Canvas: Icons in the Gradebook
Icons in the Gradebook
The Canvas Gradebook includes icons that may display in the assignment columns, assignment groups, and Total column.
Icons are gradebook indicators to assist you with course grading. All published assignments count toward a student's total grade unless they are excused assignments.
Assignment Icon
We often are asked "why is there an icon in my gradebook instead of a grade?". This is the Assignment icon:
In the gradebook, assignment icons appear where grades should be:
This icon displays when an assignment needs to be graded. The following conditions will result in the icon displaying rather than a grade:
- A submission has been received but has not been graded
- A submission was graded but the grade was removed by the instructor
- A submission was resubmitted
- A quiz was submitted in Classic Quizzes, but is not fully graded (contains questions that must be manually graded, or an auto-submitted quiz score has been deleted and needs to be reassigned); can also display if a quiz has been edited and includes major changes that affect the quiz score, such as deleting questions or deleting quiz answers, and requires a grader to manually resolve
Note: the Assignment icon does not display for New Quizzes assessments that require grading.
To grade the assignment, launch Speedgrader.
- Click the 3 dots next to the assignment name. A dropdown menu will appear.
- Select Speedgrader.
Visibility Icon
Any assignment or quiz with grades hidden from students is indicated by the Visibility icon:
If you have a Manual grade posting policy, the label MANUAL indicates that future grades are hidden from student view or that a manual grade posting policy was previously used to hide grades. If you have a manual grade grade posting policy, all assignments that have hidden grades will show the visibility icon.
When grades are hidden from student view, the Total column will also display the Visibility icon. This indicates that the total grade in the Gradebook is different from the total grade viewed by the student.

To learn more about icons in the Canvas Gradebook, see:
For more information, please contact ctl.helpdesk@ubc.ca.
Updated February 2021