Open or change a closed grading period

[daniel1_mcdowel]

In my canvas course, not created by me, I've published some assignments and get this message 'Some settings have been disabled because the assignment is in a closed grading period'. I need to change the due date of the assignment but cannot, I am also unable to grade the assignment.  How can I correct this, to make this assignment current and allow me to make edits?  

[djackson · Accepted solution]

Hi,  @daniel1_mcdowel ‌,

Thank you for submitting your question! As per, How do I view grading periods in a course?, grades in a closed grading period cannot be edited. This is by design, as editing assignments or changing grades on those assignments would damage the integrity of the grades for that grading period. Your best course of action would be to reach out to the local Canvas admin for your district who manages grading period dates to find out whether or how they will permit changes to activities in a closed grading period.

Hope this helps!

Best,

Danielle

[foxjj · Accepted solution]

We instructed our teachers to copy their first term courses into their second term shells and then basically reuse the content. Will the assignment grading periods be locked to the previous grading period? If yet, what is a better plan for teachers who receive new course shells when the semester rolls over?

[djackson · Accepted solution]

Hi,  @daniel1_mcdowel ‌,

Thank you for submitting your question! As per, How do I view grading periods in a course?, grades in a closed grading period cannot be edited. This is by design, as editing assignments or changing grades on those assignments would damage the integrity of the grades for that grading period. Your best course of action would be to reach out to the local Canvas admin for your district who manages grading period dates to find out whether or how they will permit changes to activities in a closed grading period.

Hope this helps!

Best,

Danielle

[daniel1_mcdowel]

Thank you, Danielle. This helps. 

[foxjj · Accepted solution]

We instructed our teachers to copy their first term courses into their second term shells and then basically reuse the content. Will the assignment grading periods be locked to the previous grading period? If yet, what is a better plan for teachers who receive new course shells when the semester rolls over?

[psingletary]

Hi Danielle,

I'm coming to this thread as a public school instructor who would like my course materials to still be grade-able after the grading period ends, as I teach math and want to make sure students have mastered prerequisite skills before moving on to new ones. I would like to contact my local district admin, but have no idea how to locate who this would be. Do you have any advice?

Thanks,

P.K. Singletary

[amheath]

Danielle, I understand that changing grades in a closed grading period would  compromise grade integrity. What options does Canvas then have if we want to assign the same assignment in a current grading period? When the assignment is duplicated, the closed period due date is duplicated with it. How do I import a previously used assignment to assign to my current students?

[amheath]

This answer seems to be repeated but still does not actually address the heart of the problem. We want to take old assignments and add them to a current grading period. We don't want to change the grades in the old grading period, we want the assignment to start fresh for a new one, but duplicating the assignment duplicated the due dates and other info, so we are stuck with creating the assignment again from scratch. What tools does Canvas have to not have to start the assignment again from scratch? 

[akteach2]

amheath Could you copy the assignment/quiz to a sandbox course?  The sandbox likely does not have terms and grading periods attached. Then edit the due dates and copy back to original course?  Just a thought....

[jerry_a_william]

I am the Canvas Admin for my K-12 school district. It seems strange that duplicating/copying an assignment copies and hard codes its original due date and availability date. What would the purpose of that be? As a Canvas Admin, I can duplicate assignments and edit the due dates. Is there a setting where I can enable this ability for copied assignments for teachers?

[PeggyYancey · Accepted solution]

I clicked "duplicate" on a test in new quizzes from a previous grading period in order to make a duplicate so I could assign it to a student currently.  I see the 'Some settings have been disabled because the assignment is in a closed grading period' message in blue, so therefore I cannot make edits.  Shouldn't I be able to do this on a duplicate, so I won't have to build the whole test again?  All I want to do is change the "assign to", the availibity dates, and the due date, so that this student can take the test.  Can you help?

[courtney_leifer]

As an admin, you can change the dates, but the teacher is not able to do that. I instructed my teachers to import the content from the original course instead of copying it over. When you import from another course, it allows them to click a box to adjust the due dates and that issue was fixed. 

[TraciDayvault]

Yet another terrible Canvas feature.  It really never ceases to amaze me how many things you can't do on Canvas and how un-user friendly it is 😵.  Anyway, I've been playing with this and figured out that if I copied an old assignment to Commons and then imported it back into the class and it let me set a due date.

[NacdeBobadillo]

I agree! It is a terrible feature.  I really don't want to have to copy my assignments to Commons. It seems like too many steps, whereas before it was a simple "one click" and you're done.  Being able to change the dates not only would solve the issue of copying assignments, but also allow would allow me to be able to unpublish assignments outside of the grading period. I have students who are new to my course after the first term and they accidentally completed 1st term assignments. I can't close them because they have student submissions, and I can't even grade them because the grade date is closed, and I can't change the grading date. Lose-lose situation.😠

[hdecker]

I teach a year-long class (two semesters with separate grading periods).  For recurring assignments I have been merely duplicating the assignment from the previous unit, renaming it for the current unit, and adjusting the due date. I've been doing this for years and I've never had an issue, until we started closing the grading period for first semester this school year. 

That means if I am duplicating an assignment that was originally assigned last semester, but I want to use it this semester, Canvas will automatically duplicate the original due date and then leave the duplicate assignment stuck in "closed grading period" limbo, with absolutely no option for editing it or adjusting the due date into the current/open grading period.  There NEEDS to be an option for selecting "remove due date" during the assignment duplication process to avoid this!

My only ways around this right now both require an incredible amount of time for what used to be a 10-second process:

• Export the assignment to a separate course shell and then re-import it back into the current course without a due date (since you ARE prompted to remove/adjust due dates during the import process).
• Manually build the original assignment from scratch all over again.

I don't consider either of these to actually be solutions. They're bandages to an ongoing problem.

[DalindaBohr]

I tried copying an assignment to my Sandbox but still could not change the due date.  I could assign to my canvas sandbox course and then tried sending back but it didn't work. to change dates.

What did work? Settings>Import Content. Copy an Canvas course

CHOOSE SELECTED CONTENT since only a few assignments were affected and click adjust event and due dates - 

I chose to remove due dates - they stayed linked to the agenda/assignments but I could edit them and add due dates after that with no issues.

[SusanNiemeyer]

As @DalindaBohr , explained, the solution is to always "import" content into the target course shell and then "remove the dates." Always start from the target course, and bring items into it with "import.' When doing so, one should always import "selected content." 

The issue with Canvas is that too many instructors try to "copy" content from the old course shell into the target course. The old dates are carried over. Because so many instructors get hung up, the Canvas developers should address this problem.

Lastly, a lot of instructors erroneously believe that they have to move everything into Commons as an intermediary step. Unless they want to share their content with others, there's no need to do this. Instead, a development course, commonly referred to as a Sandbox course, is a better way to store course materials long term.