StudySync Assignment Sync and Grade Passback with Canvas
Sync StudySync assignments and pass grades back to Canvas.
This article applies to districts that use the SSO and Auto-Rostering Access Service. SSO applies to districts that use an SSO portal, district website, or Learning Management System (LMS) to access McGraw Hill digital programs. Auto-Rostering means that account creation, class setup, and roster management are automated through a process handled by your district.
Not sure which Access Service your district uses? Click here to learn more about the four Access Services that we support.
This article walks teachers that use StudySync and Canvas through the Assignment Sync & Grade Passback process.
For a full page view of the demo, click here.
For a Spanish version of the demo, click here.
To view the video of the process, click here.
To view a PDF copy of the process, click here.
The McGraw Hill LTI® Link: Grades and Assignment Integration tool syncs assignments and grades between the programs hosted on the McGraw Hill platform and your Canvas Learning Management System (LMS).
Article Contents
Class Pairing
Prior to syncing assignments and grades between your McGraw Hill classes and Canvas, you need to pair your class(es). Your McGraw Hill class is automatically generated by your district’s nightly roster file that is sent to McGraw Hill.
1. From your Dashboard, click on the Canvas course.
2. Click on the kebob button at the top-right of the page.
3. Click McGraw Hill LTI Link: Grades and Assignment Integration from the menu.
Note: Installation of this app is completed by your District Administrator. If you do not see the app, please reach out to your District Administrator or Curriculum Coordinator.
4. Click Pair to the right of the course tile.
Important! Make sure to only click Pair on the course tile that matches the course you selected.
5. On the Course section pop-up, click Select on the course tile that matches the course you selected.
Complete this step for every class that needs to be paired with the course you selected.
Alternative Option: Smart Pairing
Some schools may have access to the Suggest Pairings (B) option. This button will automatically pair your classes to the selected course.
If you do not have the button available, this means your district does not have a matching identifier between your McGraw Hill classes and your Canvas classes. You will need to reach out to your district IT team to further inquire about this new feature.
If using this option:
- Once your classes are paired, verify that the correct classes are linked to the course by scrolling through the list of classes on the pop-up.
- If a class was incorrectly paired, follow the Unpairing Classes steps.
6. Click the Save Pairings button.
C. If you would like to start over with pairing classes to the selected course, click the Click to Unpair this course section link.
Stop and Double Check - Take time to double check and ensure your class pairings are correct before moving on. Incorrect class pairings, and any resulting issues, is a common issue.
7. Click the Create Primary Section button.
This will create an empty class for your McGraw Hill course with “Canvas Course” affixed to the title of the class. This class will not have any students rostered to it but will serve as the primary class for creating assignments.
Note: The Create Primary Section button is grayed out until all Canvas sections are paired with a McGraw Hill class or if there is only one class for the course.
Important! Do not archive the primary section or any of your classes on the McGraw Hill platform. Archiving these classes will prevent the integration between your McGraw Hill classes and Canvas classes from functioning properly.
8. Click the Launch Primary Section button to create assignments.
Unpairing Classes
If a class has been paired by mistake and/or incorrectly, you can unpair it. Only classes paired in error should be unpaired.
Note: McGraw Hill content and assignments will not launch from your Canvas course if you unpair the class.
Important!
If a Canvas class is deleted or unlinked prior to unpairing it from the McGraw Hill class, you will not be able to fully unpair it. You MUST first unpair the classes before deleting or unlinking the Canvas class.
If you deleted the Canvas class before unpairing it, you will need to contact our DTS Customer Support team.
This also applies to any crosslinked classes. You MUST unpair your classes within the McGraw Hill LTI Link: Grades and Assignment Integration app before unlinking any classes. Failure to do so will break the connection to Canvas and prevent you from pairing the classes again at a later time.
1. From your Dashboard, click on the Canvas course.
2. Click on the kebob button at the top-right of the page.
3. Click McGraw Hill LTI Link: Grades and Assignment Integration from the menu.
Note: Installation of this app is completed by your District Administrator. If you do not see the app, please reach out to your District Administrator or Curriculum Coordinator.
4. Click the Unpair link to the right on the class tile.
Create Assignments
Important!
