The Faculty Center Grade Prep tool is located in the Canvas gradebook. It is designed to lighten the load of instructors of high-enrollment courses. Rather than manually entering hundreds of grades into the Faculty Center, this tool automatically populates a .csv file that can then be uploaded into the Faculty Center. Some instructors find this process (below) to be complicated enough that it may not be useful for low-enrollment courses. The alternative is outlined by the Office of the Registrar, Entering and Submitting Final Grades.
As a broad overview, the process of using the Faculty Center Grade Prep tool involves three key steps.
These steps are outlined in the collapsible sections below.
Before engaging the Faculty Center Grade Prep Tool, please review the following.
Set a grading scheme for your Canvas course
For the Faculty Center Grade Prep tool to work, your Canvas course must have an active grading scheme. That grading scheme needs to adhere to the Valid Grades policy put forth by the Office of the Registrar. For instructions on setting up a grading scheme in your course, see Canvas - Grading Schemes.
Give ungraded assignments a zero
For Canvas to accurately calculate a final grade, there should be no blank or null fields in the gradebook.
In most cases, a blank cell in the gradebook indicates the student did not complete that assignment, thus earning a zero. If that is the case, you should enter a zero into that cell (or whatever numeric value is appropriate). This process should be performed one assignment at a time, sorting each assignment from lowest to highest values. That will cause all "null" cells to be grouped together, making them easier to locate.
Alternatively, if a student has been excused from an assignment, you should enter Ex into the cell. Doing so removes that assignment, and the associated points, from the calculation of the student's final score.
Ensure all assignment grades are posted (not hidden)
Canvas allows instructors to hide existing grades for an assignment. This is usually employed as a temporary tactic, to enable notifying all students of their grades for a given assignment at the same time. However, instructors may inadvertently leave some assignment grades hidden, or unposted. Before running the Faculty Center Grade Prep tool, it is imperative to ensure all grades have been posted.
The best way to determine whether any grades are currently hidden is by looking for the hidden grade icon. (See image.) If this icon is present in the header of any assignment, it means at least one student's grade for that assignment has been changed in the instructor's gradebook but has not been posted and shared back with the student.
To post grades for a single assignment, go to the gradebook. Find the assignment in question. Select the ellipsis button (three dots) in the header. In the resulting pop-up menu, select Post grades. (See image.) There will be additional options in this process. For a detailed breakdown of all options, refer to this Canvas Guide, How do I post grades for an assignment in the Gradebook?
If Post grades is not available, then there are no grades for this assignment that need posting.
Export the gradebook (optional)
You may wish to export a copy of the Canvas course gradebook before running the Faculty Center Grade Prep tool. This provides you with a current-state backup of the gradebook, it allows you to review the grades before starting the process outlined below, and it gives you a reference document by which you can confirm success at the conclusion of this process.
To export the Canvas gradebook:
- Open your Canvas course.
- Select the Grades tool.
- Select the Export button (upper-right corner).
- Select Export Entire Gradebook. (See image.)
Note: If you export the gradebook, be mindful the exported file will contain FERPA-protected information. When finished performing the task, delete the exported file and ensure it has been deleted from your computer's Recycle Bin.
Miscellany
- Use browsers supported by Canvas. See: Which browsers does Canvas support?.
- Note that the Faculty Center Grade Prep tool is designed to transfer final grades only. It is not intended to transfer midpoint grades or other partial grades to the Faculty Center.
In this first step, you will need to log into the Faculty Center and export (or download) the grade roster.
- Log in to MyUW, then select the Faculty Center tile.
- The main page will display your schedule for the current term. To view the schedule for a different term, click the Change Term button.
- Select the class for which you need to enter grades.
- Click one of the following:
Grade Roster
Packaged Grade Roster
XL-MW Grade Roster
- On the grade roster page, click the Export button.
- Click Save on the File Download dialog box.
- In the Save As dialog box:
- You may change the file name.
- Change the file type to .csv (not .xls).
- Select the location in which you want to save the file.
- Click Save.
- Important: The Excel spreadsheet must be saved in the .csv file format.
- Mac users: Select csv (Windows) when saving and name the file with 30 characters or fewer.
We will use this exported .csv file in Step 2 (below).
Notes:
- Do not modify any internal component of this .csv file. Both of the last two steps in this process depend upon the organization of columns, column headers and student identifiers.
- Any work done to the body of this .csv file will be overwritten by the following steps.
- These steps are extracted from a KB document maintained by the Office of the Registrar. If you experience any complications with these steps, please consult the original KB document, Export and Import Grades. If problems persist with this export effort, contact the Office of the Registrar at egrade@em.wisc.edu, or 608-262-4859.
After successfully downloading the grade roster from the Faculty Center (Step 1, above):
- Return to your Canvas course.
- In the course navigation bar, select Grades.
- In the upper-right corner, select Faculty Center Grade Prep.
- In the resulting new screen, click the Browse button.
- In the resulting window, locate and select the .csv file you downloaded from Faculty Center in the previous section.
- Select Process File.
- Depending on the size of your course, this step may take 30 seconds to complete. You should see a loading icon similar to this image:
while you wait.
- The tool should inform you of any issues you need to address in the Results, Warnings, and Errors sections.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page, and select the Download button. This saves a local copy of a new-and-improved course grade roster file. This new file now has grades in it for all the students. Be sure to open the file and review the grades before submitting to Faculty Center. (If the Download button is not present, contact learnuwsupport@wisc.edu.)
To complete this 3-step process, we now need to upload this new-and-improved grade roster (which now contains the students' grades) into the Faculty Center.
- Log in to MyUW, then select the Faculty Center tile.
- The main page will display your schedule for the current term. To view the schedule for a different term, click the Change Term button.
- Select the class for which you need to enter grades.
- Click one of the following:
Grade Roster
Packaged Grade Roster
XL-MW Grade Roster
- On the grade roster page, click the Import button.
- From the Choose File dialog box, select and open the file (.csv) that includes your students’ grade information.
- Click Upload.
- From the Grade Roster page, click Save.
- Review any error messages that appear.
- If you have entered an invalid grade, you will see an error message and invalid entries highlighted in red.
- If the names in the grade roster do not match your extracted roster, you will see an error message. Contact the Office of the Registrar for assistance.
- When you have entered all grades for this section, submit them to the Office of the Registrar for posting:
- On the Grade Roster, select Submit to Registrar.
- On the XL-MW / Packaged Grade Roster, click Submit.
- Click [Save].
Note: These steps are extracted from a KB document maintained by the Office of the Registrar. If you experience any complications with these steps, please consult the original KB document, Importing Grade Information from a Roster. If problems persist with this export effort, contact the Office of the Registrar at egrade@em.wisc.edu, or 608-262-4859.
