[ARCHIVED] Issues related to student file submissions being re-named

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hasti
Community Champion

When a student submits a file to an assignment more than once, Canvas will re-name the re-submitted file:

The first submission of HelloWorld.java is named HelloWorld.java

The second submission of HelloWorld.java is named HelloWorld-1.java

The third submission of HelloWorld.java is named HelloWorld-2.java

etc.

(This always causes a certain amount of consternation for my beginning programming students who have been taught that the exact name of a file is very important in the programming language they are learning - Java, C++, Matlab, etc. - and know that, for example, you cannot compile and run a Java file named HelloWorld-1.java.)

Obviously, when I go to grade the student, I will grab their most recent submission (unless they have left me a comment asking me to use an earlier submission), and currently I have to add code to my grading scripts code to fix the names of the students' files before I can compile and run them.

Question 1: Is there any way to turn off the renaming feature in Canvas, even if only when downloading?

I understand completely why renaming is happening, so if the answer is "not in Canvas as it is", I'm perfectly fine with that - I just thought I'd check.

Question 2: Has the way Canvas renames files like this been consistent (or has Canvas previously used other renaming approaches / are there plans to use a new renaming approach)?

I ask this because D2L (my previous LMS) also did file renaming, much of which wasn't apparent until you downloaded a student's submission and found a bunch of somewhat decipherable stuff prepended and/or appended to the file name (or sometimes even the file extension). They also frequently changed the format of what they were prepending/appending which meant frequent updates to those sections of my grading scripts.

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kblack
Community Champion

Hello  @hasti ‌ - This has come up a few times in the past in this Community. Not surprisingly, the ever-knowledgeable  @James ‌' explanation of things (with an assist from Kona!) helps clarify a few things as to what's going on with this:  Resubmit assignment but keep original filename?  One suggestion I've given to my own computer science faculty is to have students such programming assignments in a ZIP file.  You would obviously have to download these as opposed to seeing them in SpeedGrader in some cases, but it may help with this specific issue.

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hasti
Community Champion
Author

Since Canvas is going to mark this assumed answered otherwise, let me post the results:

Question 1: No one has any idea if this feature can be turned off.

Question 2: No one knows (or is willing to say) whether Canvas has been consistent in its naming techniques.

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