[ARCHIVED] Assigning quiz to everyone but....

[glenn_phoenix]

Can you assign a quiz or assignment to everyone in a class except certain people?

[kona]

 @glenn_phoenix ​, Yep, use the directions from this guide - How do I assign a Quiz to an individual student or course section? - and just select everyone BUT the person or people you don't want to see the quiz.

[glenn_phoenix]

OK, so if there are 20 students in the class, click on the 19 that you want to take the test, but not the one you don't want to take it?

[tknapp]

 @glenn_phoenix , that's correct. The student names that you click on and are displayed are the students who will be assigned the test or assignment. The "Assign To" option at the bottom works the same for both!

[CJ2020]

This is not what we need. We need to be able to easily remove a student from a quiz/test/assignment when the student has an accommodation on a quiz/test/assignment, especially when our classes have over 30 students, but when creating the item, only 6 or so show up in the “assigned to” window. Allowing “Everyone” to individually populate when the choice of “Everyone” is made, without having to remember the roster, would be nice. At least then, we would be able to quickly scroll to the student we need to delete from the regular curriculum. Sections is a hassle when this is an easy to program solution that would save tons of manpower and provide privacy to students with learning differences. As is, I assign two tests and hope they remember, without embarrassingly asking, which one they should take when no one else has two options.

[cantvas]

I wouldn't call this a "solution".

What should happen is, I should be able to click on my class and have it expand to a list of all its students, then X out any students I'd like to exclude.  Just like I can do if I want to send e-mail to a Contact List of people with a few names removed.

It's early 2021 now, but I'd be surprised if the problem has been solved.

[Stef_retired]

Also,  @glenn_phoenix , a feature idea for the ability to was up for voting recently and was archived with a comment from Instructure. You might want to take a moment to add your use case to the comments.

[rmcrae]

This "method" of clicking on every student except the one student excluded is idiotic.  It isn't a method.  It's yet another bug in Canvas.

[cantvas]

Does Instructure ever improve their product in response to these suggestions?

[tgideons]

As far as I can tell, no. I cannot find an instance of them responding to the needs of users except to gaslight us into creating suggestions that are never receive enough votes. Even in the community for people testing the beta versions of things, I've things they're working on that no one has ever asked for and, in fact, are the opposite of what people have been screaming about in these forums.

[Chris_Hofer]

@tgideons ...

My experience with Feature Ideas here in the Canvas Community seems to be different than yours...and that's perfectly okay.  I'm not sure if you've seen this particular page, but if you go to:

Idea Conversations - Instructure Community

...on the right hand side of the page, there is an "Idea Statuses" box where it currently lists over 600 Feature Ideas that have been requested by fellow Community members that have been implemented (completed) by Instructure.  As you page through some of the Feature Ideas in that section, I'm sure you'll find some that have been on people's "wish list".  Some are quite popular...and some may not be as popular.

So, I can completely understand some of the frustration.  I've been there, too.  I've submitted several Feature Ideas over the years here in the Community...some of which I've thought would really benefit all Community members.  But yet, they've not gotten much attention.  At the same time, I've had a small handful of my Feature Ideas get implemented in Canvas ... ones that I thought would never see the light of day.  So, in those cases, I was pleasantly surprised when those ideas I submitted made it into the core Canvas product...even if they seemed small or didn't seem to get much feedback/votes/star ratings from fellow Community members.

[As a side note, the voting system that used to be in the old Community website (prior to Summer 2020) is no more.  It has been replaced with a star rating system...which you can read more about here: How do idea conversations work in the Instructure ... - Instructure Community.  But, posting Feature Ideas here in the Community and getting star ratings isn't the only source of how Instruture decides what to work on.  This document What is the feature development process for Instru... - Instructure Community outlines other sources (for example, focus groups).]

