[ARCHIVED] Missing Assignments Indicator

[baileyc]

Can marking assignments missing being disabled? I have assignments that some students submit to, but mostly I manually enter the grade. I'm noticing that for students whose grade was manually added without a submission from them it is marked missing. #missing

[awilliams · Accepted solution]

Hey  @baileyc ‌, it sounds like maybe you still have the "Submission Type" set to "Online" for those assignments you intend to manually grade. Have you tried changing the submission type to "On Paper" or "No Submission" to see if that affects the "Missing" indicator? Here are a few community resources for assignments that would help with editing assignment details.

https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-10113-415241285 

[awilliams · Accepted solution]

Ahh, I see. In the event of online submission types that you want to also allow "on paper" I don't think there's any way to tell Canvas it was turned in that way instead of just "missing." That would be a new feature (https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-2109-how-does-the-voting-process-work-for-feature-ideas?sr=...‌)

However, if you allow "Text Entry" as a submission option, the students could just type in "I turned this in to you on paper on Thursday, Aug. 3rd" or something. After grading them you should be free of the missing label then. Would that work for you?

[James · Accepted solution]

If it's graded, obviously its not missing. 

I can think of circumstances where this may not be true. Some people go through and put in zeros once an assignment is due to give an extra nudge to the students who haven't submitted it. Others go through and put in zeros for everything at the beginning of the term because they want the percent to build towards 100% rather than reflecting what has been graded so far. Technically, those are still missing, even if there is no longer an opportunity for the student to turn it in.

You might be able to say that a positive grade means it has been submitted, but you can't infer the same for a zero as it's possible that the student turned it in on paper and got a 0 for whatever reason. This discussion kind of reminds me of the text messages that Canvas sent out in the spring where many were up in arms about the wording. That test run has turned into Nudge (see InstCon0017 Product Announcements ) which is going through more testing before it's generally available.

As this is a new featureCanvas Production Release Notes (2017-08-05), it's possible that some refinement will need to be done.  @ProfessorBeyrer ‌ has already made a feature request to suppress this behavior for 0 point assignments. There was also a healthy discussion of it in the Canvas Beta Release Notes (2017-07-24), where Erin Hallmark made the comment that manually grading does not change the label and that you can check out future features in Priority: Gradebook Enhancements.

As for now, as it was in the past, educating students and informing them of what things mean can go along way towards alleviating misunderstandings and stress: "Missing means that you didn't submit it through Canvas and that's all it means. You should ignore this if you turned it in on paper." But I can guarantee that students are still going to freak out and forget what you told them.  Either that or it's going to happen so much that it loses its usefulness.

[kblack · Accepted solution]

Either that or it's going to happen so much that it loses its usefulness.

Exactly! That's my main concern with this right now. It will get to the point that an otherwise useful feature will just be ignored unless faculty are somehow able to override its behavior.

[awilliams · Accepted solution]

Hey  @baileyc ‌, it sounds like maybe you still have the "Submission Type" set to "Online" for those assignments you intend to manually grade. Have you tried changing the submission type to "On Paper" or "No Submission" to see if that affects the "Missing" indicator? Here are a few community resources for assignments that would help with editing assignment details.

https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-10113-415241285 

[baileyc]

thanks, I considered that but i want the assignment to be "submitable" as well. Some students submit online, some turn in on paper.

[awilliams · Accepted solution]

Ahh, I see. In the event of online submission types that you want to also allow "on paper" I don't think there's any way to tell Canvas it was turned in that way instead of just "missing." That would be a new feature (https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-2109-how-does-the-voting-process-work-for-feature-ideas?sr=...‌)

However, if you allow "Text Entry" as a submission option, the students could just type in "I turned this in to you on paper on Thursday, Aug. 3rd" or something. After grading them you should be free of the missing label then. Would that work for you?

[baileyc]

I already have that as an option. I wish it would just "go away" when I grade it.  If it's graded, obviously its not missing. 

[James · Accepted solution]

If it's graded, obviously its not missing. 

I can think of circumstances where this may not be true. Some people go through and put in zeros once an assignment is due to give an extra nudge to the students who haven't submitted it. Others go through and put in zeros for everything at the beginning of the term because they want the percent to build towards 100% rather than reflecting what has been graded so far. Technically, those are still missing, even if there is no longer an opportunity for the student to turn it in.

You might be able to say that a positive grade means it has been submitted, but you can't infer the same for a zero as it's possible that the student turned it in on paper and got a 0 for whatever reason. This discussion kind of reminds me of the text messages that Canvas sent out in the spring where many were up in arms about the wording. That test run has turned into Nudge (see InstCon0017 Product Announcements ) which is going through more testing before it's generally available.

