How do I send results from Poll Everywhere to the Canvas Gradebook as an instructor?

Quick Links: | Prerequisites | Instructions | Troubleshooting |

Integrating Poll Everywhere responses into the Canvas Gradebook enhances the teaching and learning experience by seamlessly combining formative assessment with grade management. This guide outlines how to send Poll Everywhere results to Canvas, offering strategies for grading and tips for organizing Poll Everywhere activities. By understanding how to track participation, correct answers, and overall engagement, instructors can make informed decisions about student performance and course adjustments. This guide does not cover setting up Poll Everywhere or detailed Canvas Gradebook management but focuses on bridging these two platforms effectively.

Prerequisites

Before sending Poll Everywhere results to Canvas, ensure you have the following:

• An active Poll Everywhere presenter account. (See: How do I access Poll Everywhere as a presenter or instructor?)
• Course in Canvas that have been paired with Poll Everywhere. (See: How do I enable Poll Everywhere in my Canvas course as an instructor?)
• At least one poll with results in Poll Everywhere.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Exporting Poll Everywhere Grades to Canvas

You can create grade columns in Canvas based on poll results in Poll Everywhere. To send your Poll Everywhere results to the Canvas gradebook, do the following:

1. Organize your Poll Everywhere activities into folders by course, subject, and/or lesson to streamline the export process.
2. After conducting your Poll Everywhere activities, navigate to the Reports section of Poll Everywhere, then select Create Report.
   
3. Select Gradebook report [1], then choose Continue [2].
   
4. Choose the activities you want to generate a report for [1]. All of these will import to Canvas as a single column. Select Create Report [2].
   
5. Choose Export.
6. From the Export Report dialog, select the Canvas course you want to export the grades to [1]. If your course isn't listed, ensure it's synced with Poll Everywhere.
7. Decide whether to export grades, participation, or attendance [2]. Each option serves different pedagogical goals:
   • Grades: Focus on correct responses from graded activities like multiple-choice or hotspot questions.
   • Participation: Track how actively students engage with the polls, regardless of correctness.
   • Attendance: Use if Poll Everywhere is employed for tracking physical classroom attendance through poll responses.
8. Confirm your selection and choose Next [3] to initiate the export. The process may take a few minutes, depending on the size of your report.
   

Strategies for Grading and Reporting

When thinking about posting your Poll Everywhere results to the Canvas gradebook, use the following strategies to

• Consider formative assessment strategies, such as dropping the lowest scores, to accommodate absences or technical issues.
• Communicate grading policies related to Poll Everywhere activities to your students, clarifying how these activities impact their overall course grade.
• Decide on a reporting frequency (e.g., daily, weekly, or at semester's end) to maintain consistency and manage student expectations.

Interpreting Different Export Options

The grade percentage, participation percentage, and attendance percentage are different. You can choose how your Poll Everywhere results post to the Canvas gradebook.

• The participation percentage is the percentage of Polls answered by the participant and does not matter whether participants answered correctly.
• The grade percentage is based on graded activities. 
  • Only multiple choice and clickable image questions can be graded.
  • Responses to ungraded polls (shown below gray dots) are not counted.
  • If multiple responses per question are allowed, any correct response marks the entire response correct.
  • By default, graded responses activities are either correct or incorrect. Worth 1 or 0.  However, you can manually assign different points to different options. 
  • All of the graded poll activities selected for the report, are rolled up into a grade percentage based on the  correct responses /  graded activities.
• The attendance percentage (NEW) is based on the student answering activities in a specific geographic area as set on your profile.

Example 1 - Grade Report In this example, there are 8 poll activities: 6 of them are graded; 2 are not graded (for example, survey). By default, each graded poll question is worth 1 point. Marjorie Shepard only completed 2 of the 8 activities. Her participation percentage is 2/8 = 25%. Her grade is 2/6 (only 6 of the questions were graded) = 33%

Example 2 - Grade Report In this example, there are 5 poll activities: 4 of them are graded; 1 is not graded (for example, survey). Each activity is worth different points (10, 5, 1, and 5) for a total of 21 pts. Marjorie Shepard completed all 5 activities. Her participation percentage is 5/5 = 100%. Her grade is 15/21= 71%

See What's in a Poll Everywhere Gradebook? for more details.

How Canvas Interprets Poll Everywhere Columns

When you send your Poll Everywhere results to Canvas, there's a few things to keep in mind:

• Each export from Poll Everywhere creates a new column in the Canvas Gradebook. Instructors can choose to:
  • Keep regular grade or participation reports as separate columns.
  • Export one full Poll Everywhere gradebook with all activities for the term.
• Manual adjustment may be necessary for previous weeks' columns if you prefer not to keep a record of every exported report.

Troubleshooting

• If your course doesn't appear in the export options, ensure you've enabled the Poll Everywhere tool in Canvas. (See: How do I enable Poll Everywhere in my Canvas course as an instructor?)
• For issues with incorrect grade exports, verify the grading settings in Poll Everywhere and the selected export options.
• If some students' grades don't sync, verify your activities are restricted to registered participants and that participants are identified by their registered name and email.

Still need help? Reach out to Poll Everywhere support or the Technology & Learning Program for further assistance.