Custom grading formula for quizzes

JeffreyBush

Is there a way to have a custom grading formula for quizzes? The most basic one that I am looking for right now is that they either get 100% if they get all questions right or 0% if any question is wrong (with unlimited attempts).

An obnoxious workaround would be to create 2 quizzes, put each in its own module, and require them to score 100% on the first quiz before they can do the second quiz, and then make the second quiz just a single silly question giving them full credit.

I would like to, however, use a custom formula in other cases where the above workaround would not work. For example, on a 5-question multiple choice quiz, grade it as 10, 9, 7, 4, 1, 0 for 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 wrong, respectively (basically not penalizing as much for a single mistake).

I have also had issues with "extra credit" problems on classic quizzes that this may be able to address.

I can use either classic or new quizzes, or even an external plugin if that would work.

Thanks!

James

@JeffreyBush 

As you suspect, this functionality does not exist within the native Canvas product.

For the very simplest of quizzes, you could use multiple answer questions with New Quizzes and tell it to grade using an "exact match". This gives you a one question quiz that they have to get all the parts correct for.

 

Your obnoxious workaround is one approach and has merit. Rather than putting each quiz it in it's own module, you could put them both in the same module. Then you would tell Canvas that the module items need completed in sequential order and put a requirement of 100% for the first quiz before they can take the second quiz. For the second quiz, you could use classic quizzes with a survey so that they get full points as long as they take the quiz. This has the benefit of automating the grading.

Another approach is to manually grade, which it looks like you're trying to avoid (I don't blame you).

Depending on how things are laid out in your course, you may not even need a second assignment. If you use modules, you could prevent them from working on the next module until they get 100%. That may be what you meant with putting them into separate modules. The much simpler, which means it may not work, approach would be to have a quiz for unit 1 that they have to score 100% on and then they cannot move to unit 2 until that 100% is obtained on unit 1's quiz.

 

The third approach, which is the closest to the notion of a custom formula, is to use code that performs the calculations for you and updates Canvas with the results. This is what I did with some of my assignments. I had statistics project where students had to pick variables that met five criteria. They took a quiz and then my program would run and look at their answers to see if they were satisfactory and would work for the project. It completed a rubric for another assignment and gave them a score of 0 or 10 (it was a 10 point assignment) on that assignment. The quiz itself was a survey so they got the 10 points for completing that, but they weren't able to proceed until they got 10/10 on that second assignment.

I ran that program manually over the period of about a week while students were working on it, but it could have been something I automated to run every 20 minutes (I did that with several other assignments).

I got around using module requirements and prerequisites with this project because I had the students in class and was able to tell them "Jon and Tracy, you still need to do this assignment." If it something that is automated, you'll likely want to enforce it through module requirements and/or prerequisites.

 

What I'm talking about is an external script, not an external plugin. There is no external plugin that uses Canvas quizzes that will do this automatically. External plugins for Canvas are called LTI tools and they would take over the whole assignment. You could write an external tool that would replace your second quiz or assignment. I did this back in 2013 with our orientation course. Students had to score at least 80% on the final quiz and then they were removed from the course and added to their original courses. I had an external tool that students clicked on in Canvas to complete their course. What we found was that many students wouldn't make the required click and so I had to write code that would go through and check for students who had completed the quiz with at least 80%. We ran that script every 20 minutes and eventually removed the LTI button and just told students that their regular classes should show up within 20 minutes (we told them an hour to be safe).

 

There might be an external LTI tool that handles the whole quizzing and only gives a score of 100% or 0%. If something existed, you could get by with a single assignment and have it automatically handled. But then you have to do the quizzing and grading in the external tool. All you pass back to Canvas is the final grade for that assignment. There are lots of LTI tools available, but I am not familiar enough with them to know if any allow this. Google suggests that some software, they throw CompTIA out there, may have this functionality.

 

As for scripts that work with native Canvas quizzes, I wrote a somewhat extensible (code it yourself) script called QuizWiz that added functionality to Classic Quizzes and SpeedGrader. I didn't program a way to give them 0 if they didn't get 100%, but it's something that could be added there. I had some things that automatically run when the quiz is loaded -- such as assigning 0 points to any essay that was left blank or giving full points for any file upload. In that case, you would open SpeedGrader, let it run, then click the next button to move to the next student and it was basically one click per student and you could go through and do that for a whole class.

I don't recommend that in this case. You would still spend too much time in SpeedGrader and you would need to do it repeatedly for each quiz until the student got 100%. It also wipes out the original score using the fudge points. Writing a script that did that in the background would be simpler and a better use of your time.