As this is a new featureCanvas Production Release Notes (2017-08-05), it's possible that some refinement will need to be done.  @ProfessorBeyrer ‌ has already made a feature request to suppress this behavior for 0 point assignments. There was also a healthy discussion of it in the Canvas Beta Release Notes (2017-07-24), where Erin Hallmark made the comment that manually grading does not change the label and that you can check out future features in Priority: Gradebook Enhancements.

As for now, as it was in the past, educating students and informing them of what things mean can go along way towards alleviating misunderstandings and stress: "Missing means that you didn't submit it through Canvas and that's all it means. You should ignore this if you turned it in on paper." But I can guarantee that students are still going to freak out and forget what you told them.  Either that or it's going to happen so much that it loses its usefulness.

[kblack · Accepted solution]

Either that or it's going to happen so much that it loses its usefulness.

Exactly! That's my main concern with this right now. It will get to the point that an otherwise useful feature will just be ignored unless faculty are somehow able to override its behavior.

[thompsli]

Even a positive grade may not mean that something has been submitted. Some teachers use "balanced grading" where missing assignments receive a non-zero grade. I've seen course policies of 50% and of 30% used for "Missing" rather than 0. (The 50% teachers are generally giving nothing lower than a 55% F as a grade to a student who turns something in, if that helps this policy seem clearer.)

[kimberly_smith1]

Hello  @baileyc  

This idea is open for voting at  https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/10605-a-global-option-to-enabledisable-missing-and-late-status...  If you have not done so already, you may want to vote there. It is also good to add a comment about why this is important to you. Canvas considers the feature idea comments when deciding whether or not to move forward on the ideas 

[hayeje1]

Exactly!  Once a grade is entered, in any form, the "missing" indicator needs to go away. This is causing so much angst for my students and parents. You can manually remove the indicator, but who has time for that???  Every assignment for 150 students.

[MichaelCalarco]

NEW FEATURE I agree... Having a hybrid grading feature would be nice for the times I have students who miss work and make it up in other forms like paper.

It could be as simple as adding a toggle for teachers to "mark as submitted" - having that be something that can be done on an entire assignment would be help for too, like when I throw out or excuse students from an assignment but want to give everyone credit it for it "mark all as submitted". The students get anxious when they see "missing" and I have had many parents mad that it says missing even though it's graded as 10/10. 

[McCarvilleK]

This "solution" also requires students to go into Canvas and take an extra step beyond just turning in the assignment. It also means that I have a number of "submissions" on Canvas that I have to check to make sure are not real submissions when I'm grading. It also means I have to teach (and reteach, and reteach, and reteach) students to do this, taking up valuable class time and actually making more work when Canvas is supposed to make things easier.

[McCarvilleK]

Unfortunately this doesn't help when you have an assignment where some students are going to submit online and some are going to submit on paper.

[awilliams]

 @baileyc , I would say this question is technically "answered" at this point in that there's nothing you're missing or doing wrong, it's just a quality of the new functionality. Would you mind if I mark it as "assumed answered?" This won't prevent anyone from finding it or continuing the discussion, it will just separate it from other questions that still need to be "answered."

[d_jeffries]

I know you have technically answered this question, but I would really appreciate the option to remove the missing status, as the OP says, not all students submit on line.

[german]

I hate to post only "me too" but oh wow, this feature is really scaring my students and it's frustrating.  They mostly show work in class, but I allow them to upload if they prefer that method (or if they're absent) so 95% of my students are seeing "missing" on every assignment, even though I've given them full credit for showing it on paper!  I really hope there will be an update to allow us to disable the 'missing' notification for students!

[kimberly_smith1]

Hello  @german  ,

This idea is open for voting at  A global option to enable/disable Missing and Late Status labels in the New Gradebook  If you have not done so already, you may want to vote there. It is also good to add a comment about why this is important to you. Canvas considers the feature idea comments when deciding whether or not to move forward on the ideas. 

[kimberly_smith1]

Hello  @d_jeffries  

This idea is open for voting at  https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/10605-a-global-option-to-enabledisable-missing-and-late-status...  If you have not done so already, you may want to vote there. It is also good to add a comment about why this is important to you. Canvas considers the feature idea comments when deciding whether or not to move forward on the ideas 

[steeletm]

I have unpublished modules with unpublished assignments and when students view the gradebook a big red box saying "missing" on these assignments are showing up and causing GREAT confusion.Why are these showing up when they are not even published?

[Stef_retired]

 @steeletm ‌, I did not know that it was possible for students to see unpublished assignments in their Grades view; indeed, they should not be able to see unpublished assignments anywhere. Have you submitted a support ticket?

[joseph_allen]

This is a challenge in our school district as well and there will likely always be a mix of students who submit work online and those who use alternative means.  That said, there needs to be an option to turn this off, have multiple submission methods, or some other solutions.  Otherwise, I agree with the others that this high potential feature will simply become ignored.   For those of us in K12, this is especially tough, because it alerts parents that assignments are missing when in fact that may not be the case.

