This article outlines how instructors can take student grades completed in offline activities then recorded in a spreadsheet and publish them into the Canvas gradebook. Once uploaded, students can only view their own grades, and instructors have full control over the format of the displayed grades.

Common examples for this are when instructors are using spreadsheets to perform complex grade calculations or when an exam has been optically scored by IST Test Scoring & Questionnaire Services (TSQS) and they have provided a spreadsheet file containing the test results (which will be demonstrated below.)

One important difference from eClass is that importing comments from optically scored tests is not available in Canvas: only numerical values can be uploaded.

Grade Import Basics

Grade uploads into Canvas require a specific format of the data in CSV files for import that includes columns to identify students, the grades to be imported, and an additional row for Points Possible in the activity. When importing, all of the identifier column headings and the 'Points Possible' row are required to be in the spreadsheet.

The recommended process to create a model spreadsheet for maintaining grades outside the LMS is to start by exporting the gradebook: go to Grades and click Export in the top right corner. It does not make any difference which option, current view or entire, you choose from the dropdown:

When opened in Excel (or any spreadsheet editor) your CSV file will look like this:

The SIS User ID column maps to the student's ID number.

The SIS Login ID column maps to the student's CCID.

You can delete any empty downloaded (or previously uploaded) columns for assignments or quizzes. Do not delete any of the first five columns ( Student, ID, SIS User ID, SIS Login ID, or Section) or the Points Possible row - these are required in imports.

If working in Excel, be aware that the the program will always attempt to trim any leading zeros in student ID numbers (SIS User ID) which can cause issues when saving the file as csv for import. Changing the formatting on that column to text will resolve this issue.

See below for information on uploading spreadsheet grade files.

Preparing Scantron Files for Import

When students take a quiz using Scantron bubble sheets, you will receive a csv file from TSQS with the quiz results. Unfortunately, the Scantron CSV file format must be tweaked before it can be imported into the Canvas gradebook.

The Scantron CSV has two fields for student names instead of the one field required by Canvas. It also has different field names for handling student numbers and CCIDs, and no row for 'Points possible':

To prevent mismatches and/or issues with students not present in the TSQS spreadsheet, the recommended practice is to paste the TSQS data into an exported Canvas gradebook file (shown above.) Instructors need to copy only the fields highlighted below from the TSQS csv file:

The data from the Student number and CCID columns should be pasted into the columns for SIS User ID, and SIS Login ID, respectively. The data from the Canvas CSV under Student, ID and Section must be deleted. This will force Canvas to map the scores directly to the users included in the file:

Once saved, this reconstructed TSQS csv file can be imported into the Canvas gradebook as shown below.

Note: Text comments (ie. the 'Items Wrong' and 'Scored Responses' columns) cannot be uploaded into the Canvas grade book.

Upload grades

To upload grades, click Import at the top right of your Grades page:

On the next page, choose the CSV you want to upload and click Upload data:

Verify that the grades you wanted to upload are displayed:

If you are repeating a grade upload, grades that have not changed since the last upload will not be displayed. If you are satisfied with the upload preview, click Save changes:

Finally, click OK to acknowledge and complete the upload: