Using “Grading Schemes” to Customize Your Canvas Gradebook

by Amanda Dills, ID3
March 18, 2022

The very powerful Grading Scheme Customization feature is buried inside the Canvas Assignments Edit screen. Most people don’t know it exists. However, if you know how to get started using “grading schemes” in Canvas, you can use them add everything from “ABCDF style” grades to custom text or emoji entries into your Canvas gradebook.

In this article, I’ll show you how to utilize and set up custom Canvas Grading Schemes so that you can either create them yourself or collaborate with your ID3 Instructional Design Specialist to develop them in your course.

Part 1: What is a “Grading Scheme” when it comes to my Canvas gradebook?

Let’s start off by looking at how Canvas defines “grading scheme.” According to the Canvas community website:

A grading scheme is a set of criteria that measures varying levels of achievement in a course. Course-level grading schemes are grading schemes that can be definted at both the course level and the assignment level. Without a grading scheme, scores are not measured against any specific standard.

In practical terms, here is an example of a grading scheme that probably looks familiar. (This is the current standard default grading scheme in Francis Tuttle Canvas courses.)

A90-100
B80-89
C70-79
D60-69
F0-59

But this could also be an example of a grading scheme:

😁100%
😐50%
😠0%

And so could this:

Complete100%
Late50%
Incomplete0%

Basically, as far as the Canvas gradebook is concerned, a GRADING SCHEME is a system that divides the scores 0-100 into sections (90-100, etc.) and assigns each section with a label (which could be a single letter, a word, an emoji, or any combination of these). You can use grading schemes for graded assignments (in which case the score numbers each level of the scheme maps to becomes very important), or you use a grading scheme for un-graded assignment (which means the numbers each level maps to don’t matter much, because only the scheme label will be seen.

In the Canvas Speed Grader, for assignments that are utilizing a Grading Scheme, you can type either the scheme label or an associated numberic score (1-100) into the grading box. If you are grading from the actual Grades screen, the different labels of your grade scheme will appear as a drop down menu, as shown below.

Francis Tuttle has a few different Grading Schemes pre-loaded into the Canvas system for you; but instructors and course designers also have the ability to add custom grading schemes on the course level.

Part 1: Access the Grading Schemes Screen

There are two was to see what grading schemes are currently available in your course.

Option 1: Go to the homepage of that course, and click into the course URL in your web browser. Look for the word “courses,” followed by a slash (/) and a 4-digit number. (On your homepage, this should be the end of the url.) After the 4-digit number type:

/grading_standards

and hit Enter.

Option 2: Open any Assignment on your Assignment’s page in Edit mode. Then find the “Display Grade as” dropdown menu, and select “Letter Grade.” Then click on “View Grading Scheme,” and select “manage grading schemes” in the pop up that appears.

Whichever option you chose, then click on the second Grading Schemes Tab. This will bring up a list of all the Grading Schemes currently available within your course.

If you see a Grading Scheme that you would like to implement already on this list, you can skip down to Part 4. If you will need to create a new or modified grading scheme, keep reading through parts 2, 3, and 4 (or contact your ID3 specialist to help you).

Part 2: Plan your Custom Grade Scheme

If you are going to be creating a custom grade scheme, the first question you need to ask yourself is this: “Will columns that utilize this grade scheme affect the overall calculated grade in this course?”

If the answer is YES, then you will need to be very careful and intentional about how you set up this grade scheme, following the steps in this section (honestly, you may want to reach out to ID3 for assistance because this is a bit tricky).

If the answer is no, because the grade column in question is just informational and will not affect the overall course calculated average, you will just need to make sure that the assignment you are applying this grade scheme to is NOT calculated into the final course score, either by adding it to a 0% Assignment group or by telling Canvas NOT to apply this individual column to the overall course grades.

I would definitely suggest planning out your custom grading scheme on paper or another document before trying to build it in Canvas. Click HERE for a copy of the Grading Scheme planning template that I use when creating custom grading schemes in Canvas. (This document also contains a copy of the planing instructions below and a link back to this article.)