[kimberly_smith1]

Hello   @joseph_allen  ,

This idea is open for voting at  A global option to enable/disable Missing and Late Status labels in the New Gradebook  If you have not done so already, you may want to vote there. It is also good to add a comment about why this is important to you. Canvas considers the feature idea comments when deciding whether or not to move forward on the ideas.

[thompsli]

I just wanted to link some related Ideas currently open for vote: https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/9511-allow-missing-label-to-be-enableddisabled-by-choice?sr=se...‌ and https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/9339-missing-label-placed-incorrectlysubmission-on-paper-and-o...‌.

[kimberly_smith1]

Hello   @thompsli  

In my view, the solution that Canvas has moved to beta (a manual removal of these labels 

at https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/9511-allow-missing-label-to-be-enableddisabled-by-choice ) isn't really what most of use had envisioned. That is, manually removing each of these labels per assignment/per student 1) cannot really be done ahead of time - so students/parents will often see them anyway, and 2) can be very time consuming. If you have not done so already, you may want to vote on a more automated option at https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/10605-a-global-option-to-enabledisable-missing-and-late-status... . If you vote, it is also good to add a comment about why this is important to you. Canvas considers the feature idea comments when deciding whether or not to move forward on the ideas.

[dwillmore]

I hope Instructure realizes how important such a little thing is to the perceived quality of their product by students and faculty.   I have been getting many calls and emails on this subject.   It may be, "Now is the winter of discontent."  It would be advisable to pull the functionality and put it into beta for testing.   It is a small matter that is causing great strife.

[joseph_allen]

David, I could not agree more.  While there is good intent for the automated 'missing' functionality, it is not congruent with the way a K12 actually operates.  I think the option should be pulled until it can be further evaluated for functionality and give teachers more control over if, how, and when to apply it.  It is a small thing, but for helicopter parents who see 'missing' on their kids assignment, they immediately call their school and want answers. 

Unfortunately with public K12, someone will not have internet, someone will need an accommodation, or someone will just prefer working on paper.  Canvas needs to have that flexibility.   

On a related note, we find that 'missing' shows up on the Canvas Parent app the day after an assignment is due even if 'no submission' is chosen.  Again, this causes unnecessary worry and a lot of parent calls when the truth is, teachers just need a few days to grade assignments.      

[dwillmore]

I was looking at this from a higher ed perspective with panicked students.    Your scenario makes it so much worse.   No video games for Johny because I see that you have missing assignments!!    The injustice....

[joseph_allen]

Yes.  But in all seriousness - there are two things going on with the 'missing' tags that really leave a bad taste in teachers, students, and parents mouths.  We need to get these addressed quickly.  I have raised the issues with my CSM as well. 

1. Teacher gives an assignment.  Even with a ‘no submission’ submission type, the assignment will show as “missing” on the Canvas Parent mobile app the next day after due date if no grade is entered.   In this case, all that is happening is that the teacher has not yet graded the assignment.  Teachers take a few days to grade their assignments, but parents are seeing “Missing” on the app within minutes of the due data passing.  This behavior in the Canvas Parent mobile app is causing alarm and questions among our parents who are trying to stay on top of their kids. 

2. Teacher gives an assignment.  Online submission is chosen as the 'submission type' and the majority of students use this without issue, but being a public K12, the teacher almost always has to give the option for paper / hard copy submission for those that either prefer that medium, need an accommodation, or have limited internet access from home.  In these cases, even if the students submits their hard copy on time, their assignment is marked ‘missing’ or 'late' in the gradebooks .  This shows up in the web gradebook, Canvas Parent, and Amazon Alexa.

Proposal to fix:

1. Canvas needs to modify the functionality so that ‘no submission’ items don’t automatically flag as missing on the mobile apps or the web interface.   
2. Add an additional box to the 'online' submission type.  If this box is checked, then the automated missing / late tags do not trigger in Speedgrader, gradebook, or Canvas Parent mobile app (see screen shot below)

[jonesn16]

This makes a lot of sense,  @joseph_allen . Thinking about the user experience of an instructor creating the assignment, I worry it might confuse many instructors to have an On Paper submission type and a "allow paper" option for the Online submission type. How about putting it in Grades? As other people have indicated in this thread, the difference between "you got a 0 because you screwed up" and "you got a 0 because you didn't turn in anything" is unimportant to them. For others it matters a lot. For the people who need that distinction, they could flip it on for an assignment.

[joseph_allen]

Nicholas, I agree.  I don't really care how we mark things missing, we just need the option to do it manually and remove the automation as it creates unnecessary concern for K12 students and particularly parents and it give Canvas a bad taste for teachers because they are on the front lines answering all the emails of "why did you mark my student missing?"

