Hidden Mysteries of Canvas: Ungraded vs. Graded Discussions
October 19, 2023
Many instructors like to use Discussions in Canvas as a forum for students to share their work and give peer-to-peer feedback. For example, an instructor teaching a graphic design course might create a discussion in their Canvas course where students will upload designs that they have created for an assignment and critique one another’s designs.
Did you know that Canvas discussions are ungraded by default? When a Canvas discussion is ungraded, any files that students upload or attach to their discussion replies count toward their personal Canvas file storage quota. This is a common reason that students run out of file storage in Canvas, which prevents them from uploading additional files in certain areas of Canvas.
“Attachments added to graded discussion replies do not count against user quotas. However, attachments added to discussion replies in ungraded discussions count against user quotas. Attachments added to graded discussion replies are copied to a user’s user files but do not count against quotas.”
How Instructors Can Help
When you are creating a discussion in Canvas, we recommend making it graded. You can always enter 0 in the Points Possible field if you do not want the discussion to be worth any points.
This will ensure that students can upload or attach files without running into issues with their Canvas file storage.
Resources
- For instructors: How do I create a discussion as an instructor?
- For students: How do I manage my Canvas files as a student?
