You can use the Gradebook and Speedgrader to enter grades and/or provide feedback to your students, for all 'graded' activity that exist in your Canvas course. This page will take GSA staff through the basic uses of the Gradebook and Speedgrader.

The way in which you use the Gradebook/Speedgrader may vary, depending on your requirements. It is important to set up assignments in a way that will accommodate your needs in the first place. Please consult our guidance on how to set up an assignment or for further assistance, contact library@gsa.ac.uk.

Once you have got to grip with the basics, you might like to review this list of 10 useful features of the Gradebook.

Using the Gradebook

Each Canvas course has its own gradebook. To access the New Gradebook in your course, click 'Grades'.

In the left-hand column (1), you will see a list of all students enrolled on the course. You can use the search box (2) to search for a specific student.

You will see a separate column (3, 4) for every graded activity that exists in the course. In many cases this will be an Assignment, but Discussions, Quizzes and Surveys can all be 'graded' as well - each of these will also appear as a separate column.

You may not see a column until an assignment is published. If you are taking Attendance in your course, then you will see a column for 'Roll Call Attendance'.

Once grades have been entered, you will also see values in the 'Total' column (5). This 'Total' column will aggregate all grades that have been entered to generate a total, but at GSA this value is hidden from students by default. Summative assessment grades must be only released to students via Registry.

Find the column relating to the assignment that you need to grade. The assignment icon (6) indicates that a student has submitted work, which requires grading. A dash (7) indicates that no submission has been made.

If the assignment deadline has passed, then a red cell indicates that a submission is missing; a blue cell indicates that a submission was made late. For a key to the various cell colours that you will see in the New Gradebook, click View > Statuses (8).

If you have already viewed submissions and are ready to enter grades, you can click a student's cell and type a grade in directly (9). If the assignment has been set up to use GSA's 22-point (A1-H) scale, then you must enter the grade as a number, and not the alphanumeric value. For example: to award a B1, you must enter '17'.

To view a student's submission, click the 'Grade Detail Tray' icon at the far right of the student's cell (10). The 'Grade Detail Tray' will appear to the right of your screen; click Speedgrader. (11)

In Speedgrader, you will be able to see each student's submission. If a student has re-submitted their work, ensure that you are viewing their most recent submission - use the drop down menu to view a different file (12). To download a submitted file, click the arrow (13) to the right of the file name. (It is also possible to download all student submissions in one go. For details, see.)

Enter a grade in the 'Grade' box (14). Again, you must input a number and not an alphanumeric grade if you are using the 22-point scale.

You can type a comment (15) if necessary, which will be made visible to the student if/when grades are posted. To attach a document (for example a feedback proforma that you have completed and saved outside of Canvas), click the file attachment (paperclip) icon (16).

Once you have input grades/feedback, click Submit (17).

To view another student's submission, click the current student name (18) and select another student from the drop-down list. You can also use the left and right arrows (19) to move to the next or previous student.

To return to the gradebook, click the icon in the very top left of your screen (20).

The visibility icon (21) gives you options to 'post' grades/feedback, releasing them to students. In general, you are advised not to do this until all grades have been entered. For more information on posting grades, see the first important change to the gradebook for 19/20.

When back in the gradebook, you will see all grades entered. To amend a grade, you do not need to re-enter Speedgrader - you can click on the relevant cell in the gradebook and input the new grade.

Once grades have been entered, the visibility icon (22) will turn orange, indicating that there are grades in the assignment which remain hidden from students, and which must be 'posted' in order to be made visible. When you are ready to post grades and make them visible to students, hover over the column header and click the three dots (23) which appear, then click Post Grades.

A fly-out menu will appear, and at this point all grades that are currently hidden from students will be indicated with an orange dot. You can now choose to post grades, either to:

Everyone - meaning that grades will be released, and any grades subsequently entered for this assignment will be immediately visible to students without the need to 'post' again; or
Students with graded submissions only - meaning that all grades entered to date for this assignment will become visible to the relevant students, but grades entered subsequently will remain hidden, and must still be posted.

Once all input grades have been posted to students, then the visibility icon will return to being grey.

Remember:

if grades have been input and the visibility icon is grey, then all grades are visible to students
if grades have been input and the visibility icon is orange, then some or all grades remain hidden from students. To check how many remain hidden, click Post grades.