Send Grades to AARO – Educational Technology and Innovation

Entering Midterm/Final Grades
Status Messages
Grading Scales, Policies, and Resources
Troubleshooting Tips
Additional Resources

Entering Midterm/Final Grades

Refer to the Academic Calendar to determine when Midterm and Final grades are due and available for viewing by students in Self-Service.

In the Canvas LMS (Learning Management System), navigate to one of your current courses.

Select Send Grades to AARO on the left hand course navigation menu.

Send Grades to AARO may be located in a different place than what is shown below.
If you do not see Send Grades to AARO in your course navigation menu, refer to Enabling “Send Grades to AARO” in the Canvas Course Navigation Menu for more information.

This is a partial screenshot of the Canvas LMS interface, displaying the dark purple global navigation bar on the far left with icons for Calendar, Inbox, History, Commons, and Studio. Directly to its right is the white course navigation menu, listing links for People, Library Resources, CCS Bookstore, UDOIT Accessibility Check, Send Grades to AARO, Files, and Collaborations. A prominent purple arrow points specifically to the "Send Grades to AARO" link. The "Files" and "Collaborations" links are accompanied by crossed-out eye icons, indicating these items are hidden from students.

Select the MIDTERM 1 or FINAL tab at the top of the screen.

Use the arrow icons < or > next to the image below to see examples of the MIDTERM 1 and FINAL tabs.

The following columns will appear under each tab and are important for submitting your grades. Be sure to read the following information carefully to know what each column is for.

Current Grade – This column will display the student’s total grade as it currently appears in the Canvas Gradebook (what he/she has earned in the course to date). If the instructor has not graded any items on Canvas, this column will be blank.
Midterm 1/Final – This column will be titled based on the tab you clicked into. Your students’ current letter grade will auto-populate into the Midterm 1/Final column. You can edit this letter grade before submitting. You can refer to the grades in the Current Grade column for the student’s grade in Canvas. If the submitted grade should be different from what is pre-populated from Canvas (e.g. assignments not added to the Canvas Gradebook), the instructor can edit the grade.
Submitted Grade – This column will populate only after you’ve submitted grades from the Midterm 1/Final column. If this column displays a grade, that means the grade for those students was successfully submitted to AARO.
Expire Date (on FINAL tab) – Please ignore this column as it is no longer used.
Last Attended Date – This column only needs to be filled out if you had a student who did not drop or withdraw the course, but stopped attending and failed due to non-attendance. Enter a grade of WF in Midterm 1/Final grade for this student, and then enter the last date of attendance using the mm/dd/yyyy format.
Never Attended – For students who never attended the course and have failed due to non-attendance, enter a grade of WF in Midterm 1/Final column, and then check the box for Never Attended.

Enter grades into the Midterm 1/Final column.

Review all grades to ensure they are entered correctly, and then click the SUBMIT button.

Grade changes can be made while the grading period is still open. Revisit the Send Grades to AARO item in your course menu, update the grade in the Midterm 1/Final column, and then click SUBMIT again.

Entering Non-Attendance and Incomplete Grades

For students who stopped attending or never attended, enter a grade of WF into the Midterm 1/Final column, and provide a last date of attendance or check the box for never attended. All students who have not officially withdrawn from your course MUST be assigned a grade! If a student dropped/withdrew your course, it will say “inactive” next to his/her name.

If you would like to assign an Incomplete, take the following steps:

Work with your Program Manager, who can submit the “Incomplete Grade Form” to AARO on your behalf.
Ensure this form is submitted PRIOR to the grading deadline.
Enter the students earned grade into the Midterm 1/Final column. You will not be able to enter an “I” grade.
AARO will enter the “I” grade manually to overwrite the earned grade.

Grade Changes or Late Submissions

Grade Changes or late submissions (after the deadline) will require an approved Grade Change form and may cause inaccurate records and calculations of a student’s Academic Standing.

Status Messages

After submitting, you will receive a status message to indicate whether or not your submission was successful. In some instances, you may receive multiple status messages at once, so it is important to review each status carefully to understand whether or not your grades are fully submitted.

A green message indicates your grade submissions were successful.
A red message indicates an error. If you have questions about the error message, you can contact EdTech or Helpdesk.
- The problem area(s) will be highlighted in the matching color so you can quickly identify where the issue lies.
A blue message indicates that a grade was not entered for a student, and therefore not submitted.
A yellow message indicates that a grade was saved, but not submitted.
- The problem area(s) will be highlighted in the matching color so you can quickly identify where the issue lies.
- If you receive a yellow status bar, find the issues highlighted in yellow, and verify whether or not a Last Attended Date is added. Refer to the Entering Non-Attendance and Incomplete Grades notice below to determine if the Last Attended Date is needed or the grade is entered in a way that does not align with Last Attended Date requirements.

This is a screenshot of the AARO interface within the Canvas LMS, showing the "FINAL" grade submission tab. At the top are four status banners: a green banner stating "There were 11 successful submissions.", a red banner stating "There were 1 unsuccessful submissions. See the errors below.", a blue banner stating "There are 1 students with no grades submitted to SIS.", and a yellow banner stating "There are 1 students with saved values not submitted to the SIS. ( Students prefixed with the | symbol )". Below these is a table with columns for "Student Name", "Current Grade", "Final", "Submitted Grade", "Expire Date", "Last Attended Date", and "Never Attended". One student row is visible, marked with a yellow vertical bar, showing their name, current grade, a dropdown for the final grade, and an empty submitted grade field. The "Last Attended Date" field contains "05/02/2025", and directly below it, a red error message reads: "lastAttendance: Date must precede section end date.".

Grading Scales, Policies, and Resources

Undergraduate Grading Scale: A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, C-, D+, D, D-, F, WF, I
Graduate Grading Scale: A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, F, WF, I
Please note A+ is NOT a valid grade. For complete grading policy please visit Grading.
Please read the Incomplete Policy for more information: Incomplete Grades.
For technical issues entering grades: helpdesk@ccsdetroit.edu or Helpdesk.
For grading questions: Janine Surma or Tanecia Nunlee.

Troubleshooting Tips

This guide will show you how to add Send Grades to AARO in Canvas: Enabling “Send Grades to AARO” in the Canvas Course Navigation Menu.
If you are using a Safari browser and receive this error message: “The session has expired. Please allow access to cross-site tracking then refresh and try again” follow the directions on the Can’t Submit Grades, Session Expired guide.

Additional Resources

Send Grades to AARO

You can also watch a video tutorial on this process.