Canvas Outcomes Step 2: Course Setup Process

Once outcomes are built in Canvas, instructors can begin the course setup process. This guide covers connecting outcomes to a course, creating rubrics, and managing assessments. To ensure accurate reporting, Canvas Outcomes must be added correctly. Carefully follow all instructions and department processes.

When teaching for a department using Canvas Outcomes, your first step is to find the relevant outcomes for your course and create rubrics that include them. Once your rubrics include the appropriate outcomes, the next step is to attach them to relevant Assignments, Graded Discussions, and Classic Quizzes. Your final step in the course setup process is to align outcomes with New Quizzes, which do not use rubrics like other Canvas assessments.

Step 1: Find Outcomes and Create Rubrics

Department adoption means the competency statements have already been created for you. Only add the outcomes specific to your course as you will see many more that do not apply to you.

In your Canvas course, open Outcomes in the course navigation menu, then click the Find button to select account-level outcomes.
Once the outcomes are visible in your course, add outcomes as criteria on an enhanced rubric. If enhanced rubrics are disabled in your course, enable the feature option or follow the steps for standard rubrics.

If you need to track custom standards, you may create course-level outcomes. However, do not create program standards in your courses. Creating program outcomes at the course level instead of using the Find process will exclude data from departmental reporting.

Common Challenge with Rubrics:

If outcomes are not being used to assign grades, make sure you deselect "Use this criterion for scoring" when adding an outcome to the rubric.

If this box is not deselected, your rubric’s total point value will be inaccurate.
To fix the issue, remove the outcome and re-add it with the scoring box deselected.
Do not use the Duplicate feature in Rubrics unless you are grading with outcomes. A known issue causes duplicated rubrics to retain scoring, even when deselected. Canvas has been notified of this issue.

Step 2: Attach Rubrics to Assessments

Outcome performance on rubrics is entered manually by the instructor in Speedgrader.

Step 3: Align Outcomes to New Quizzes

After outcomes are aligned directly to the entire quiz or to specific questions, outcome performance is calculated automatically. No action is taken by the instructor in Speedgrader.

Consult your department for guidance on assessment expectations before choosing a method.

Align Outcomes to an Entire Quiz: Aligning outcomes to an entire quiz measures student performance based on their total quiz score. This means every question contributes to the outcome rating. Scoring is automatic once students submit their responses. Example: A 5-question quiz worth 100 points is aligned to outcomes using a 6-level proficiency scale (0–5), where 4 indicates satisfactory performance. In this case, each level corresponds to a 20% interval. So, students must score at least 80% to meet the expected level of 4 out of 5 mastery.

Student Performance on Quiz Rating for All Outcomes Aligned No questions correct, score of 0 0 | No Evidence 1 question correct, score of 20% 1 | Unsafe/ Unsatisfactory 2 questions correct, score of 40% 2 | Needs Improvement 3 questions correct, score of 60% 3 | Developing 4 questions correct, score of 80% 4 | Satisfactory 5 questions correct, score 100% 5 | Advanced

Align Outcomes to Individual Questions: Aligning outcomes to individual quiz questions evaluates students based on whether each specific question is answered correctly. Students receive the highest rating on the outcome if the question is correct and the lowest rating if it is incorrect. Their overall quiz score does not affect the outcome rating for that question. Scoring is automatic after students submit their responses.

Outcomes Resources

Canvas Outcomes is a robust feature requiring careful planning to ensure assessment integrity. We encourage faculty and administrators to carefully review each of our guides:

Purpose and Benefits of Canvas Outcomes at UIW
Canvas Outcomes: Success Tips
Course Outcomes vs Account Outcomes in Canvas
Canvas Outcomes Step 1: Program Decisions and Design
Canvas Outcomes Step 2: Course Setup Process - You are currently reading this guide.
Canvas Outcomes: Performance Rating and Reports
Canvas Outcomes: Support Students