For Moodle users, think of the Assignments page as similar to the Gradebook setup page in Moodle. They function in much the same way, though Canvas is far more user-friendly. In Moodle, most instructors click on “Grades” to handle anything grade-related, but in Canvas, the gradebook is mainly for viewing student scores and assessing activities through SpeedGrader. To organize your gradebook, you will need to become familiar with the Assignments page. Today’s Canvas Corner addresses the following features of the Assignments page:

Creating Grade Items: Graded activities can be created in several different places in Canvas (and all will appear on the Assignments page), but we’ll show you how to create gradebook items directly on the Assignments page. From this page, you can create any graded activity, allowing you to organize your gradebook as you build your course. You can then go into Modules and place your assignments in the appropriate sections if needed. You can also build your course in the reverse order—it’s entirely up to you.

Creating Grading Groups (Categories in Moodle): If you like to organize your gradebook by categories such as “Participation,” “Quizzes,” “Assignments,” etc., you can do this in Canvas by creating groups on the Assignments page. Once a group is created, it’s easy to drag and drop assignments into the appropriate groups.

Weighting Grading Groups: Many instructors prefer to weight their courses by assigning specific percentages to different types of grades. For example, you might make quizzes worth 30% of the course total, regardless of the number of quizzes. This can be done easily from the Assignments page.