Students should access their first assignment through Canvas. This allows the McGraw Hill platform to begin syncing grades for that student to Canvas.
The student does not need to complete the assignment within Canvas if they would rather complete it within the McGraw Hill platform, they just need to launch it from the Canvas platform.
After the initial launch, students can then access and complete assignments through Canvas or the McGraw Hill platform.
1. From your Dashboard, click on the Canvas course.
2. Click on the kebob button at the top-right of the page.
3. Click McGraw Hill LTI Link: Grades and Assignment Integration from the menu.
Note: Installation of this app is completed by your District Administrator. If you do not see the app, please reach out to your District Administrator or Curriculum Coordinator.
4. If you want the assignments created to be assigned to all classes in the Canvas course, you will want to click Launch Primary Section.
A. To assign assignments to only one class in the course, click the Launch button for that class.
5. Click the Create StudySync Assignments button.
StudySync will open in a new browser tab.
6. Create a StudySync assignment as normal.
Refer to the StudySync – Assignments article for more information. You can create more than one assignment at a time, if preferred.
7. Close the StudySync tab and return to the Canvas page.
8. Click the Sync Assignments button.
Wait for the screen to close automatically. This will take around 10-20 seconds to process your new assignment before closing the screen. If you close the screen manually, your assignments will not be created successfully.
For students to be able to access the assignments, you first need to publish them within Canvas by clicking the Publish All (B) option or by clicking the Publish (C) button on each individual assignment.
View Assignments
You can view assignments in Canvas by selecting Home, Assignments, or Modules after you launch into the course.
Note: Student View will not function for viewing assignments from a student perspective. The Student View generates a fake student user in Canvas that enables you to view items from a student’s perspective. Since this fake account does not exist within the McGraw Hill platform, any attempt to launch assignments will result in an error.
1. From your Dashboard, click on the Canvas course.
2. Click on Home, Assignments, or Modules from the left pane menu.
3. Click on the assignment name.
The assignment will open on the Canvas platform. Click the Open in new tab button to enlarge the page in a new browser tab.
Note: It may take 2-3 minutes for assignments to appear for students and before the assignment can be successfully launched within Canvas. If you attempt to launch the assignment too quickly after creation, both students and teachers will receive a "CI2" error message.
Adjust Assignment Settings
Important!
If you need to later make adjustments to the settings of an assignment, you must complete these changes within the McGraw Hill platform directly, or by launching the assignment as a teacher in Canvas.
If you attempt to make assignment edits within Canvas, they will not be reflected within McGraw Hill and may result in stopping the assignment from functioning in Canvas.
1. From your Dashboard, click on the Canvas course.
2. Click on Home, Assignments, or Modules from the left pane menu.
3. Click on the assignment name.
The assignment will open on the Canvas platform. Click the Open in new tab button to enlarge the page in a new browser tab.
4. Click the Actions button.
5. Click Edit Assignment on the menu.
6. Make any preferred changes and click the Save Assignment button at the bottom.
These changes will not be reflected in Canvas until you have resynced the assignments.
Resync Assignments
Resyncing assignments is an option available within the McGraw Hill LTI Link: Grades and Assignment Integration tool. This option syncs all assignments and their settings from McGraw Hill into Canvas.
This allows you to sync settings back into Canvas if you make any changes to your assignments. This also gives teachers a direct way to manually trigger the assignment syncing process in the event any assignments have not automatically appeared in Canvas.
Important! Any assignments worth 0 points will appear grayed out and cannot be synced to Canvas.
1. From your Dashboard, click on the Canvas course.
2. Click on the kebob button at the top-right of the page.
3. Click McGraw Hill LTI Link: Grades and Assignment Integration from the menu.
4. If you have created assignments to be assigned to all classes in the Canvas course, click Launch Primary Section.
A. If you have created assignments for only one class in the course, click the Launch button for that class.
5. Click the Sync Assignments button.
McGraw Hill will automatically check to see if there are any assignments that have not yet been synced to Canvas. These will be listed in the area below the Sync Assignments button.
Wait for the screen to close automatically. The loading screen may take 10-20 seconds to process the new assignments before closing.
If you close the screen manually, the assignments will not be created successfully.
