Question about SpeedGrader: Can I stop rubric clicks from auto-selecting the highest score?

jasperoncanvas

Hi y'all!

I’m using rubrics in SpeedGrader in Canvas, and I’ve noticed that when I click on a criterion, it automatically selects the highest score.

Is there a way to make it so that it doesn't automatically set the highest score? Maybe to the median?

If this isn’t possible, are there any workarounds? Or is the only solution just to manually enter the numerical score for each criterion.

Thank you!

Jeff_F

Hello @jasperoncanvas - you are correct. Rubric clicks in SpeedGrader always auto select the highest rating for that criterion, and you cannot change it to default to the median or any other value. This is current product behavior, not a misconfiguration. In Canvas, clicking anywhere in a rubric criterion is interpreted as selecting a rating. If the click is not directly on a specific rating box, Canvas treats it as selecting the top rating. As of now, there is no toggle, no account level setting, and no theme level override to change the default selection logic.

Here are the workarounds instructors can use.

1. Click only on the rating box you want - This sounds obvious, but it matters. If you click the row or criterion description instead of the rating cell itself, Canvas assigns the highest score. Precise clicks reduce accidental max scores.
2. Use free form comments and manually enter scores as you have been - If your rubric allows free form comments, you can type feedback without clicking a rating, then manually enter the numeric score for that criterion. This avoids the auto selection issue entirely. Downside: slower, especially for long rubrics.
3. Use “unscored” rubrics for feedback only - Some instructors duplicate rubrics: One rubric unscored, used only for feedback and comments
   One assignment score entered manually. This avoids accidental point inflation but obviously sacrifices rubric based auto scoring.
   
4. Fewer ratings per criterion - If you redesign rubrics to have fewer rating levels, there is less risk of accidentally selecting the top score. This does not fix the behavior, but it reduces grading errors.
5. And on the flip side… another practical option is to redesign the rubric with more performance ratings per criterion rather than wide point ranges. By using five or six clearly defined levels instead of three, each click represents a smaller and more precise slice of the total points. That way, even though Canvas still auto selects the highest value within a rating, the score is usually close to what you intend and does not require adjustment. This approach shifts the grading decision to choosing the correct performance description rather than clicking and then fixing points, which tends to be faster, more consistent, and less error prone.

And a feature idea can be suggested. Note this topic has come up many times in the Instructure Community.

Helpful? ~ Jeff