Three Tips for Checking your Canvas Gradebook before Submitting Final Grades

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Finals are this week, so it’s time to start wrapping up your courses and preparing to submit your grades. Submitting grades is a quick process, but there are a few items you’ll need to do before you click that button.

1. Check your course grading scheme

You should have a grading system in your syllabus with the values defined for each grade letter. Canvas can display that letter grade to both you and your students, but you need to make sure you have this setting enabled with the correct values set.

1. In your course, go to “Settings” in the course menu
2. Scroll down to “Grading Scheme” 
3. Check the box to “Enable course grading scheme” 
4. Click the “view grading scheme” link to check the values
5. If you need to make edits, click the pencil, update the values, and click the “save” button. If the values are correct, click “done.” 

2. Check your grade breakdown

The grade breakdown is different from the grading scheme! Go to the assignments page of your course and check the percentages for each assignment group. If any are incorrect, you can adjust them either through the settings for each group or through the “assignment groups weight” item in the “three dots” edit menu at the top of the page. 

3. Scan the gradebook for missing items or items that need grading 

Now that your gradebook has the correct weights and letter grade settings, it’s time to look at the gradebook itself. Go to the grades tab and scan the gradebook. Are there any blank cells (cells with a dash instead of a grade)? Are there any ungraded assignments (they’ll have a paper icon instead of a grade)?

If you answered “yes” to either of those, you’ll need to handle them before submitting grades.

1. Blank cells. Blank cells will not automatically be factored into the course total with the default grade settings. You can make sure missing assignments count as zero by either defining a missing assignment policy or manually entering zeros.
2. Ungraded assignments. For these, you’ll just need to grade them to finish squaring away your gradebook.

Once you’ve finished these simple checks, you can submit your grades. Click the “Submit Grades to Registrar” link in your course menu and follow the prompts on the screen. If you don’t have that link in your course menu, click “Settings” then the “Navigation” tab. Drag “Submit Grades to Registrar” to the active list, then click “Save” at the bottom of the page. For more information about submitting grades and what to do if you run into a problem, check out “Submitting Final Grades from Canvas to the Registrar.”

Many thanks to Dr. Sterkenburg for initially contacting us, relaying many of these items, and agreeing for them to be published here. Originally published December 17, 2019; updated December 10, 2024 

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