Reading Time: < 1 minuteCanvas is making leaving clear comments in SpeedGrader even easier with the update going live on September 11. In this update, some of the Rich Content Editor formatting options will be available in SpeedGrader. Previously, you could only leave plain text comments as submission comments in SpeedGrader. With this update, you’ll be able to organize your feedback to students better with headings, bulleted or numbered lists, bold/italic/underlined text, and even live links (some formatting options are under the “three dots” menu at the right of the ribbon). Additionally, Canvas will now let you edit draft comments! If you type out a comment and then…
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Canvas Update: Rubric Enhancements
Reading Time: 4 minutesCanvas has recently released some new updates to make creating and using rubrics easier. These changes can be seen in the “Rubrics” page in a course, the rubric builder, and SpeedGrader for any assignment that includes a rubric. Note: At this time, rubric rating descriptions will appear to be missing when an instructor views them through the student view. Students, however, can still see the rubrics and all information in them, including the descriptions for each rating. Rubrics page Previously, the rubrics page in a course was very simple – any rubrics in the course would be listed on the left, and there was also an “Add…
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Canvas Updates: Accessing SpeedGrader for New Quizzes
Reading Time: 2 minutesIn its May 20 update, Canvas has made it easy to access SpeedGrader for a New Quiz. Previously, you’d have to find the New Quiz in the gradebook or in your “to-grade” list to get to SpeedGrader. Now, you can access it through just about anywhere you can access a New Quiz in Canvas – including inside the build pages for the New Quiz itself! From Canvas modules or the Quizzes/Assignments pages, click the three dots for the quiz and select “SpeedGrader” from the drop-down. From both the New Quiz overall settings page and the “Build” page where you can edit the quiz questions, you…
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Canvas Update: Grade by Question in SpeedGrader
Reading Time: 2 minutesWith the update releasing April 15, Canvas is adjusting how instructors can review and grade New Quiz questions in SpeedGrader. Previously when scoring questions that needed manual grading, instructors could only view results organized by student. Now, Canvas will allow instructors to flip between students to grade by question. This is controlled by a setting in the “options” menu when you’re in SpeedGrader for a New Quiz. Turning on grade by question When in SpeedGrader for a New Quiz, click the settings gear at the top left, then click “options” in the menu. In the window that pops up, check the box for “grade by question,” then…
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Canvas Update: Instructors Can Upload Files to Assignments for Students
Reading Time: 2 minutesCanvas has recently added a feature to allow instructors to upload files to assignments for students. To use this feature, you need to start in the gradebook. Click on the student’s cell for the assignment you want to upload, then click the arrow. Canvas will slide out a panel from the right side of your screen. Click the “Submit for Student” link. Drag and drop or use the file picker to add the assignment file(s), then click “submit.” If you upload multiple files, they will be added as one submission. The file is now available to be graded in SpeedGrader! Any files uploaded using this method will…
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Using Rubrics for Grading in Canvas
Reading Time: 2 minutesWith finals just over a month away, it’s the perfect time to revisit how Canvas rubrics can make your grading life easier. We’ve talked before about some aspects of adding and using rubrics in courses. As a brief refresher, Canvas has excellent resources on creating and adding rubrics to assignments as well as creating and adding rubrics to discussions. We’ve also talked about how to add existing (already created in Canvas) rubrics to an assignment or discussion. Today we’re turning our attention to a setting that’ll make your grading life easier – using a rubric for assignment grading. You may think that you’re doing that by default,…
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The Four Types of Assignment Comments in SpeedGrader
Reading Time: 2 minutesThe Four Types of Assignment Comments in SpeedGrader Canvas SpeedGrader allows you to annotate student submissions to provide feedback. You can use a variety of tools (including a highlighter, text annotation, and a pen tool) directly on the document to thoroughly explain your comments to a student. For more information about using those tools, check out Canvas’ information on adding annotated comments in SpeedGrader. But did you know that you have options for how you leave overall feedback comments to students in the “Assignment Comments” section? You have four options on the comments you leave there: text comments, file comments, media comments, and text comments via speech…
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Canvas Update: SpeedGrader Comment Library
Reading Time: 3 minutesCanvas is adding a new feature on June 19, 2021, to help make SpeedGrader even speedier – a library where you can save and quickly access feedback comments. Before we dive into the specifics of this new feature, we do need to define a couple of things first. What you typically think of as “SpeedGrader” is in fact two separate things that work together – DocViewer (the left side of the screen where you can see the document and annotate it) and SpeedGrader (the right panel where you enter grades and add overall feedback comments). This distinction is very important with this new feature – this is a SpeedGrader comment library. Now that we’ve made that…
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Why Did Some of My Grades Disappear in My Gradebook?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteLet’s imagine a scenario. You have an assignment in your course. Most of your students completed it, and you graded their work. One student didn’t complete the assignment, but you agreed to give them an extension. You went into the assignment settings, opened the assignment back up to them, and merrily went on your way – until you later went to grade their work and discovered you could no longer see the submitted work from any of your other students. You checked the gradebook, and sure enough, the grades you’d previously entered were no longer there either. Even though this is a scary scenario, this can be…
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Best Practices for Using Essay Questions in New Quizzes
Reading Time: 2 minutesCanvas New Quizzes have many features that are helpful for administering assessments, but there are some quirks to how this tool works. Today, we’re going to look at some best practices that’ll make working with essay questions easier in New Quizzes. Make note of which New Quizzes contain essays or other manually-graded questions. Currently, those assessments do not show up in your to-do list, so you’ll need to check them in order to assign the points for the manually-graded questions in the quiz. Set your New Quizzes to manually release the grades instead of the standard automatic release. New Quizzes automatically “grade” the essay questions by assigning zero points to them until you…