How to Assign Extra Credit in Canvas

Assigning extra credit may take some getting use to because there is no place within the assignments settings that you check to make the assignment worth extra credit. Yet, because of this, Canvas gives a lot of flexibility in how extra credit can be given to students.

Ways to Add Extra Credit

For specific information on how to add extra credit using the above methods, see the following Canvas Instructor Guide: How do I give my students extra credit?

*Note – You can add extra credit manually by downloading/exporting your Gradebook to Excel. This will be down in the Grade Override Column and to be completed at the end of the course, when entering final grades.

Keeping that in mind, the biggest determinant of how you set up your extra credit in Canvas is whether you are using a points-based gradebook or a weighted gradebook. A Points-Based Gradebook allows for the most flexibility in offering extra credit. The tabs above include ways to add extra credit for Point-Based Gradebooks.

Note: Adding extra credit to a Percentage-Based Gradebook does not work that well in Canvas. In general the best way to add extra credit to a percentage based gradebook is to NOT ADD EXTRA CREDIT UNTIL AFTER ALL OTHER COURSE GRADES ARE ENTERED INTO THE GRADEBOOK (including the final exam). Extra credit WILL NOT calculate correctly until ALL OTHER COURSE GRADES ARE ENTERED. This is because by adding the extra credit the gradebook is going over the normal 100%. You can add extra credit by adding an Assignment Group (category) for “extra credit” and make it worth the percent you would like the overall course grade to be raised if students get the full amount of extra credit.

Create a New Assignment

Navigate to your course Assignments Page, and add a new assignment worth zero points. Make sure that the submission type is either “no submission” or “paper submission,” and click Save & Publish to create a column for this extra credit “assignment” in your Gradebook. If you are using a point structure and do not have weighted assignment groups, follow these steps.

  1. Click Assignments in the course navigation
  2. Click +Assignment
  3. Type the Assignment Name (for example, Extra Credit)
  4. Type 0 for Points
  5. Choose No Submission for the Submission Type
  6. Click Update Assignment
  7. Click Publish

After students complete the work, manually add points in the Gradebook.

  1. Click Grades in the course navigation
  2. Navigate to the new assignment (Extra Credit)
  3. Type the points for those students receiving extra credit

Add Extra Points to an Existing Assignment

Adding extra points to an Assignment you’ve already created you will need to manually enter the extra points in the Gradebook.

In this example, the assignment is worth 40 points. Adding 5 extra points will bring the assignment total for this student to 45 points. The added points will increase total points calculated in the Gradebook’s final grade.

Screenshot showing example of how to assign extra credit in Canvas.

Fudge Points

You can use Fudge Points to add extra points to a quiz. Fudge points allow you to manually add or remove points from a student’s overall quiz score.

  1. Click Quizzes in Course Navigation
  2. Click on the quiz you want to add extra points to
  3. Click SpeedGrader
  4. In the Student drop-down menu, select the name of the student that you want to give extra points to
  5. Enter the number of points you want to add to the overall quiz score in the Fudge Points field at the bottom. The Final Score shows the final score this student will receive.
  6. Click Update Scores to save the change to the student’s quiz score.

*Note – Fudge Points can only be added to Quizzes.

Adding Extra Credit to the Rubric

If you use a rubric to grade an assignment, you could make an additional criterion to the rubric for extra credit. Make sure the rubric is worth more points than the assignment so when you give students extra points it doesn’t affect the actual assignment points. For additional information on creating a rubric, please check out the Canvas Guides