How do I give my students extra credit?
You can give students extra credit in Canvas using 3 different options.
Note: If you are weighing your assignment groups, please pay attention to how weighted groups can affect the gradebook if assignments are worth zero points.
Option 1: Add Extra Points to an Existing Assignment
Add extra points to an Assignment or Quiz that you've already created. Manually enter the extra points in the gradebook.
As in this example, this assignment is worth 10 points. Adding 5 extra points will bring the assignment total for this student to 15 points. The added points will increase total points calculated in the gradebook's final grade.
Option 2: Create Extra Credit within a Rubric
Add an additional Criterion to a Rubric for extra credit. Make sure you make the rubric worth more than the assignment and you can give students extra points or not without affecting the actual assignment points.
Option 3: Create New Assignment with No Submission
Most Instructors require an online or paper submission for assignments, but you can also select no submission. No submission assignments work well for classroom duties, such as moderating a discussion or for in-class presentations.
Create a new assignment with zero points possible [1] and No Submission [2].
After students complete the work, manually add points in the gradebook.
Extra Credit and Assignment Groups
Assignments must be housed within an assignment group. Assignment groups can be unweighted or weighted, depending on how you wish to grade students within your course.
Unweighted Assignment Groups
When assignment groups are not weighted, you can create extra credit assignments in their own assignment group if you wish. You may want to create a separate group to help distinguish between the different types of assignments. In this example, this entire assignment group has no points possible.
When the student completes the work required for the extra credit assignments, you can manually add points to the gradebook.
Weighted Assignment Group
When assignment groups are weighted, Canvas will not calculate grades for an entire group that has no points possible. Therefore, for extra credit assignments to calculate correctly in weighted groups, they must be housed within an existing assignment group that has at least one assignment worth more than zero points.
When the student completes the work required for the extra credit assignments, you can manually add points to the gradebook.
Errors with Weighted Assignment Group
If you create your extra credit assignments with zero points within their own assignment group, but you decide to weigh your assignment groups, your extra credit assignments will not calculate correctly within Canvas. Canvas cannot calculate assignment groups where there are no points possible. For example, if the student has 12 points of 0 points possible, Canvas can't determine the impact to the overall grade because 12 cannot be divided by 0.
An error will appear in the total grade column, as well as next to the affected assignment(s). In this example, the two extra credit assignments (both with zero possible points) have been placed in an assignment group called Extra Credit. The warning notification indicates that the score does not include Extra Credit (as an assignment group) because the entire group has no points possible. In this situation, the assignments will have to be moved to another assignment group, or you will need to include an assignment within the Extra Credit assignment group that has at least 1 point possible.
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