your course are weighted differently.The best way to create Groups is to look at your course syllabus and make sure your Groups match how you show that grades will be calculated on your syllabus.

Information on how to switch your gradebook to percentages/weights can be found on this guide - How do I weight the final course grade based on assignment groups?

Percent Gradebook Example

If your percent breakdown looks like this on your syllabus, then your assignment page should look like this in Canvas (see images below).

Weighted Gradebook

Draft State

Draft State provides the ability to hide course content (quizzes, assignments, discussions, pages, links, files etc) from students. Draft State is straight-forward to use and it's easy to see if course content has been "published" or not by the symbol to the right of course content. A green checkmark indicates that the content item has been published and is visible to students. A gray circle with a slash indicates that the module or content item has not been published and is not visible to students.

Green Circle with a check mark at the end of the page information indicates that the page is published and visible to students.
Gray outlined clear circle with a slash through it at the end of the page information indicates that the page is unpublished and is not visible to students.

Draft State functionality is pervasive throughout the Canvas environment and will be covered in more detail throughout the training, but especially in Module 7: Organizing Your Course.