Assessments, Feedback and Grades

Owned by
Christine Sandella
, created
Last updated: Apr 10, 2024
2 min read

In Canvas, there are several ways to collect, evaluate and score student work in your courses. Canvas supports four assessment types:

Assignments 

Canvas Assignments streamline the way that student work is collected by providing students with detailed instructions for each assignment, due dates, template files for use when applicable, and rubrics to help students understand what is expected to achieve full credit for their work. Canvas Assignments also work hand-in-hand with Canvas Grades, allowing students to access a quick view of grades for each assignment as well as for the course overall.

Quizzes

Quizzes are assignments that can be used to challenge students' understanding and assess comprehension of course material. Canvas currently has two quiz tools: Classic Quizzes and New Quizzes. These quiz tools are used to create and administer online quizzes and surveys. Quizzes can also be used to conduct and moderate exams and assessments, both graded and ungraded. 

Canvas has four different types of quizzes: 

  • A graded quiz is the most common quiz. It awards students with points based on their quiz responses. 

  • A practice quiz is a learning tool to see how well users understand course material without providing a grade. 

  • A graded survey awards students with points for completing a survey but grading is not based on right or wrong answers. 

  • An ungraded survey obtains opinions or other information without providing a grade. 

Discussions 

Discussions are often used to promote student interaction and exchange of ideas, in online and hybrid courses. Instructors may organize discussion topics as focused or threaded.

  • Focused discussions only allow for two levels of nesting, the original post and subsequent replies.

  • Threaded discussions allow for infinite levels of nesting.

Focused discussions are relatively short-lived interactions, while threaded discussions allow replies within replies and may last for a longer period of time. Canvas Discussions can be ungraded, graded, assigned to groups, and even peer reviewed.