Introduction
Instructors often wish to offer extra credit opportunities to students — whether to reward engagement, allow for bonus learning activities, or provide students a bit of “room” in their grade. This guide walks through several practical methods to add extra credit in Canvas — from simply entering extra points in the gradebook, to building extra-credit criteria into rubrics, to configuring extra-credit assignments in a weighted gradebook setup. Whether you’re new to Canvas or looking to streamline your grading setup, you’ll find step-by-step options that ensure bonus work boosts grades without penalizing students who opt out.
Contents
Add Extra Points to an Existing Assignment Score
Add Extra Points to an Assignment inside a Rubric
Add Extra Points using a Rubric in SpeedGrader
Weighted Gradebook: Add Extra Credit Assignment inside a Weighted Assignment Group
Add Extra Points to an Existing Assignment Score
The first way to give students extra credit is to add extra points to an Assignment you've already created by manually entering the extra points in the Gradebook.
For example, this assignment is worth 40 points. Adding 5 extra points will bring the assignment total for this student to 45 points. The added points will increase total points calculated in the Gradebook's final grade.
Add Extra Points to an Assignment inside a Rubric
Step-by-Step Example
- Create an assignment worth 30 points.
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Use (or create/edit) a rubric worth 40 points. The rubric example below has three criteria: Post (out of 15 points), Reply (out of 15 points) and Extra Credit Replies (out of 10 points). The rubric total is 45 points. However, the assignment itself is out of 30 points. So if a student only does the Post and Reply (1), they can earn full points. However, if a student opts to do extra replies for extra credit (2), the student will earn an extra 15 points, because you built it into the rubric. The student's score could be 45/30, giving the student extra credit. It's important to set it up this way because you don't want to penalize students who don't do extra credit.Note: You will get a pop-up that asks if you want to change the assignment points to match the rubric. Select "Leave Different."
Add Extra Points using a Rubric in SpeedGrader
If you don't want to create a separate rubric criterion for extra credit, you can simply add extra points when grading in SpeedGrader using the rubric you already have connected to the assignment. Simply grade as you normally would in SpeedGrader, but type in a higher number than the total for a criteron. In the example below, the student earned 20/15 for the first criterion, and 15/15 for the second criterion, leading to a total assignment score of 35/30, which gives him extra credit for this specific assignment.
Weighted Gradebook: Add Extra Credit Assignment inside a Weighted Assignment Group
If you click on Assignments in your Canvas course, you're going to end up on the Assignments Index Page. And the Assignments Index Page shows all of what Canvas calls "Assignment Types" — Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes.
The Assignments Index page is essentially where you setup your gradebook. If you have a weighted gradebook, then all of your Assignments (and in Canvas, this means anything the students hand in, including Assignments, Discussions, Quizzes) are divided into groups, and each group is worth a certain percentage of the students' final grades. In the example below, Assignments are worth 40%, Discussions are worth 30%, and Quizzes are worth 20%.
To add an extra credit assignment inside a weighted assignment group category:
- Go to Assignments and make sure you do, in fact, have a weighted gradebook. You should see all of your assignments divided into groups, and each group should say __% of total. The total should be 100%.
- Navigate to your extra credit assignment, discussion, or quiz and select Edit.
- Make sure the title explains that it's extra credit.
- If it's a discussion, scroll down and make sure the Graded box is checked.
- Scroll down to Points Possible, and type zero points for the assignment. This ensures that if a student does not complete the extra credit, she will not be penalized.
- Under Assignment Group, choose the Assignment Group Category where you'd like to place this extra credit. If you place it in Discussions, then any extra credit points will boost your students' grades in the Discussions assignment category, etc.
- Review the rest of the assignment settings and select Save.
Note: You cannot add an Extra Credit category worth 0% because Canvas will not calculate the assignments inside it. In this scenario, you must add your Extra Credit to a weighted category.
Have Questions? Contact the Academic Technology Support Team
atst@spcollege.edu
Phone at 727-341-3500
(Hours: Monday - Friday 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. EST).
After-hours or weekend assistance? Contact the Technical Support Center at 727-791-2795 or onlinehelp@spcollege.edu
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- Extra Credit: How to do it in Canvas
- Canvas Gradebook Quirks: A Faculty Guide to Accurate Calculations
- The Gradebook Help Center: Links and Resources
- New Hidden Grade Indicator
- Canvas Midterm Progress Reports
- Grades not appearing in Gradebook
- How to select a course grading scheme in Canvas
- Using the Assign To feature to assign work to students in the Incomplete section of your course
- Incomplete Process Step-by-Step Tutorial
- Canvas Speedgrader Resources
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