All About Assignments

1. Create the assignment with a due date.
2. Designate the assignment as graded or ungraded. Only graded assignments appear in the gradebook.
3. Use the Rich Content Editor to format text, to link to outside web resources and files uploaded to Canvas, or to add images, embedded video, and equations.
4. Set the point value (possible points, percentage, complete/incomplete, etc.) for a graded assignment.
5. Determine how students will submit turn-ins: by upload, via text entry, etc.
6. Save and publish the assignment.

Published assignments will appear appear in assignments, as well as syllabus and course calendar. The assignment will appear on the students’ dashboard and in the Upcoming Assignments sidebar a week before the assignment is due; a week after, the assignment will appear in Past Assignments. Canvas will also notify students.

You can edit the assignment, but be aware that, once students have submitted work, some details are not changeable.

• Availability dates can make an assignment accessible to students only between certain dates.
• Grade assignments by point, percentage, complete/incomplete, GPA scale, or letter grade. Currently, letter grades are derived from percentages utilizing Grading Schemes and cannot be shown to students separately from a numeric score.  (We don't recommend applying a scheme to the total grade.)
• Take advantage of plagiarism checks by enabling Turnitin. 
• Use group assignments so that you can assign a grade to the entire student group.
• Provide online feedback to students using the Gradebook or Speedgrader. 
• Use differentiated assignments to customize due dates for different sections. 

• Use assignment groups to compute a weighted total grade, which is not visible to students.
• Use a grading rule for special situations; i.e., if you want to drop the lowest of five grades.

• To batch-download assignments that students have submitted to Canvas, generate a .zip file containing the submissions in the Gradebook or on the assignment detail page.
• To download a single assignment, use Speedgrader; in the Gradebook hover over the cell for that student in the appropriate assignment column. Click on the bubble icon in the top right corner of the cell to bring up a box containing submission details, including a link to download the file.

Discussions are a forum for communication among students, or between students and instructor. Discussions can accommodate a wide range of course needs, and they allow students to share different types of content, like text, files, videos, images, etc. Course members can reply to or subscribe to discussions, and (if permitted) students can create or edit discussion posts and replies.

Discussions may be ungraded or graded, and graded discussions offer many of the same grading options (rubrics and peer review) as other assignments. Discussions may be available for students to contribute to throughout the semester, or only during specific times. You can also create group discussions that restrict participation to a specific set of students, or to individual students.

The Courseware team can guide you in using discussions to meet specific learning goals.