Life’s too short to trawl through large lists of students, searching for their exam and assignment results in Gradebook in Canvas. Now you can narrow down large cohorts to specific students and their marks with one switch.
What’s enhanced filtering?
New enhanced filtering has arrived for Gradebook in Canvas. This simply means applying multiple filtering conditions to a list of students. These conditions can be saved as one filter, which can quickly be switched on and off.
Conditions include filtering by:
- Student group, assignment group, module and/or section
- Submission (assignments that have unmarked submissions or only those with submissions)
- Marking period, start date and/or end dates
You might already be familiar with this kind of filtering system. In music or photo library apps such as Apple Music and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, enhanced filtering is known as ‘smart albums’ or ‘smart collections’.
Couldn’t we already do that?
Partly. Filtering was fiddly and confusing. There were fewer filtering criteria and there was no way to set up ‘favourite’ filters that could be turned on and off with one switch.
Why filter?
Filter to identify a group of students quickly without the distraction of other students in the list. For example, you could use this to identify students from one class that have yet to have their assignments marked.
Narrowing down student cohorts could also be used to spot trends in exam results. Does one group tend to perform better than another in the same subject? Is there a correlation between exam results and the tutor, time of day or something else? Advanced filters can help you quickly compare.
Who will love this?
Subject coordinators with large cohorts can especially take advantage of creating multiple filters to quickly find and compare groups. There is no need to recreate a filter each time you want to search, saving time. Different filters with different search criteria can sit alongside each other.
Can I break anything?
No. Filtering alone doesn’t change marks or groups, just your view. Feel free to create, play with, and delete filters. (Note: changing marks still changes marks for real!)
Great, how do I filter?
Filtering in Gradebook in Canvas is straightforward. In many cases you only need to set up the filter once, then switch it on when needed.
First find the ‘Gradebook Filters’:
- In Canvas go to the Marks tab.
- Select the ‘Filters’ button in the top right of Gradebook.
Once in the ‘Gradebook Filters’ pop up window, create a filter:
- Select a ‘condition type’ from the drop down menu. Eg student group.
- Select the ‘+ Add Condition’ button and select another condition type. Repeat this step for all the conditions required.
- Select the ‘Apply filter’ switch.
- Name the filter in the text field and select ‘Save’.
Use the ‘Apply filter’ switch to turn on and off a filter whenever you want to use it.
Discover our assessments collection
For more information on the topic, take a look at our Canvas Gradebook resources. You’ll find step-by-step guides and a video tutorial to help you view, enter and manage student marks.