[ARCHIVED] To do list includes grading from a course concluded last semester?

[erica_wagner]

This is an strange thing I haven't run across before. I am starting a new semester in canvas, and I notice that my "to do" list as an instructor includes grading a couple of random assignments from a course I taught last semester and is presumably concluded by now.

I still have access to old courses I have taught, of course, and may access them to upload material to a new course at a future date. But they are, as far as I know, no longer available to students, nor are any of last semester's assignments still open in that course if a student did somehow have access.

So I have no idea why canvas is telling me I still have things to grade from a midterm exam and a discussion assignment that were due (and closed to student submissions) sometime in the middle of last semester in a concluded course.

[Steven_S]

I suggest clearing cached pages and restarting your browser anytime canvas does not display what you are expecting.  (Or just open in a different browser to see if the issue continues.)  I think that should fix it if your course is concluded, but if not here are a couple other ideas to try:

If you go to those specific submissions you should be able to open the speedgrader (from the assignment itself if not from grades).  Within the speedgrader you will be able to see a submission date.  It is possible students reacted to seeing a final grade lower than expected by trying to turn in late assignments after the last day of class but before the canvas course concluded.  If so, there should be a link to click that will "use the same score as the previous submission"  (even if the previous score was a missing zero.)  I don't think it will let you click that if the course is concluded, but clicking that would remove the item from your to-do list without changing the grade already submitted for that student.

You can also navigate to course settings and check the course course beginning and ending dates, and check options to prevent students from interacting (or even viewing) the course after the course end dates.  The options will be frozen after the course is officially concluded (I think) but you can always ask your canvas admin to assist with the correction.

[erica_wagner]

I restart my computer frequently and restart the browser each time I start a computer session, but I'll have to try clearing my cache.

Still, I don't understand why not clearing my cache for a while would randomly hold onto a couple of assignments from last semester,

More recently I am running into a frustrating issue where assignments I have finished grading in my current class are occasionally popping up on my to do list. I repeatedly check to see if a student submitted something late, even though the assignment is now closed and graded, but that's not the issue. It seems to happen when I have a couple of students who never subbed an assignment, but I have it set so a no submission becomes a "0" after the closing date.

This is on a windows 10 PC, and I use firefox as my browser.

[Steven_S]

@erica_wagner  Basically, it would mean the cache was loading a saved notice, and when you clicked the link there wouldn't be anything there for you to do.  But that is really just a catch-all for anytime something doesn't work right.  Clearing the cache clears up about 90% of student issues with canvas, so its worth a shot for ours too!

Since you mention changing the assignment to no submission after the due date, that might be changing how it interacts with the to-do list. Instead I would recommend picking a set time after the due time to lock the assignment, and putting that time in as an until date.  Doing that in advance means you do not have to keep track of it, but you can add an until date later on if you do not want it displayed at first.  (Some students do interpret the until date as the "real" due date, although the late policy applies a penalty during that period.) 

Also, most items in my to-do list have a little x to the right, so I can clear them out of my list.  It might sound obvious, but have you tried just clicking the x?

[cristawagner]

I am having the same problem but only on the Canvas Teacher app on my iPhone. Two assignments from last semester and 1 from this semester. Both are in my to-do list, but with zero submissions to grade.

[hagranne]

This happened to me and it was fixed when I reset the Test Student for that course. Hope that helps!

[cristawagner]

This didn't work for me, but on another thread multiple users had success:

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Question-Forum/To-Do-List-Won-t-Update-in-Canvas-Teacher-App/td-p...

The issue arose because early in the semester, students had submitted the assignment but then dropped or concluded enrollment before I had graded thier submission. At my institution, the students who drop still appear on the "People Page", but not in the gradebook or in speedgrader. Thus, I had graded all submissions that appeared in speedgrader but not the submissions for the concluded enrollments. 

From my computer, I identified which students had ungraded assignments from the "student interactions report", and entered grades for the assignment (you can view grades for concluded enrollments from Student's profile). Once a score was entered, the assignment disappeared from my app's to-do list!

In an ideal world, I wouldn't have to do this, but I thought I'd share the work-around until Canvas fixes the issue in a more permanent way. 

Catherine, your description was perfect! I am currently having this same problem with my Canvas Teacher app on my iPhone. I followed your instructions and located the one assignment not graded by a student who dropped the course before I graded their week 1 assignment. The one pesky "to do" notification that I could never get rid of....is now gone! You're awesome. 

For anyone who needs help locating the "Student Interactions Report", this webpage helped me locate it: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-12782-415255014.

Here are the steps I followed:

1) Start at your Dashboard view on your computer.

2) Click "View Grades" on the right.

3) On the "Teacher Activity Report" page, click on the student's name who is no longer enrolled in your course but has an existing ungraded assignment/s.

4) Now, on the next screen with the student's information, select "Student Grades".

5) Click on the old assignment that was left not scored.

6) You should now see a screen with the title "Submission Details".

7) Give the assignment a grade and click "Save".

 Done! Refresh your app and the pesky notification that would not disappear should be gone now. 

[cristawagner]

I've tried multiple fixes- none work. I have found though, that my iPad has the correct number of assignments to grade. If anyone has any other work arounds, I'm all ears. Thanks!

[cristawagner]

I FOUND A FIX- after trying (to no avail) all of the complicated, multistep fixes. I SWIPED LEFT in the app and was given the option to mark "done." All of my last semester and zero to grade are gone, the To Do List is operating correctly.

I hope this helps those of you still having the issue.