Configure Poll Everywhere Grading Options

Summary: Poll Everywhere Assignments can award points for participation, correctness, or both, and sync those scores to Canvas. Properly configuring these options ensures students receive intended credit and prevents issues when syncing grades. This guide explains enabling each grading type, choosing point-calculation methods, and best practices.

Quick Links: | Prerequisites | Instructions | Troubleshooting | Next Steps |

Introduction

Poll Everywhere Assignments can award points for participation, correctness, or both, and those grades can sync to your Canvas gradebook. Configuring grading options correctly ensures students earn the intended credit and prevents surprises when syncing grades. This guide explains how to create an assignment, enable Participation and/or Correctness grading, choose point-calculation methods, and sync grades to Canvas.

Prerequisites

• Instructor access to a Poll Everywhere account connected to your course
• The course linked to Canvas via Poll Everywhere’s Course Management
• At least one Poll Everywhere activity available to include in an assignment

Step-by-Step Instructions

Configure Assignment Grading Options

To configure Participation and Correctness grading in a new assignment, do the following:

1. From your course’s Assignments area in Poll Everywhere, select Create assignment.

2. Select the activities you want included, then select Continue or Next to open Grading settings.

3. To grade for participation, enable Participation.

4. To grade for correctness, enable Correctness.

5. Adjust the options under each section (see details below), then select Save.

6. After saving grading settings, select Sync grades to send scores to Canvas.

Configure participation grading

To award points for attempting activities, do the following:

1. Enable Participation.
2. Choose one of the following calculation methods:
   • Enable Use a percentage to score based on the percentage of activities answered out of the total.
   • Enable At least 1 of the questions in this assignment to award full participation credit if a student answers any one activity.
   • Set Participation points awarded to give a fixed number of points (all-or-nothing).
   • Set Points per activity answered to award points per response; optionally use Auto-calculate total points available or Set maximum points available to cap totals.
3. (Optional) Enable Must be checked in when questions are submitted to require Attendance Management check-in for responses to count.
4. (Recommended) Enable Ignore activities with zero responses so unused polls don’t affect scores.

Configure correctness grading

To award points for correct answers, do the following:

1. Enable Correctness.
2. Choose one of the following calculation methods:

• Enable Use a percentage to cap the score at 100 and award based on percent correct.
• Set Points per correct answer (value per correct response); optionally use Auto-calculate total points available or Set maximum points available to define the total.

1. (Optional) Enable Must be checked in when questions are submitted to require Attendance Management check-in for responses to count.
2. (Recommended) Enable Ignore activities with zero responses to skip grading polls that received no responses.

3. Use both participation and correctness

To grade for both attempting and accuracy, do the following:

1. Enable Participation and Correctness.
2. Configure each section as desired (see above), then select Save.
3. Select Sync grades. Two columns will appear in Canvas: one for Participation and one for Correctness.

Best practices

To maximize clarity and accuracy, do the following:

1. Inform students (e.g., syllabus or Canvas announcement) about Poll Everywhere registration and how participation/correctness are graded.
2. Enable Attendance Management if presence is required for credit.
3. Use Ignore activities with zero responses to avoid penalties from unused polls.
4. Use clear naming conventions and folder structures so assignments are easy to find and interpret in Canvas.

Troubleshooting

• I can’t sync grades. The Sync grades option appears only after you Save grading settings for the assignment. Save first, then sync.
• Students say they responded but have no credit. If Must be checked in when questions are submitted is enabled, only checked-in students receive credit; also confirm you did not exclude their response by using Ignore activities with zero responses on an activity with actual responses.
• Totals don’t match what I expected. Review whether Auto-calculate total points available or Set maximum points available is enabled for Participation/Correctness and whether you’re using Use a percentage.
• Duplicate or unexpected columns in Canvas. Using both Participation and Correctness creates two distinct gradebook columns by design.
• Unused polls affecting scores. Enable Ignore activities with zero responses so activities with no responses don’t reduce grades.

Next Steps (Optional)

• Understanding Participation and Correctness Grading Options