LTI scores postback as late in pink

[carrie_anderson]

Hello, I am using replaceResultRequest and my scores are posting back correctly save for one small issue.  I have my assignments set with a "Due Date" and an "Available Until" date.  When my cron runs and posts back to Canvas the scores, which occurs after both the "Due Date" and an "Available Until" date, the scores appear late in Canvas and show up in the gradebook in pink.  That is, the posted back scores are taking as their date of completion the time my cron runs and this is marking everything as late.  Any ideas?  Attached is an XML snippet.  Thank you!!

[pklove]

There is no provision in the LTI grade passback to include a date.  So I think your only option is to be sending the grades back earlier.   Is there any reason your tool could not send them back as soon as the student has been awarded the score?

[carrie_anderson]

After looking at available options and pricing, I decided to create my own peer review system with two hard due dates.

The first due date is when the students are to upload their solution file (online course) and this first due date matches with Canvas' soft "Due Date" (though in my add-on it is a hard due date and I express this in both the Canvas assignment write-up and my add-on).  The second due date is when the students are to submit their peer reviews (three reviews per student at the moment) and this second due date matches with Canvas' hard "Available Until" date (and in my add-on also a hard due date).  Everything is matchy-matchy for lack of a better description.

Scores are calculated as an average of the peer reviews received but cannot be tabulated until the second due date passes so to not miss any last minute reviewers.  If I hand enter the scores into Canvas' gradebook after the second due date, they do not turn pink.  I was surprised that posting back scores via a cron marks all the scores as late and turns them pink.  I did find Result.createdTimestamp here but haven't found an example of how to use it.

Thank you kindly for your response. Ideas welcome.  Apps like ALEKS postback after the due date too but do not get marked as late or turn pink, so my gut is telling me there is some workaround that currently escapes me.

[pklove]

Hi Carrie,

Wow, sounds like you have built a great tool.

Thanks for posting the explanation.  It will help people here think of things.  I might try and have a proper look later.

A couple of things, the Result.createdTimestamp is not part of the LTI 1 or the Outcomes Management Service 1.0 - these are how the Canvas grade passback is implemented.  The LTI outcomes service 2, is implemented with REST and JSON and has some of these other variables (eg., for a rough comparison, IMS LTI Outcomes 1.0 Versus 2.0 | Learning Tools ).  Canvas does not have this yet.

Are the apps like ALEKS pure LTI, or are they also using the REST API?

I'm assuming your are linking to your tool from Assignments - Submission Type = External Tool.  Is that correct?

Peter

[carrie_anderson]

Thanks, the options for external tools are really endless.  Thanks too for the clarification regarding 1.0 versus 2.0.  I unfortunately don't know how ALEKS is programmed (proprietary) but its Canvas integration steps are here.  Your assumption regarding submission type is correct.  I have Canvas set to External Tool.

This late issue is confusing students because they think *they* submitted their solution late, so I need to figure out a solution.  An option that I see right now is to change the Canvas due dates to be beyond when my cron submitted the scores.  This however would create an inconsistency between the due dates in Canvas and the due dates in my add-on.

I wish I could simply add a date to the postback or turn off late indicators.  As it is, each gradebook cell is holding a submission date, so another way I can think of to correct this is to export scores, delete the assignments, recreate the assignments, import scores, and hope that takes away the lates and pink boxes.

I'm open to ideas of a consistent but less tedious nature.  Thanks again.

[jpoulos]

 @carrie_anderson ‌ 

This is a great question, and something I've been meaning to address in our documentation.

pklove is correct, there is no standardized LTI way of sending a submission time in the XML. 

Taking a step back, however, I think I can give a workaround for you. 

Our platform team has extended the LTI outcome service to allow you to specify either a score (using resultScore or resultTotalScore), a submission (using resultData), or both. See our external tool grading documentation for details.

In all of these scenarios, Canvas will mark the time it receives the request as the submission time when the FIRST message is received.

What happens if you send another message? 

