Instructor Comments Inconvenient

[elisat]

The assignment enhancements are awesome for students, but it is causing a problem for instructors. With the assignment enhancements enabled the instructor has to switch to the prior submission to see comments that were made on a student's work. With the assignment enhancements disabled the instructor was able to see all comments when looking at any submission. This should be an option for instructors to see prior submission comments or not when viewing most recent submission.

[kim_hales]

Because I allow students to resubmit assignments, it helps me to see my previous comments at a glance.  There should be a feature that allows me to thread the comments so I can read entire conversations without having to navigate away from the current submission.  Thank you!

[b_w_reid]

Threaded comments would be a great idea. I'd vote on that!

[b_w_reid]

We experienced this issue too and have a ticket open with support. Comments for the most recent assignment are unfortunately tied with a previous attempt after switching this tool on. We've turned it off until this issue is resolved.

[james_trueman]

If I've understood correctly, does this feature need the ability to 'tie' the comments to the submission they were actually left against (not incorrectly associated with a different submission). In which case, are there two asks here?:

a) associate comments with the submission they were left against (e.g., not the previous attempt as reported by @b_w_reid ), and

b) have a toggle feature to be able to read all comments left (I assume tagged with with submission this was left against), when viewing the most recent (or any) submission?

This seems to read as a 'view all' or 'view filtered' process (filtered by the submission currently in view - and which the comments were left against)

[elisat]

The comments are already associated with the attempt, so we just want a toggle to be able to see all comments when viewing the most recent attempt. The idea is to allow the instructor to see the student's most recent submission and what the instructor told him or her to fix previously so the instructor can tell if the student has actually made the appropriate corrections (without having to switch back and forth between attempts).

[james_trueman · Accepted solution]

Hi @elisat - I think some of us who are migrating across to Enhancements are having issues with comment association. I believe it's ok if the comments were left when Assignment Enhancements was already enabled - but those left under (classic?) conditions are not associated with the right attempt when Enhancements are then enabled. This is what we've been told by Canvas Support:

Whether submission comments are associated with the first attempt or most recent attempt when Assignment Enhancements is enabled depends on where the submission comment was made:

• if the submission comment was made in the Gradebook, then it will be associated to the most recent attempt,
• if the comment was made anywhere else (Submission Details page, SpeedGrader, Inbox) then it will be associated with the first attempt.

We find this rather unhelpful at the moment, as pretty much all comments are left in SpeedGrader, rather than the comments text field in the Gradebook - so they are just being associated with the first attempt, rather than the correct / most recent attempt.

I appreciate this is slightly different to your original post, I think we're just signalling that there are a couple of things that could do with resolving if Instructure are looking at the code / behaviour around comment association in Assignment Enhancements.

[elisat]

@james_trueman,

Thanks for this helpful explanation. The instructor I was working with had made the comments before enabling Assignment Enhancements.