Canvas provides a few tools for assigning, reviewing and submitting student grades. This article will explains how to create assignments, review and grade assignment submissions and submit a course’s final grades.

This article will be discussing the following tools:

• Assignments & Assignment Groups (Canvas Guides: Assignments)
• Gradebook (Canvas Guides: Gradebook)
• SpeedGrade (Canvas Guides: SpeedGrader)
• Submission of Final Grades

Assignments & Assignment Groups

Before you can assign grades in Canvas, you have to create some assignments. This article won’t go into assignments in full detail, but it will point out the elements that are most relevant to grading.

When you create an assignment, you tell Canvas how many points the assignment is graded out of. This is the maximum score that a student can receive on the assignment. When you create and publish an assignment, it will automatically create a column in the gradebook for that assignment. 

There are a few way that you can tell Canvas how your assignments are weighted within your course. Which method to choose depends on how you want to mark your assignments. This article explains these methods. 

Gradebook

The Gradebook shows you a complete overview of the grades for your course, with the ability to edit grades in place. It’s a good jumping-off point for the other grading tools.

The Gradebook tool is accessed from the ‘Grades’ menu item on your course page. It contains a table showing you all grades for all students. There are few things to note about this page:

• Clicking on a student name will show you a list of all grades for that student.
• Clicking an assignment name will go to the details page for that assignment.
• Clicking the small arrow beside the assignment name will give you a list of options for that assignment, including the ability to mute the assignment or message students who haven’t submitted the assignment.
• Clicking inside a cell will allow you to assign a grade for that assignment.
• When you move your mouse over a cell, a small 'speech bubble' icon will appear. This will allow you to make a comment on the student’s submission.
• The last few columns of the table show the assignment group totals and the student’s final grade for the course.
• There are buttons in the top-right corner of the table that allow you to export grades to Excel, and to import changes. There is also a link to the page that allows you to submit final grades.
• There is a ‘settings’ button in the top left corner of the table that allows you to (among other things) view the course's grading history.

SpeedGrader

You can access the SpeedGrader from the assignment detail page or from the gradebook page. The SpeedGrader allows you to view assignment submission from each student, assign a grade, give feedback, and grade using a rubric. Using the SpeedGrader is optional; you can also assign grades from the gradebook. See Canvas Guides: SpeedGrader for details.

Submitting Final Grades

At the end of the term, you can submit final grades to your faculty office using the "Submit Grades" option in the course navigation. See this article for more details.