• When only a score is sent: Canvas will not modify the submission time, but instead just update the grade
• When only resultData is sent: Canvas will create a new submission and set the submission time as the current time. The item will appear as ungraded until the instructor applies a grade, or the tool sends a score
• When both score and resultData are sent: Canvas will create a new submission, set the submission time as the current time, AND apply a grade to that submission

Here's the workaround:

When the student first submits to your tool, immediately send the resultData back to Canvas. Ideally, you'll send an LTI launch URL so that the Canvas users can see the actual submission iframed in Canvas (cool!).

When the other students have completed their peer reviews, you can then calculate the score and send the resultScore back to Canvas. Canvas should not modify the submission timestamp, just the grade

Here's and example with some pictures:

First message:

<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8"?>
<imsx_POXEnvelopeRequest xmlns="http://www.imsglobal.org/services/ltiv1p1/xsd/imsoms_v1p0">
<imsx_POXHeader>
<imsx_POXRequestHeaderInfo>
<imsx_version>V1.0</imsx_version>
<imsx_messageIdentifier>999999123</imsx_messageIdentifier>
</imsx_POXRequestHeaderInfo>
</imsx_POXHeader>
<imsx_POXBody>
  <replaceResultRequest>
    <resultRecord>
      <sourcedGUID>
        <sourcedId>soucedId value</sourcedId>
      </sourcedGUID>
    <result>
      <resultData>
        <ltiLaunchUrl>https://your.tool.domain/submission/show?submission_id=77</ltiLaunchUrl>
      </resultData>
    </result>
  </resultRecord>
</replaceResultRequest>
</imsx_POXBody>
</imsx_POXEnvelopeRequest>

How it shows in the UI: 

Second message:

<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8"?>
<imsx_POXEnvelopeRequest xmlns="http://www.imsglobal.org/services/ltiv1p1/xsd/imsoms_v1p0">
<imsx_POXHeader>
<imsx_POXRequestHeaderInfo>
<imsx_version>V1.0</imsx_version>
<imsx_messageIdentifier>999999123</imsx_messageIdentifier>
</imsx_POXRequestHeaderInfo>
</imsx_POXHeader>
<imsx_POXBody>
   <replaceResultRequest>
      <resultRecord>
         <sourcedGUID>
            <sourcedId>soucedId</sourcedId>
         </sourcedGUID>
         <result>
           <resultTotalScore>
              <language>en</language>
              <textString>score you want to send</textString>
           </resultTotalScore>
         </result>
      </resultRecord>
  </replaceResultRequest>
</imsx_POXBody>
</imsx_POXEnvelopeRequest>

How it now shows in the UI: 

I hope this helps, please let me know if you've got any questions about this

Jesse Poulos

Partner Integrations Specialist

Instructure

[pklove]

Hi Jesse,

Thanks for the detailed information, this is great.

I'd wondered about doing this but hadn't had time to test it, particularly how it would show in the UI to students.  I think you just saved me quite a bit of time.

So, the only question is, as this is not documented, can we rely on this behaviour?  Could it change without going through deprecation and warning through release notes?

Cheers,

Peter

[jpoulos]

pklove‌ I don't see a use case for it not behaving this way; it makes sense to distinguish submissions vs grading. I wouldn't be too concerned with the behavior changing unless there is a bug.

We've also go a backlog request to extend the LTI service to allow a tool to return a submission timestamp that Canvas can use instead of the current time. It will be added to our docs once it's done, but it not a major priority right now.

[carrie_anderson]

Thank you!  I have implemented the change to my code, tested it out with Test Student, and it seems to be functioning correctly.  This round of peer reviews is sunk, but next week's round of peer reviews will be using the updated code, and I am hopeful that the late issue is fixed.  Plus I also now know what text, url, and ltiLaunchUrl do in a postback so appreciate that as well.  I hope that Canvas LTI updates will include backwards compatibility.  Thanks again.  Much appreciate all replies.