To plan out your custom scheme using the provided worksheet, I recommend the following steps:

  1. Start by writing down the different “labels” you want to be able to choose from when grading this assignment. (e.g. “Complete, Late, Incomplete,” “A, A-, B+….” etc.)
  2. Depending on the number of different labels you need, choose the tab on the worksheet that matches. (If you need more labels than you see an option for on the worksheet, contact ID3 for assistance.)
  3. Copy your labels into the “Labels to Appear in the Gradebook” column of the chart. (I definitely suggest keeping these labels as short as possible.)
  4. Label/Number Code. Then, think about how you would like these labels to translate into numerical values. This is important, even if this scheme is not going to be used for grading per se, for several reasons: a) If your gradebook is downloaded as a csv file, then the individual grades will show up as the numerical score, rather than your custom label. b) You have the option to type an associated number and have the label appear. If relevant to your grading scheme, write the numerical value RANGE that will be associated with this label, instead of a single score. (Ex: A = 90%-100%).
  5. Default Score. If you select or type in a Grading Scheme label (non-numeric score, such as “Completed” or “Needs Improvement,” Canvas will automatically translate that to a single number, so if you have chosen a RANGE for your label, determine which number you would like Canvas to use as the default score for each label in your Grading Scheme. (Ex: B = 80% – 89%, but if I enter a B label, I want Canvas to use 80% for calculations.) Add this score to your Grading Scheme creation worksheet. Note: If your assignment is worth, for example, 100 points with a Complete (full credit)/Late (half credit)/Incomplete (0 points) Grading scheme, you can still type in any numerical value you want, and Canvas will retain both that specific numeric grade and the associated label. However, if you enter the label, Canvas will go with the default grade, based on the criteria described in the next step.)
  6. As you add the “default scores” to the worksheet for each label, you will see a calculated number appear in the “% You Should Add to Scheme Builder” column. This is because when determining default scores, Canvas uses a number that is 1 less than the bottom of the range you are using for the NEXT HIGHEST label. For example, in a “Complete, Late, Incomplete” scheme, if you want assignments labeled as “LATE” to earn half credit, you will need to start the Complete range at 51%, because 51 – 1 = 50.

Part 3: Create Your Grade Scheme in Canvas

Once you have planned out your grading scheme on paper or using the provided worksheet, it is fairly simple to add that into Canvas.

  • Access the Grading Standards page and the Grading Schems tab using one of the methods described above, and click the “+Add grading scheme” button.

This will bring up a rather lengthy sample grading scheme that you can edit to meet your needs.

  • Add a specific grading scheme name into the first box. Be as descriptive as possible with this name, becuase it will help you assign this scheme to specific assignments later on.
  • Add the grade scheme labels you created in Part 2 to the “Name” column, in order from highest scoring to lowest scoring. (Note: even if you are not creating this grade scheme for scoring purposes, you will still need to assign a range of numbers to each label, as if your grade scheme were going to be used for grading.)
  • Use the “% you shoud add to the Scheme Builder” column on your Grade Scheme creation worksheet to set the lower limit of each score range in the “to [ ]%” column of the Grade Scheme builder screen.
  • Click the “X” for any extra remaining labels that you do not need within your custom grade scheme, andn click “Save.”

Part 4: Assign Grade Scheme to a Column or Course

Once you have your custom grade scheme created, you can choose to associate with your overall calculated course grade, or with an individual grade column.

To use your custom grade scheme for a specific Assignment in your course:

  • Go to the Edit Screen for the Assignment you want to associate with a custom grade scheme.
  • In the Display Grade as drop down, select “Letter Grade,” and then click on “View Grading Scheme.”
  • Click “Select Another Scheme.”
  • Scroll throught the list of possible Grading Schemes on the left hand side, and click on the one you would like to add. It will appear in the right hand side of the pop up window. Then click “Use This Grading Standard,” and then the “Done” button.
  • Hit the “Done” button; then scroll down and hit Save to finish assigning a grade scheme to this particular column.
Important:  before you assign any student grades using a new grade scheme, I strongly suggest testing out your grade scheme using the Test Student or a fake student account.  Contact ID3 if you would like help with this.

To use a Grading Scheme for your overall calculated course grade (that displays to students):

  • Go to course Settings.
  • Find the Grading Scheme item and click the “Enable course grading scheme” checkbox. Then click “view grading scheme.”

From here, you will see the same pop up window that appears in the steps above. Click on “Select Another Scheme” and follow the steps in the section above to finalize your overall course grade grading scheme.

Want to see this in all in action?? For a video that walks you through the use of Grading Schemes in Canvas, click the link below:

https://www.loom.com/share/2fab6c0afbb049a2b87cb6125ecf88ac

Conclusion

In this article, I’ve talked about Grading Schemes in Canvas and provided instructions for how design, create, and assign them to particular gradebook columns. Grading schemes can give you a huge amount of flexibility in the Canvas gradebook, but they are one of the more complicated gradebook features to set up, so please do not hesitate to contact ID3 if you have any specific questions, or would like help from us in setting up a custom grade scheme in your course.

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