Why this setting matters

By default in Canvas, if a student doesn’t submit an assessment and the mark is left as a dash (“–”), it isn’t counted in their final grade. This can inflate results. For example, a student who completes only one out of three quizzes with a mark of 90% could end up with the same final grade as a student who completed all three quizzes with marks of 100%, 80% and 90%.

To fix this, you can enable a setting in Canvas that automatically applies a zero for any missing submissions.

How to turn it on

1. In your course site, go to Marks from the left-hand menu.
2. On the Marks page, click the cog icon next to Export in the top right corner.
3. Under Late Policies, tick Automatically apply mark for missing submissions.
4. Set the default mark for missing submissions to 0.
5. Save your changes.