UNH, Canvas: Grade Publishing to WebCat

This article describes how to publish grades to WebCat.

 

Instructions:

What is Grade Passback?

Grade Passback is a Canvas feature that allows final grades to be published directly from your Canvas grade book to WebCat. Using this feature is optional and you will continue to be able to manually enter grades in WebCat. You also can change grades in WebCat that were previously transferred from Canvas using Grade Passback.

It is important that after uploading your grades, you log into WebCat to ensure your grades published properly.

Important points to review to successfully upload grades to Webcat

1. The Instructor who publishes the grades must be the instructor of record in WebCat.
   1. In the case of cross-listed courses that have different instructors of record in WebCat, publishing will be successful for the section that the instructor is the instructor of record for, but publishing will fail for other sections. This means that the instructor of record for each section of the cross-listed course must publish grades in order for all grades to be sent to WebCat.
   2. Cross-listed courses with the same instructor in both can be submitted to WebCat at the same time.
2. Your Gradebook cannot have missing grades (indicated by a dash '-').
   1. The Current Grade, as seen in the Total column, is the score that is calculated for only graded activities. It does not include any assignment, quizzes, etc., that have not yet been submitted or graded. If there is a null value, as indicated by a dash (-) it simply ignores it when calculating the Current Grade.
   2. The Final Grade calculates all graded activities whether or not it has been given an actual grade. If there is a null value, as indicated by a dash (-) it treats it as a zero. This results in a different grade than the Current Grade.
   3. Zeros, or EX should be entered in the grade book for all ungraded assignments so that Current equals Final. All assignments should be unmuted. Unmuted means that the grades are posted for the students to view. See below for Gradebook setup instructions.
   4. If the "Student View" person is being used, then make sure if there grades that they are posted for this "Student View" person. Typically, the "Student View" grades won't affect the Grade Passback but it can affect the "Invisibility" icon to be enabled.  All grades must be Unmuted.
   5. Canvas sends the Final Grade to WebCat only if the Current Grade (Total column) and Final Grade are equal which happens when there are no missing grades. Since only the Current Grade appears in the Grades area, this can be confusing. The Final Grade does not display in the Gradebook and can be seen by using the Export option in the Canvas gradebook.  Export the gradebook and open the CSV file to see additional columns.
3. Only students who have registered for the course through the Registrar's Office will have grades published in WebCat.

 

Gradebook setup

The grade that appears in the Total column is uploaded to WebCat as long as there are no missing grades in your grade book. Make sure that one of the following is assigned to each student activity: points, zero, percentage, letter or EX, for exempt.

1. The Total column in the Canvas grade book is called the Current Grade and does not take into account any ungraded work as indicated by a dash "-" .
2. Only active students will have a grade submitted. Inactive student do not appear in the grade area.
3. Assignments or quizzes that count towards the final grade must be published and unmuted. Unmuted means that the grades are posted and available for the students to view.
4. The grade schema must be selected. If no selection is made, a default grade schema will populate. Because all courses are created with a default grade schema this would only be a problem if an instructor removed the grading schema from their course.

 

Using Grade Passback

It is important that after uploading your grades, you log into WebCat to ensure your grades published properly.

1. In your Canvas, course go to the Grades area.
2. When you are ready to publish the grades to WebCat, click Sync button a drop-down will then appear and click on "Sync grades to SIS". You are re-directed to the Settings > Grade Publishing Tab in your course.

Note: Canvas over-writes grades already entered in WebCat, so if you have students with any of the following; (IC) incomplete, (AU) auditing your course, or (AF) administrative failure, then you should wait to enter the incomplete in WebCat until after you publish grades from Canvas. At that time you can go to WebCat and enter the incomplete grades.

3. After submitting the grade a message appears in the Settings > Grade Publishing Tab in your course.

A message appears indicating the status and number of published and unpublished grades. This status indicates whether Canvas was successful in sending the grades to the UNH WebCat site, but it does not indicate that the grade was successfully placed into WebCat. An email will be sent to you letting you know if grades were successfully published into WebCat. For more information on the email and error codes explanations read the article Canvas: Grade Publishing Error Code Explanations .

FAQs

Q: How do I change a grade that I published to Webcat using Grade Passback ?

A: Login to Webcat and manually over write the grade in Banner. Here is a link to the instructions on how to access Webcat. Canvas and Webcat - Resource Links for course Final Grade
 

Q: What should I do if I changed a grade in Canvas after I published grades through Grade Passback ?

A: You have 2 choices, either re-submit the grades to Banner using the Grade Passback which will over write all previous submitted grades or go directly to Banner to update the grade.

 

Q: What if a student has an incomplete grade?

A: Enter the incomplete status for the student directly in WebCat after publishing grades through Grade Passback.

 

Q: If this is a Pass/Fail course can I still use the Grade Passback how do I update the Grade Schema?

A: You can update the Grade Schema in Canvas so that it shows up in the Grades area as Pass/Fail rather than the typical letter grade. If the course is setup in Banner as Pass/Fail you can use the Grade Passback feature to send the grades to WebCat.

 

Q: I only have one student who is getting a Pass/Fail grade in my course, what should I do?

A: You can use the Grade Passback for all the students and then login into WebCat and update the grade for the individual student.

 

Q: How do I update the Grade Schema in Canvas?

A: There is a Pass/Fail grade schema in Canvas that you can select and apply to your course. In your courses, go to Settings, select View/Edit Grading Schema. In the next window, select "Select another schema" and select Credit/Fail schema, then select Use This Grading Standard. Select Done to apply the schema. Go to Grades to the Total column and the student grade will show as either "F" or "CR".

 

Outcome:

Users should understand how to publish grades to WebCat.

Further reading:

Canvas Webform for requesting help

Canvas Open Office Hours

Canvas - FAQ's about Grades

Canvas Gradebook Guides

Need additional help?

Please use this link to the Technology Help Desk to locate your local campus contact information.  Use the “Submit a Question” for your campus to enter an online support request.