Imagine This Scenario…

In the Gradebook of your Canvas course, you notice that all of your students have a grade of 0 for one or more assignments.  You have not graded the assignments yet (maybe your students have not even submitted them yet), so you are not sure how this could have happened.

How This Happens

This issue happens when:

  1. The settings to apply grades automatically for missing or late submissions are turned on in the Gradebook.
  2. Assignments with due dates in the past are copied into the course.

Canvas Gradebook Settings for Late Policies

This causes Canvas to give all enrolled students a grade of 0 for the assignments immediately after they are copied into the course because Canvas considers them missing or late (based on the due dates).  Unfortunately, when the due dates are edited, the 0 grades are not removed automatically.

How to Remove the 0 Grades

In the left-side navigation menu of your Canvas course, click on Grades to open the Gradebook.

Find the column(s) with the 0 grades.

Hover over the top of the column and select the Options icon.

Select Set Default Grade.

Set Default Grade in the Canvas Gradebook

Leave the grade field [1] empty.

Select the Overwrite already-entered grades checkbox [2].

Click the Set Default Grade button [3].

Setting default grades in the Canvas Gradebook

Repeat for any additional columns.

This will clear the 0s from the column(s) so that you can enter your students’ grades when the time comes.

How to Avoid This Issue in the Future

When copying content from one Canvas course to another:

  • Choose Select specific content (NOT All content).
  • Consider using the Adjust events and due dates feature to shift or remove due dates.
  • Do not copy Course Settings if you were using missing/late submission policies in your past course.  This will copy the Gradebook settings to your current course.
  • Turn off any missing/late submission policies in your current course before importing assignments from a past course.  To do this, click on Grades in the course navigation menu to open the Gradebook.  Click the gear/Settings icon in the upper right corner.  Select the Late Policies tab.

Importing content from one Canvas course to another

Questions?  Need Support?