I would encourage you to stay engaged in Community discussions...especially about those Feature Ideas that you are passionate about but have not yet been developed in Canvas.  In those Feature Ideas, provide real-world examples of why those features would be important to you.  What benefits would that particular feature have for you that's not currently possible?  How would your workflow be improved if such a feature existed in Canvas?  While it may seem that Instructure employees don't respond to every Feature Idea thread, I can tell you, as a Community Coach, that they do read our Ideas that we submit here in the Community.  They value our feedback (good and bad) and appreciate hearing from us as Canvas users/educators.

I'm not sure if any of this will be helpful to you or not, but I thought I'd share my own experiences...for what it's worth.

Take care, stay safe, and be well.

[bsr]

@Chris_Hofer,

Honestly, it sounds like your experience has been similar, but your attitude is markedly different; kudos to you for maintaining your optimism! I wish I could be as accepting of this situation:

---

I've submitted several Feature Ideas over the years here in the Community...some of which I've thought would really benefit all Community members.  But yet, they've not gotten much attention.  At the same time, I've had a small handful of my Feature Ideas get implemented in Canvas ... ones that I thought would never see the light of day.  So, in those cases, I was pleasantly surprised when those ideas I submitted made it into the core Canvas product...even if they seemed small or didn't seem to get much feedback/votes/star ratings from fellow Community members.

But for me, and I suspect for many others in this thread, this is precisely the root of the frustration. Again and again, we upvote, 5-star, or whatever the latest rev is, trying to get really basic functionality problems addressed, and again and again, we see cute little bells and whistles getting implemented while basic functions with wide and deep user support go unaddressed. I would trade any 10 of my "minor tweak" suggestions and every single "improvement" on the community platform for the ability to duplicate quizzes and quiz questions without lengthy, wonky work-arounds!

[tgideons]

That list of 644 completed suggestions is pretty wild. You can't sort dy date, and it looks like you can sort by New, Hot, or Top (though what "Hot" and "Top" mean is described nowhere obvious), but it turns out you can't actually sort the completed ideas at all -- they seem to be listed in random order. Most of the "ideas" that are completed seem to be reports of bugs or requests for the most basic functionality that Canvas forgot to include, like the ability to delete more than one file at once. Some of the things that have been completed are simply not completed -- at all.

Just a couple random examples: "'Real' Student View." This wasn't completed. Test students now can use some LTI apps, but we still cannot see what students see in much of the most basic Canvas functions and LTI apps, like Groups or Turnitin. Then there's "Support Grading History in large course sites," which is "completed" in the sense that it's possible to get the history, but it's basically just a raw data dump: you can't download it, you can't revert to a previous grade, and there's no support for dropped or withdrawn students. There's no "support" for this at all. Having full, easy, and functional access to grading history should have been the first thing put into Canvas, and it's mindboggling that Canvas what created instead was so useless -- and yet this is called "completed." 

It's quite possible that Canvas reads the feedback, and it looks like Canvas occasionally fixes things after its users complain about them for years. But many of the problems that they've fixed should never have been problems. It does not seem as if they do more than the most basic UX research before they release products. And what research they do is reliant on the free labor of its users, who are wildly overworked and underpaid teachers. 

I do not have the time to "engage" in a virtual community with the hopes that something I suggest might get voted up or starred or whatever and then half-fixed in three years. I have hundreds of students at a time and spent at least 10 hours of week wrestling with Canvas problems, figuring out work-arounds, and helping TAs or other professors figure out how to do things that should be obvious but aren't. If Canvas wants to pay its super users to test the products and point out the dozens of errors we'll find and then actually repair things in a reasonable amount of time, then I'd be happy to help. But I doubt that will ever happen. Instead, when I find another Canvas mess, I'll search the forums for workarounds, hacks, or confirmation that there's nothing that can be done. 

[cantvas]

"I do not have the time to "engage" in a virtual community with the hopes that something I suggest..."  You're 100% correct.  You're shouting into the wind here.

I come here only for moral support and to lend moral support to others.  My experience shows that Canvas won't act on any suggestions.

