Assess documents in Canvas
This page explains how to assess uploaded or scanned documents in an assignment in Canvas. SpeedGrader has many flexible features similar to a traditional assessment made by hand, such as annotations directly in the document, and comments. Read here for more information about it and other things related to the assessment of documents in SpeedGrader.
The guide is divided into 4 parts
- How to temporarily hide grades from students
- Find SpeedGrader and scanned documents
- Use SpeedGrader
- When you are done with the assessment
Particularly interesting for scanned documents is the notes and annotations in SpeedGrader, that resembles how many teachers work with handwritten exams.
1. How to temporarily hide grades from students
What you first want to do is to temporarily hide the grades from the students. This is managed in the Canvas Gradebook, which you find by clicking on “Grades” in your course room. If the current Canvas room is prepared with one of KTH's templates, this setting may already be adjusted.
To the right in the Canvas Gradebook view, click the cogwheel and in the window that appears choose the tab “Grade Posting Policy”. Choose the option “Manually Post Grades”.
Hidden grading is now enabled and students won't see any new grades, notes, or comments you add to the submission. You can see that hidden grading is enabled if the crossed-out eye appears in the top left corner of Speedgrader.
Note! There must be something to hide for the crossed-out eye to appear. A tip is to give a grade to the test student in Canvas, called "Teststudent". You can create the test student by entering and exiting the student view at least once in the course.
2. How to find SpeedGrader and scanned documents
Canvas allows you to access SpeedGrader from an assignment or from the Gradebook. Below it is shown how Speedgrader is reached through an assignment.
Open Assignments
In Course Navigation, click the Assignments link.
View the assignment
Click the name of the assignment.
Open SpeedGrader from the Assignment
When you click on your assignment (or quiz), you will see the SpeedGrader link in the sidebar under "Related Items".
3. Use SpeedGrader
Use SpeedGrader to view submitted assignments, comment on student submissions and grade assignments. If you want to compare two students' assignments at the same time, you can open Canvas in several tabs or windows for the browser. Canvas also handles that several teachers assess the same exam at the same time.
Anonymize students before assessment
There are two ways to anonymize submitted assignments, in the assignments's settings and in SpeedGrader. If you wish to see the status of different students' submissions in the Gradebook, it is recommended that you activate anonymous assessment in SpeedGrader and not in the assignment. If you have already anonymised the assignment in its settings, it is possible to uncheck "Anonymous grading" after the students have submitted.
To enable anonymous assessment in SpeedGrader, click on the cogwheel in the menu at the top of SpeedGrader [1] and then "Options" [2].
Then select "Hide student names in the SpeedGrader" and click "Save Settings".
Find students submissions in SpeedGrader
The right side of the menu bar includes the student list for the assignment. When the students are anonymised, it is displayed as student 1, student 2, etc.
To open the list of students, click the drop-down menu. SpeedGrader opens the assignment for the first student listed in the student list, arranged alphabetically by last name [1] or unordered if you have chosen to anonymize SpeedGrader. When you view a submission, you can see which student submission you are viewing in the student list compared to the total number of students [2].
View Student Submission
Once you have selected a student, the student’s submission displays in the preview window.
If the students have uploaded several files you can see them under Submitted Files. The file you select will be the file that displays in the preview window. Here you can also find the students' scanned documents.
Anonymous instructor annotations
Anonymous instructor annotations mean that students do not see who has made annotations in their assignments. The setting is recommended as some teachers and assistants have been contacted privately to be asked to explain their assessment. The setting must be made both in the Canvas room and in the assignment. Learn more about how to create an assignment for assessment with Anonymous instructor annotations on the page Settings for examining assignments .
How to make notes in the document
In SpeedGrader you can make notes or annotations in the document. These annotations are only shown to the student after you have published a grade. The grade can be in the form of points/letter grade or a comment in the sidebar in SpeedGrader.
You have different options for annotations to choose from. At the top from left to right you will find the options.
Note that annotations are only possible if the uploaded file type is compatible with Canvas DocViewer and is below 100 Mb. List of file types compatible with DocViewer (Canvas Community) .
Point annotation: point out a place in the document where you can add a comment.
Highlight annotation: highlight a word or sentence and add a comment.
Text annotation: add a comment anywhere in the document.
Strikeout annotation: mark a place in the document and add a comment.
Draw annotation: draw freely and add a comment.
Area annotation: mark a specific area in the document and add a comment.
Below you can see an example of 6, i.e. where an area in a document has been marked and a comment has been added.
How to assign a grade
To assign a grade in SpeedGrader: go to Assessment in the sidebar on the right and enter the student's results in the white field. Press enter or click outside the box to update the grade. You can enter a value or, if you have chosen letter grading , a letter as grade. If you have chosen a grading scheme for the assignment, the value you enter in writing will change according to the grading scheme. You will still see the score and the maximum score above the field even if it has been changed to a letter.
Example of an assignment with a grading scheme of fail (F) (0, 1, 2 or 3 out of 5) and pass (P) (4 or 5 out of 5):
How to make a comment on the entire submission
In the field "Assignment Comments" you can write comments to the students. The comments that the students make during the submission can be seen in this section.
To add a comment to the assignment, enter your text in the Add a comment text field. To increase the size of the comment field, click and drag in the corner of the text field.
Above the comments field you find the comment library button to the right, where you can add and save comments that are used frequently. To use a saved comment you click on it. This function is called comments library and it is connected to your account which means that you will find your saved comments in all your courses. You can edit the comments whenever you like, both in the comment library and after you've chosen one from the library, before the student sees them.
Both you and the students can attach files and media to their comments.
How to assess with outcomes
If you have created a rubric with learning objectives for an assignment, the "View rubric" button in SpeedGrader is in the same place as where you can write comments and set a result for the whole assignment. Through the button, you get the assessment rubric for the assignment and can click in it to mark the student's results. Read more about how to do this on the page Using outcomes to assess assignments .
4. When you are done grading
After you are done grading you can choose to reveal the grades to the students together with the notes/annotations that you have done in their documents. This is done in SpeedGrader and by clicking the symbol that looks like a crossed over eye in the top left corner and choosing the option “Post grades”.
After that choose the option "Everyone" and click the button labelled "Post". Now the grades and your annotations are visible to the students.
