Gradebook Overview

The Gradebook helps instructors easily view and enter grades for students. Depending on the grade display type, grades for each assignment can be viewed as points, percentages, complete or incomplete, GPA scale, or letter grade.

In this video, you will learn how to use the Gradebook in Canvas.

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Pro Tips:

Only assignments, graded discussions, quizzes, and graded surveys are displayed in the Gradebook.
You can override any assignment grade in the gradebook.
Remember that you cannot add/delete columns directly from the Canvas grade book. You must add/delete graded assignments to add/delete grade book columns. Click here to review the section on Organizing Your Gradebook.

Manually Enter Student Grades

Most likely you will use the SpeedGrader in the assignment or discussion to enter grades. The grades will appear in the Gradebook when you are done. However, you can manually enter and edit scores in the Gradebook.

Click here for instructions on how to manually enter grades.

View Grade Change History

In courses where more than one person may be grading assignments (grading with a TA for example), it may be helpful to view a history of grade changes.

Click here for instructions on how to view grade change history.

Sorting Your Gradebook

You can sort the Gradebook columns by student name, secondary ID, total grade, individual assignment, assignment group (if you have assignment groups set up), and assignment due date. You can also resize and rearrange the columns in the Gradebook.

Click here for instructions on how to sort your grade book.

Assign Zeros After an Assignment Deadline

Within Canvas, the default setting for the gradebook is to display the Total based only on assignments that have been graded.

Pro Tip:

A dash "-" in the gradebook is considered an ungraded assignment, so it is not figured into the total for the student..

In the example below, both students received the same scores for Assignments A1 and A3, and neither student submitted Assignment A2. If the dash is kept in the gradebook, as it is for Student 601, the Total displays a 100% (150/150) even though there are 200 possible points within the course at this time. If the dash is changed to a zero, the total will now display the correct score for the student, which is 75% (150/200).

To quickly assign zeros to unsubmitted assignments, you can use the "Default Grade" feature in Canvas.

Click here for instructions on how to use the Default Grade feature.

You can also configure the gradebook to automatically apply a certain grade for all missing assignments using the Missing Submission Policy function.

Understanding the Colors and Icons in the Canvas Gradebook

There are different icons and colors in the Canvas Gradebook. Depending on how you grade assignments (manually or otherwise), you will see different icons or colors. Icons are used in the gradebook to let you know when an assignment submission needs to be reviewed, when grades are being hidden, and when an assignment isn't contributing to a student's final score. Colors are used to provide a shorthand reference for the different statuses for a particular submission (late, missing, resubmitted, dropped, or excused).

Click here for more information about Canvas Gradebook Icons and Colors.

Hide/Post Grades

By default, Canvas allows students to see assignment grades as soon as the instructor has graded the assignment. In some cases, instructors may wish to hold student grades until all assignments have been graded, and then release grades to all students at the same time. To hide student grades as they are added, an instructor can apply a manual grade posting policy to individual assignments and then post grades when they're ready to do so. Students can still see and submit an assignment while grades are hidden.

Click here for instructions on grade posting policies.

Message Students

You can use the Gradebook to send messages to your students. Message subjects are filtered based on specific assignment categories:

Have not yet submitted—students who haven't submitted the assignment. This category does not include students who have been manually awarded a grade, even if they did not submit the assignment. Once a grade has been awarded for an assignment (either automatically or manually), Canvas no longer verifies actual submissions.
Have not yet been graded—students whose assignments have not yet been graded (submitted or unsubmitted).
Scored less than [point value]—students who earned a grade on their assignment less than X number of points.
Scored more than [point value]—students who earned a grade on their assignment more than X number of points.

Click here for instructions on how to message students in the Canvas gradebook.

Download Your Canvas Gradebook

You may wish to download your Canvas gradebook to archive your grades at the end of a term. You can export your Canvas gradebook into a CSV file

Click here for instructions on how to export your Canvas gradebook.

Click here for more information about the Canvas Gradebook.