[cantvas]

Yes.  For example people are constantly asking for a signature block on messages (very basic feature).  It's hard to imagine more demand for that.

[ckozaczuk]

i have a student who was added to my ESL class mid quarter. I do not want to penalize her for not submitting the first half of the quarter's work.  I also do not want to go back and reassgn all 40 assignments to every individual in the class except her. There must be away to make those zeros not count for individual students.

[bsr]

Agreeing with @CJ2020 and @rmcrae here: this is not a solution. The entire point was to assign to everyone except certain students, as in to create the exception without having to individually select every student that you do want to get the assignment. I have 65 students in my class, and want to create an exception that assigns the final to all but 7 of them, who submitted an alternate project. It is reasonably easy to select the 7 who signed up for the alternate and assign that item to them, but a total pain to then have to sit there and select 58 students out of 65 to assign the regular final to them, and prevent any of the 7 from doing both assignments. It's also a process that virtually guarantees a clerical error, resulting in some panicked student not being able to access their final, because I was trying to select the correct 58 students from a wonky drop-down menu.

[vectorpotential]

I have a Canvas course with 150 students. I need an easy way to make a quiz available to everyone except one student during a specific time range. Then I want to create a separate availability time range for that one student to complete the quiz.

It is not reasonable to manually add 149 students in the first availability box. Adding a student to a separate availability box should automatically override any availability as part of a group or section, or there should be a separate box for exclusions, or a way to put a minus in front of a name to indicate exclusion from the Everyone or Section list.

Is there a method for accomplishing this?

[Ron_Bowman · Accepted solution]

@vectorpotential 

I know this is late, but for future reference for people.  The following is a possible work around (that should not be needed).

in the assignment group create 2 assignments/quizzes whatever.  For the assignment for the one student, for the people to assign it to, get rid of everyone and add that  one student.as the only person taking that assignment/quiz.  then for the other assignment, assign everyone.  Then in the graded book, go to the assignment that has everyone and excuse the single student for that assignment.  The student getting their own assignment will see two entries in their gradebook - one excused and one with a grade.  The other students will only see the single assignment.

[EllenKoh]

That was not the question asked.

It is not to only excuse a few persons.

It is not to be assigned to a few persons in order for these few persons not to be able to view the assignment first.

They would attempt them later when being assigned.

Using the excused function, the students who are intended to be excluded would still be able to view the assignment.

[Ron_Bowman]

@EllenKoh 

I am not sure that I 100% follow what you stated.

However, I checked and what you state about excused statements is partially correct - students can see the assignment post(they will know it exists), but when they click on it, they do not see any of the details regarding that assignment or quiz.

If the students were to be allowed to take that assignment later, then all that would have to be done is remove the excused from the grade book - they may have to be added to the assignment with their own due date and time though.  More work than should be necessary - yes.  However it is a work around.

I agree that it would be nice if much better functionality with making assignments accessible to different groups of students would be incorporated into Canvas so that we do not have to perform workarounds.

[clay_elmore]

The entire 'assign to' section is in serious need of an overhaul. Differentiation becomes a tedious, unreasonable chore when I have to manually enter 100+ names into an assignment just to omit a handful of students. Other LMS interfaces allow schedules to be saved so they can be applied to future assignments. The way it is now is very user-unfriendly.

[bsr]

Even more tedious, given that the interface itself is glitchy. I often have to try 2 or 3 times to enter a section/student, because if I move my cursor down to the drop-down menu too quickly, just as I start to click, the menu disappears and I have to start over. It makes an aggravating process downright stroke-inducing.

[tom_collins]

Teaching classes of up to 250 students, just now was the first time I encountered this need, and it is critical for me. Like many others in this thread, this is deja vu.  Once again, I see many people who point out a clear deficiency in Canvas, and no attempt to address it. Instead, we're told to start a campaign, as though it were a new obscure feature to be added.