[laurakgibbs]

This is a problem for me in higher ed teaching fully online too, but I can see from people's comments how much worse it is for K-12 settings, esp. when misleading information is going out to parents.

[kimberly_smith1]

Yes! I really love this solution for differentiating between paper versus online submissions.

[kimberly_smith1]

Hello  @dwillmore  ,

Canvas has provided a manual solution in beta (see https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/9511-allow-missing-label-to-be-enableddisabled-by-choice ) . However, I don't believe that this manual solution was really what most if us hoped for, That is, manually removing each of these labels per assignment/per student 1) cannot really be done ahead of time - so students/parents will often see them anyway, and 2) can be very time consuming. If you have not done so already, you may want to vote on a more automated option at https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/10605-a-global-option-to-enabledisable-missing-and-late-status... . If you vote, it is also good to add a comment about why this is important to you. Canvas considers the feature idea comments when deciding whether or not to move forward on the ideas.

[hmrozarb]

I have actually submitted an idea recently if you would like to vote up on it!  When my teachers manually grade an assignment or mark it as "EX", the grade still shows as missing in the gradebook.  It also messes up the analytics for that student.  Analytics seem to be based on submissions and if the student didn't submit something, then it shows as missing.  #missing #EX #manually graded #analytics

https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/9426-manually-graded-or-ex-assignments-still-show-as-missing 

[laurakgibbs]

I have prepared a general feature idea to put the Missing label feature back into Beta for now; this Idea page also has all the 5 feature requests related to the Missing label that you can read and vote on.

https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/9693-roll-missing-label-in-gradebook-back-to-beta 

If you know of feature requests besides those five, let me know! Thank you! 🙂

[erinhmcmillan · Accepted solution]

Hi, Crystal,

The main reason your students were seeing the missing label is because Canvas only knows how to treat an assignment according to its submission designation. If you set the assignment as online, Canvas is looking for online submissions and there isn't a way to disable the missing label. So if you're using an assignment that can be submitted by students using another method, Canvas won't know.

We've been made more aware of this use case, and in the Canvas Beta Release Notes (2017-09-25) we've made a change that removes the missing and late labels from the student Grades page and submission details page. Only SpeedGrader shows the labels, which is the original behavior that existed before the labels were added for students in the Canvas Production Release Notes (2017-08-05). So basically we've put everything back the way it was.

The missing and late labels are ultimately part of Gradebook Enhancements, which you can learn more about here: Priority: Gradebook Enhancements‌. Any institution that is currently part of the New Gradebook Focus Group will still show labels to students in enabled courses, but the New Gradebook can be currently be turned off at any time if needed. Otherwise, in the future when the New Gradebook is available to all users, the New Gradebook will also allow instructors to manage those labels manually. 

For now we hope this change in the standard Gradebook will help alleviate student concerns about missing assignments.

Thanks!

Erin 

[laurakgibbs]

Thank you for this update, erinhallmark‌!!!

When you say that instructors will be able to "manage those labels manually" do you meant that will be on a course-wide basis, i.e. to disable the labels complete if they do not fit our grading practices? I hope that is what you mean, but I was not sure.

Any information you can provide about that will be MUCH appreciated! Whether or not I go to the New Gradebook depends on the answer to that question. I do NOT want to disable the labels item by item, student by student by means of manual overrides; I want to disable the use of any/all missing and late labels in my courses.

Meanwhile, I am SO GLAD to know that my students will no longer see the inaccurate Missing labels, and the inappropriate Late labels, which are both completely contrary to my grading practices.

Thank you again for the update!

[hmrozarb]

Thank you Erin!  Now if the instructor can manage these labels manually, how will that impact analytics?  Before, an assignment that was given a manual grade, but still labeled as missing, would also show as missing in analytics.  Does this mean that if there is a manual grade and no missing label, the assignment will not show as missing in analytics?

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi, Heather,

Labels can't be managed manually quite yet—they'll be part of the new Late and missing flags with automatic deduction policies mentioned in Priority: Gradebook Enhancements‌. That page will show you all the features currently in process and the ones still coming in the future. If you're interested in learning more about the New Gradebook and participating in the focus group, contact your Customer Success Manager. I don't know enough of the specifics in detail to fully answer your question right now, but more information about Gradebook Enhancements will be made available soon!

Thanks,

Erin

[joseph_allen]

erinhallmark, like others have said, thank you and Canvas for being so responsive to this situation where labels are setting off false alarms for parents and students.  I know you said you don't have a lot of details about the new gradebook, but I just want to put in the plug that now everyone knows automated labels can be problematic for K12 and others, that the developers address the issue before the new gradebook is complete and rolled out.  Thanks again for all you do.