Exception to assignment (grading) rule

Question

In the assignment, I can add a rule to drop the lowest grade in the final grade calculation. However, I do not want to drop the lowest grade (say, a zero) assigned for academic dishonesty. I would like to add an exception to the rule for a particular assignment for a specific student. But I cannot do that. I can, however, add an exception to keep one assignment for all students, even if that is the lowest grade for anyone else, and not for academic dishonesty.

Chris · Accepted Answer

Hi @Md_Mohsin,

As far as I'm aware, you are 100% correct that you cannot make an exception to the drop rules for a single student.  If the academic integrity assignment should never be dropped, seems like that should just be a general rule for the whole class, which you can definitely set up.  I guess I may be a little confused at the need for a student-level exception for this, but there must be something I'm just missing here.  Are you able to provide any more info?

-Chris

James · Accepted Answer

@Md_Mohsin

I think I understand this a little differently than @chriscas does. You don't have an academic dishonesty assignment, you have an assignment where a 0 was assigned because of academic dishonesty on the part of one student.

One way to accomplish forcing that student to receive a 0 this is to create a second assignment for academic dishonesty. It should have a type of "no submission", be worth the same number of points as the other assignment, be in the same assignment group (if you're using weighted gradebooks), and then add a rule to "never drop" that academic dishonesty rule (that may not be necessary depending on other things). Put a 0 in for that one student and either leave everyone else blank or put an EX for excused in for them.

Canvas will drop one of the two zeros, leaving the other, for that one student. Since the other students have no grade or an excused grade, it won't count in the calculation at all and so it will drop their lowest grade, which is the desired behavior.

What you do with the original assignment for that student depends on you. If you leave a 0 in the original assignment and the academic dishonesty assignment, then Canvas will drop one of them, but because of the extra assignment, they end up getting a 0 and dropping any of their grades (having one more than others).

If you want Canvas to drop the next-lowest grade for them, but keep the 0, then make sure you tell Canvas not to drop the "academic dishonesty" assignment and then remove their grade from the other assignment.

Here's an example. You have four 100 point exams.

A student has 40, 60, 80, and 70, but the 70 becomes a 0 because of academic dishonesty. You have a rule to drop the lowest grade.

That makes the grades: 40, 60, 80, and 0.

The default Canvas way gives them three exams of 40, 60, and 80 for an average of 60.

If you make an academic dishonesty grade worth 100 points. tell Canvas not to drop that grade, and give the student a 0 there ...

Their grades are: 40, 60, 80, 0, 0 but the first 0 gets dropped so they now have 40, 60, 80, 0. Their average is 45 but they have four exam grades, unlike everyone else who has three.

If you remove their original 0 (blank or EX), then their grades are 40, 60, 80, 0 and the 40 gets dropped giving them 60, 80, 0. Their average is 46.67, but they now have three grades, the same as everyone else.

If a second student has an academic dishonesty issue later on, you could re-use the same academic dishonesty assignment provided the assignments had the same number of points and were in the same assignment category. Otherwise, you would need to create a different academic dishonesty assignment.

What you call the assignment is up to you, but make sure that it's clear what it's purpose is. Otherwise you'll have students asking why didn't I get a grade for this? If the assignment explains this is a penalty for academic dishonesty on an exam, then it is clear that they don't want a grade for it and it also alerts them to you being serious about academic dishonesty and they better not try it.

The EX has some other ramifications in that students are not able to look at the assignment, while they can with a blank score. I don't like to EX things, then they miss out on the "I'm serious" message.

Hope this helps.