Canvas @ Yale

Gradescope: Creating a Canvas Assignment

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Instructors will create a Gradescope Assignment and a Canvas Assignment independently, and then link them together once both are made. For the Gradescope Assignment to find the Canvas Assignment, the Canvas Assignment needs to be published. Instructors will want to set up the Gradescope assignment first, and then come back and make the assignment in Canvas to link to. This linking will create the assignment for students in Canvas that will serve as a pass-through to Gradescope, and will create the appropriate column in the Gradebook where grades will be sent. 

Only those with the role of Instructor, Guest Instructor, or Teacher (not commonly used) can create and link to a Gradescope Course, as well as create and link assignments.  

TAs or Teaching Fellows will be able to grade assignments already created, but not connect assignments from Gradescope to Canvas.

  1. Create your Gradescope assignment in your Gradescope course that aligns with you Canvas course.
    1. Reference our Gradescope: Enabling Gradescope and Creating a New Course article for instructions on creating a Gradescope course if you have not done so already.
  2. Once you have created your assignment on Gradescope and are ready to link it to Canvas, navigate to the "Assignments" section in the course navigation and click the "+ Assignment" button to begin creating the Canvas Assignment.
  3. Fill in the "Assignment Name" in top text box that aligns with the name of the Gradescope assignment you already made.
    1. You do not need to type in a description as the assignment will load Gradescope automatically.
  4. Set the "Points" field to match the total number of points that can be awarded in the Gradescope assignment you created.
  5. Set the "Display Grade as" field to "Points" as well.
  1. Set the "Submission Type" to "External Tool," and click "Find" under the "External Tool Options." 
    1. You do not need to check the "Load This Tool in A New Window" box as Gradescope will load within the frame of Canvas if you do not want your students to leave your course page.
  1. In the "Configure External Tool" pop-up box that opens, scroll down the list of available external tools to click on "Gradescope." Once clicked, press the "Select" button.

If the assignment you are setting up is a group assignment that requires one or more students to submit on behalf of a group of people, you cannot designate the group submission requirements on the Canvas side when using the "Submission Type: External Tool" setting.

Group assignments can be managed on the Gradescope side if you are creating one of the following assignment types.

  1. Online Assignment  
  2. Homework / Problem Set
  3. Programming Assignment

This is done by indicating that the assignment is a group assignment, and by indicating the limit of the group size. If a student is submitting an assignment for multiple people, that student will be indicating which students they are including in submission during upload, and Gradescope will automatically give each of the students the same grade to pass back to Canvas. For more information about Group Submissions, please reference Gradescope's support articles:

  1. Scroll down to the "Assign" settings and set the due date and availability dates to match the Gradescope assignment's dates as well so that your students know in Canvas what is expected from them in Gradescope.
    1. "Due" date in Canvas = "Due Date" in Gradescope
    2. "Available from" in Canvas = "Release Date" in Gradescope
    3. "Until" date in Canvas = "Late Due Date" in Gradescope, if your Due Date does not equal your Until Date.

Gradescope has One (1) time zone for Yale's instance of Gradescope, which is Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) regardless of what your time zone is in Canvas. These will not sync.

  1. In the Canvas assignment, click the "Save & Publish" button at the bottom of the page to create the Canvas Assignment, and to be able to link to the Gradescope Assignment.
  2. The first time you click on the Canvas Assignment you just made, you will be taken to the Gradescope Assignments page. Find the assignment you wish to link, and click on the three dot icon on the right-hand side to open the "Assignment Settings."
  1. In the settings page for the activity, click on the "Link" button under "Canvas Assignment" header.
  1. A pop-up box will open and Gradescope will pull the list of available assignments for you from Canvas. If the correct assignment is not selected by default, choose the appropriate assignment from the drop-down menu. Once selected, click the "Link Assignment" button.
  1. Once the Canvas Assignment has been selected and linked, scroll to the bottom of the screen and select "Save" to finalize your assignment in Gradescope being linked to the Assignment in Canvas.

Additional Resources:

For more help, please contact the vendor at [email protected] or [email protected].

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