Download original files for peer review

[MelissaHerzog]

Problem statement:

When you have an assignment in Canvas and want to use peer review, in the previous assignment interface, students had the option to download the original submitted file when peer reviewing a student. If the submitted file was in the form of a DOCX file, the student could download the DOCX file and read it in Word (and do annotations there). However, with the new assignment interface, this is no longer possible. When students are peer reviewing a submitted file, it can only be downloaded as an annotated PDF. This makes it impossible for students to practice the skills of using Track Changes in Word. It also forces students to have to do a workaround to export the PDF to Word to even try to do this... and many students don't have Adobe software to do this. 

Proposed solution:

It would be beneficial if students had the option to choose between downloading an annotated PDF or download the original file. In this case the teacher wants the students to do their review and tracking of changes in Word and later upload the file to the Canvas peer review assignment.

[crafte]

Hi @MelissaHerzog - students will not need an Adobe application to export PDF to Word. Students can open Word > go to the File tab > click on Open > navigate to the PDF. This will convert the PDF to Word and students can edit the content in Word. Before editing, the students will need to save the file in Word. Here is a Microsoft guide: Edit a PDF in Word.

[ACl4]

I wanted to request the same thing! This would be a very useful feature to get back, so that if instructors want to make use of Microsoft's Track Changes feature during a peer review assignment, they can do so more easily. Currently, only a PDF is able to be downloaded, which does not allow that functionality (and thus, makes it much more difficult for students and instructors to get Word documents to one another).