Why are there zeros entered into a Gradebook column for students before the assignment due date has arrived?

Last updated on February 4, 2026

In the Gradebook of your Canvas course, you notice that all or some of your students have a grade of 0 for one or more assignments before the due date has arrived.  You have not graded the assignments yet, or maybe your students have not even submitted them yet.

This can sometimes happen when copying a course if the settings to apply grades automatically for missing or late submissions are turned on in the Gradebook, and assignments with due dates in the past are copied into the course. This causes Canvas to give all students a grade of 0 for the assignments immediately after they are enrolled in the course. 

Thankfully, there’s a fix for this problem. Go to the course in question and find Grades in the course navigation menu on the left. You can manually change the grades by clicking on a student’s score and deleting the zero, or you can set a new default grade to show no score.

To set a new default grade for the entire column:

1. Click the 3 dots next to the name of the assignment in the gradebook.
2. Click Set Default Grade from the drop-down menu.
3. Leave the grade value box blank.
4. Check the box below that says “Overwrite already-entered grades.”

5. Click Set Default Grade on the bottom right of the pop-up window.

This will change all of the zeros in the column to reflect ungraded status.

Important: Only use these steps for assignments that have not been graded yet. If you have already entered grades, this will overwrite or remove existing scores.