Grade Completed Assignments
Assignments can be graded from within Canvas by launching the assignment.
Note: Assignments can only be graded from within each section directly. Launching the Primary Section will only allow you to edit the assignment settings.
1. From your Dashboard, click on the Canvas course.
2. Click on Home, Assignments, or Modules from the left pane menu.
3. Click on the assignment name.
The assignment will open on the Canvas platform. Click the Open in new tab button to enlarge the page in a new browser tab.
4. Click on the assignment name.
5. Click on the date/time stamp in the Posted column for the student.
6. Click on the individual tabs to score any questions that need manual grading and click the save button on each tab.
Important! The grades will not show in the Canvas gradebook until you release the scores.
Release Assignment Scores
StudySync allows teachers to decide when to make scores available for assignments in order to mitigate student confusion around partial scores appearing when there are questions that require teachers to manually score them.
Due to this, the teacher must release the scores from StudySync for those assignments for those grades to appear in Canvas.
1. From your Dashboard, click on the Canvas course.
2. Click on Home, Assignments, or Modules from the left pane menu.
3. Click on the assignment name.
The assignment will open on the Canvas platform. Click the Open in new tab button to enlarge the page in a new browser tab.
4. Choose one of these two options to release assignment scores:
- Click on the Actions button and select Send Scores to Canvas from the menu.
- For Scores Sent, click Never.
5. On the Send Scores Now pop-up, click the Yes button.
Resync Grades
1. From your Dashboard, click on the Canvas course.
2. Click on the kebob button at the top-right of the page.
3. Click McGraw Hill LTI Link: Grades and Assignment Integration from the menu.
4. If the assignments were created to be assigned to all classes in the Canvas course, you will want to click Launch Primary Section.
A. If the assignments were only assigned to one class in the course, click the Launch button for that class.
5. On the Re-Sync Grades tile, checkmark the assignment(s) that needs to be resynced.
6. Click the Sync Grades button.
View Student Grades
As students complete their assignments, their grades will appear within the Grades tab in Canvas.
Any assignments that require manual scoring may show as a partial grade until scoring has been completed.
Important!
Student should access their first assignment through Canvas. This allows the McGraw Hill platform to begin syncing grades for that student to Canvas.
The student does not need to complete the assignment within Canvas if they would rather complete it within the McGraw Hill platform, they just need to launch it from the Canvas platform.
After the initial launch, students can then access and complete assignments through Canvas or the McGraw Hill platform.
Troubleshooting Tips
Error Messages on Student Launch
Common Errors: ID5, ER4, SE4 Most likely caused by a rostering mismatch between Canvas and McGraw Hill.
1. Ensure your class(es) are paired correctly. If your class(es) are not paired correctly, then the rosters will not match.
2. Ensure the student is properly enrolled in the class within McGraw Hill. New students may take several days after enrollment to sync into McGraw Hill.
3. Ensure you are not using “Student View” in Canvas. This view will not work and is not indicative of the experience students will have.
Most of the time this is caused when launching an assignment too quickly after creation.
1. Ensure you and students are waiting 2-3 minutes after assignment creation to launch it.
2. Ensure the assignment “start date” has passed. Assignments with future start dates cannot be launched by students.
"L500" Error Message
Often indicative of a greater issue with the district's installation of the app. The issue may exist on either the district side or the McGraw Hill side.
Reach out to your District Administrator contact support for this error.
Assignments and Grades Not Syncing Properly
Most of the time this is caused by incorrect class pairings.
1. Ensure your class(es) are paired correctly by reviewing the class pairings section. If your class(es) are not paired correctly, assignments and grades will not function as needed and may result in additional errors.
2. Ensure you are creating assignments at the proper level. The Primary Section should be used if assigning to all classes. If creating assignments directly within McGraw Hill, make sure you are creating assignments within the class that has "Canvas Course" in the title.
Grades Not Syncing for Some Students
If only some students within a class do not have grades populating in the Canvas gradebook, but other students do, this indicates some students have not launched an assignment directly from within Canvas this school year.
Ensure the student launches any active assignment from directly within Canvas. You can then manually sync grades through the McGraw Hill tool to populate all grades for this student within the Canvas gradebook.