Extra Credit in a Points-Based (Unweighted) Gradebook

Do the following to offer extra credit in a points-based Gradebook:

1. Create a new assignment with the following settings:

• • Assignment description area - Tell your students:
    
    
    • How many potential points they can earn for this assignment.
      
      
    • That the points they earn for the extra credit assignment will immediately count toward their final grade.  
      
      
  • Points - Set the point value to 0.

Note: Although the assignment is worth 0 points, you can still award points to students who complete the Assignment, and Canvas will count them as a bonus. This will boost the total scores of the students who complete the assignment without penalizing students who do not complete the extra credit assignment.

• • Assignment Group -
    
    
    • If you're using Assignment Groups to organize your Gradebook, make sure the Extra Credit assignment is in an Assignment Group that includes other assignments with points. This is important because when calculating grades, Canvas ignores Assignment Groups that only contain 0-point assignments.
      
      
    • If you're not using Assignment Groups, leave this field setting as-is.
      
      
  • Submission Type - 

• • • If you want students to upload work to the assignment, this setting is typically Online > File Uploads.
      
      
    • If students will not be uploading work to the assignment and you simply want a column in the Gradebook where you can add extra credit points, select No Submission.

2. Configure the other Assignment settings however you want, and click Save & Publish.
   
   
3. At any point in the semester, you can have students submit work to the Assignment, and you can grade the assignment. Note that even though the Assignment has a zero point value, you can award points for the assignment in SpeedGrader or directly in the Gradebook. The following is an example of how you would grade a 0-point extra credit assignment:

• • If a student completed the assignment, you can award that student 5 points (or however many points you wish) in SpeedGrader or the Gradebook.
    
    
  • If a student didn't submit work to the extra credit assignment, you can set their score to 0; because the assignment was worth 0 points, this score won't count against the student.

Tip: Try awarding extra credit to the Test Student (Student View) to test the impact of the extra credit points on the Test Student’s total grade.