Syncing Grades with Infinite Campus

December 12, 2017 by bejenkins

Things to Remember

These have come up from past experience, so please pay attention to them to avoid errors in the grade sync.

  1. You no longer need to set up grade calc options in IC. There is no need to set up anything in IC for grade sync to work.
  2. Right now, only Star Valley High School and Swift Creek High School are syncing all their grades to IC. If you are at another school and want your grades to sync, email or call the IT Dept.
  3. Grade syncing does not work with standards-based grades.
  4. Assignments will only sync over to IC if they are in an assignment group that has a weight greater than zero. If you don’t want to sync an assignment, move it to an unweighted assignment group. This is the only way to make sure that an assignment does not affect the grades in both IC and Canvas.
    1. Muting an assignment does not actually change the grades for a student – it only adjusts what you and they see. The actual grade still includes the muted assignment. Muting an assignment is meant to be used by teachers to see how removing an assignment from being graded would affect grades.
  5. Do not use assignments for handouts that do not have grades. Only items that you want to show up in the grade book should be assigned as assignments. For other documents, share them on pages.
  6. All assignments counting toward the final grade must be published.
  7. In order to check to see if this is working, go to the grade book in Infinite Campus and look at the individual assignment grades there. If the final grade matches what is in Canvas, it is working. Do not check their final grades outside of the grade book. This is filled in by our import so that eligibility reports will be accurate. If you go into the grade book, the final grade is calculated from the grades in the grade book and will differ from that in Canvas if an assignment didn’t sync correctly.

Setup in Canvas

  1. There are two options for managing several sections as one course.
    1. If you want to have all your sections of a class in a single course, cross-list your sections into one course. Do not cross-list into a master course that you created by yourself. Grade syncing will not work if this is done.
    2. If you want to have your sections in separate courses, but still want to manage the content from one master course, set up a blueprint course. (Instructions coming soon. Email Bernt if you want help doing this this year.)
  2. If you already have all your assignments set up in another course, you can copy your existing course setup into this course.
  3. Set up your Assignment Groups. (These are known as Categories in IC.)
    1. Click on the Assignments link on the left of the window.
    2. Create the assignment groups you want to use.
    3. Once all of the assignment groups are set up, click on the three dots to the left of the +Assignment button and select Assignment Groups Weights.
    4. Check the “Weight final grade based on assignment groups” checkbox.
    5. Set each assignment group’s weight and make sure they add up to 100%.
    6. I highly suggest having a group that is weighted 0%, so that you have a place to dump assignments you don’t want graded.
  4. Set up your Assignments.
    1. Each assignment will require a due date that lands within the beginning and ending dates of the semester.
    2. When you set up a new assignment, makes sure that the “Include this assignment’s grades when syncing to your school’s Student Information System” checkbox is checked.
      1. This can also be done from the main assignment’s page by ensuring that the grade sync enabled is showing up as green.
    3. Each assignment must be published, even if there is no submission required for the assignment. You can wait to publish until the students need to see it or until you need to enter grades.