How do I fix a Quiz which has zeros in the gradebook and is marked as Late?

Has every student in your course received the grade of 0 and been marked as Missing for a Quiz (or other assignment) in your course?

You will learn how to fix this in your current course where it has occurred, plus how to prevent this from occurring in a future course when you import your course content.

Why does this happen?

When you import your course content from a previous term, if you have published assignments (Quizzes, Discussions, Assignments) with due dates/until dates that are already passed, then this may happen because by default the Late Policy in your gradebook sees these assignments as missing submissions. It marks them as Missing and then applies the grade of 0.

Follow these steps to fix this situation.

1. Enter your course and click on Grades.

Grade link

2. Note that some of the cells have Zeros and are marked as 'Missing'.

This indicates that the Late Policy is set to award a 0 for a late assignment.

gradebook showing Zeros

3. Click on the Gear icon.

Gear icon selected

4. Deselect the checkbox in the Late Policies tab.

Automatically apply grade for missing submission has been deselected

5. Click on the Grade Posting Policy tab.

Grade Posting Policy tab

6. Select Manually Post Grades.

Manually Post Grades selected

7. Click on Apply Settings.

Apply Settings button

8. Hover over the title of the assignment until the three dots appear.

Mouse hovered over the assignment title

9. Select Set Default Grade.

Set Default Grade selected

10. Leave the grade box blank.

grade box blank

11. Tick the box to overwrite existing grades.

Overwrite grade tickbox

12. Click on Set Default Grade.

Set Default Grade button

13. Click on OK.

OK button

14. Notice how the Zeros have now been removed. Repeat this process for each affected assignment.

gradebook showing Zeros for this assignment are gone

15. Click on the individual cell.

Cell selected

16. Click on the Arrow.

Arrow within the cell

17. Select None.

None is selected

18. Click on the Right Arrow to toggle to the next student.

Tip: You can also use the assignment arrows to toggle to the next assignment if you have multiple assignments affected. For some courses simply using these arrow buttons might be the most time-efficient method of clearing out the zeros and the Missing assignment marker at the same time.

Right Arrow to toggle to next student

19. Repeat the process of each student.

Arrow to toggle to next student

20. Click on the title of the assignment.

Assignment title selected

21. Click on Edit.

Edit button

22. Scroll down and change the Due, Available and Until dates to fit your current course.

Due, Available from, and Until dates

23. Click on Save.

Save button

24. Click on Grades.

Grades link selected

25. Click on the Gear icon.

Gear icon

26. Tick the box to automatically apply grades.

Automatically tickbox

27. Click on the Grade Posting Policy.

Grade Posting Policy tab

28. Click on Automatically Post Grades.

Automatically Post Grades selected

29. Click on Apply Settings.

Apply Settings button (2)

30. Your gradebook has now been cleaned up.

gradebook showing the removal of the Zeros and the Missing tag
How do I prevent this from happening the next time I teach this course?

In order to prevent this situation from happening again, you will need to change one setting during the course copy process. Follow this guide on copying a course to learn how to shift or remove the due dates for your assignments, quizzes and discussions.

Article Summary

You have now learned how to fix your gradebook when an assignment is populated with zeros or marked as Missing. You have also learned how to prevent this situation from happening after the next time you copy your course content.