Grading Differentiation?

Question

Would it be possible to get a grading differentiation policy under the grading screen? Instead of having to assign due dates for different groups of kids on every assignment, it would be incredibly nice if we could have a group of students that we could exempt from late points, instead of having to go into every assignment and assign different due dates or remove the late points from every assignment.

Jeff_F · Accepted Answer

@ZoelinnHolley -

Right now, Canvas does not support a course level or student level grading differentiation policy that can exempt certain students from late penalties across all assignments. Late policies apply course wide, and any differentiation has to be handled at the assignment level by assigning different due dates to specific students or groups, or by manually adjusting late penalties. That is why instructors often end up repeating the same configuration work on every assignment when they are trying to support flexibility for a subset of students.

One possible future direction that could help is the use of student tags, also called differentiation tags. Tags allow instructors to create hidden sets of students that can be used when assigning content, dates, or availability without changing sections or enrollment. You can read more about how they work in the Canvas guide here: How do I create and manage Differentiation Tags as an instructor?.

In this context, tags could potentially act as a persistent indicator for students who need flexibility, which could reduce repetitive setup if Canvas ever allowed grading or late policies to reference them. While tags do not currently affect late penalties, is this kind of tag-based grouping something you could see working for your use case if Canvas expanded how they are applied?

Best, Jeff