[ARCHIVED] How do I hide an assignment from student to do list

[cindyk]

I want to remove/hide certain assignments from students to do lists.  I understand that, since I will be manually entering the grade, that the assignment will appear in the gradebook.  That's okay. However, most of my students live and die by the to do list and this assignment is strictly used by me to send grades to our SIS which does not support mastery paths.  I absolutely do not want students to see this assignment EXCEPT in the gradebook.  By completing their mastery path, they have done what they need to do.

[rmurchshafer · Accepted solution]

Cindy,

Normally the To Do list is driven by due dates.  If you leave off a due date, or set a date far in the future I would think it would keep it mostly hidden from their To do lists and Calendar entries.

Rick

[James · Accepted solution]

 @cindyk  

Canvas says I have to have a due date.

I have never encountered an assignment that had to have a due date. There is a spot for a due date, but it is optional. I'm always up for learning about weird things Canvas does so that I can help other people if they encounter this issue.

Can you elaborate on this, perhaps with a screenshot of the message you're seeing that says you have to have a due date?

[rmurchshafer · Accepted solution]

Cindy,

Normally the To Do list is driven by due dates.  If you leave off a due date, or set a date far in the future I would think it would keep it mostly hidden from their To do lists and Calendar entries.

Rick

[cindyk]

Canvas says I have to have a due date.

Ms. K

[James · Accepted solution]

 @cindyk  

Canvas says I have to have a due date.

I have never encountered an assignment that had to have a due date. There is a spot for a due date, but it is optional. I'm always up for learning about weird things Canvas does so that I can help other people if they encounter this issue.

Can you elaborate on this, perhaps with a screenshot of the message you're seeing that says you have to have a due date?

[cindyk · Accepted solution]

I think it's because this assignment has to sync to my SIS. What I'm trying to do is find a workaround so I can incorporate mastery paths and sending grades to my SIS (Infinite Campus which only syncs assignments assigned to everyone, not mastery paths). The assignment I want hidden is one I collect the mastery paths options into a single entry for my SIS. The students do not directly enter or do anything with it, only I do. My admin is requiring a dual gradebook and I'm piloting individualized learning which means mastery paths so I have to have some mechanism for getting the grade to my SIS. I have it set up so the collector assignment in Canvas is in a non-weighted assignment group. I chose that option so student's Canvas grade would reflect the mastery path assigment as soon as it was completed. They know that our SIS is only updated once a day so would expect a delay.

But, I'm also observing that my mastery path assignments are not appearing on the students to do lists once they are assigned. Since my students rely heavily on that to do list, it has to be a clean list. I did think that mastery path assignments were supposed to be added to the student's calendar but I do not see them for my test student.

So, I think I'm going to keep my collector assignment as is but the instructions will link to the module which does list their specific mastery path assignment. Not ideal as they see an imprecise assignment to do list but at least they see something.

[James]

 @cindyk ,

I regularly put my instructions in a different location than the assignment itself. My instructions are sometimes multiple pages with of videos -- too much to fit on the assignment page. They need to start it before they it's due. The assignment is a place for the students to turn in the assignment.

I do link to the instructions from the assignment page, although I've toyed with linking to the module that contains the instructions so the students have to get into the course but found that students will go to great lengths to avoid doing anything more than they absolutely have to.

In other words, getting something on the To Do list may be the difference between it getting done and not getting done, no matter how much I tell them that the To Do list is an incomplete list and they need to get into the course and the modules.

Canvas is working on enhancements to assignments, but I don't think I'll use them. It's still tied to the due date and they need to work on it sooner than the due date.

Presumably, any grade the syncs with the SIS would have a timeline that they would want it to sync, otherwise it would never show up and that's bad for people who want to know how students are doing. What you're experiencing is that most systems are not designed for creative grading. I am mulling around something (I'm not sure what to call it) for my fall semester stats where the grade in Canvas is meaningless except for one grade that I will calculate. I would want that grade to go into the other system (we use an early alert system, it doesn't go into our SIS directly), but every time it changes, not just once. Thankfully, I'm the person who wrote the code to transfer the grade over. However, the early alert system does require a due date.

In your case, putting a due date on the collector assignment that must sync with SIS, but then making it "no submission" so they can't actual turn anything in and explaining what's going on may be the best approach, even if it's not ideal.

I have no experience with Mastery Paths, so I cannot help out on that one. I can say that the "test student" within Canvas sometimes doesn't see things exactly like a real student would. I can also add that there is a warning in the lesson from the Canvas Instructor Guide How do I use MasteryPaths in course modules?  about SIS integration and due dates. You've probably already seen it, but just in case you haven't:

If your institution uses a student information system (SIS) and requires due dates for assignments, any MasteryPaths assignments assigned to one or more students are currently not validated. Please use with caution when syncing to your SIS.

I'm not sure what you meant by a non-weighted assignment group, but I don't know that it changes the how you handle this. Either all assignment groups are weighted are none are. Some may be weighted 0%, which is a trick I use to exclude those items from the grade calculations.

[kimberly_smith1]

Hello James!

I hope you are well.

I have a similar question (sort of), and am hoping you could help? I would also like to hide a specific quiz from the To Do list ("secret" extra credit points for reading all the way to the end of a very long, but important, early semester announcement).

I am hoping to:

1) Create a Practice Quiz (so it won't show up on the To Do list) - w/points and a due date

2) Let students take the quiz

3) Convert the Practice Quiz to a Graded Quiz (once the deadline passes)

If I were to do this:

A) Would those points be retained and now show up in the Gradebook?

B) Could I then hide those points by changing that (now) Graded Quiz to a Manual grading policy?

C) And then convert those points to extra credit (i.e. change quiz question points to = zero, then "Update Scores" in Speedgrader)?

[cindyk]

Thanks, James, for your insights.

I put everything on hold due to COVID-19 but I'm back to pondering next year.  A recently floated idea was to use mastery paths to assign students to assignment groups (I'm still a little fuzzy on the specifics here but I get the idea).  Students in specific groups, get different assignment details.  The differentiated instructions can appear as pages on their to-do list (LOVE that they added that option).

Then everyone submits to the collector group assignment that has a due date and syncs to our SIS. 

[Klangley90]

Due dates are required for Grade Syncing with Skyward

[PaulHermans]

I understand that putting a Due Date far in the future would effectively hide it from student's To Do list but this has other consequences too. For example, if the Due Date is far in the future, and I then go to the grade book, then the assignment is out of order when sorting by dates.  This isn't the end of the world, but it is a hassle at best.

I have the same issue, but for different reasons. Roughly every two weeks I assess the students on how well they have been doing their job of being a student. I call the category Professionalism. This is a category that should be "free" points by simply showing up and doing what is expected. For example, in computer science class, I track if they came to class with a computer that was charged and ready to go and if they had a pen/pencil and something to write on or if I have to frequently redirect them to stay on task etc. By doing this every week or two, it leaves a trail to clearly document that it has been an ongoing problem (or not) and rewards those students who do what they are supposed to. The challenge for me is that I want assignments to show in order of due date and I want some of them to not show up in the ToDo list. Even though I created assignments with a Due Date, and "No Submission", it still shows up on their ToDo list.

It isn't a major issue as they can just check them off but it gets tiring to frequently explain this to students.  

Does anyone have other ideas how to track this in Canvas? 

[tiffanyleighsto]

My elementary students are overwhelmed by their to do list.  I need nothing to show up on the to do list.