Changing the 'Submit Assignment' Button

[cbishop3]

Students tell us that the "Submit Assignment" button is confusing, because the term "submit" implies to turn in. Changing the work "Submit" to "Begin" (or something similar) would be less confusing, and using "Submit Assignment" for when the assignment is actually be submitted for grading.

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

For more information, please read through the Canvas Deploy Notes (2021-03-31).

[abode_peter]

I have made a short list of Canvas training videos that I encourage my students to view--two of them deal with assignments. If you are an instructor and have not given basic instructions on using Canvas and/or directed students to tutorial videos, you are doing your students a disservice. Naming a button to something else, is not going to clear up the confusion; if you change it to "Begin" --what does begin mean? Is that going to be any "clearer" than Submit...

To Alexa, your experience is a great example of how one learns software--sometimes it's about clicking and finding out what is on the other-side of that click--it's about "discovery" and all discovery entails "risk."

One option that may work for everyone is to allow instructors to click on a set-up selection list with 2 or 3 different naming schemes for the Submit button, let each select their own preference.

[jbontemps]

Seriously? That seems like a personal attack. The issue is that the language is not clear, and that is all she said.

[kmeeusen]

jbontemps  I don't see  @abode_peter 's posting as an attack at all. Learning the jargon of an application is very important, and no single term will ever please everybody - as this discussion clearly demonstrates. Also the point about student training/orientation is right on the money! My bottom line is that students should be challenged by my curriculum without being challenged by the technology I use to deliver it. Even in an extensively developed course using all the bells & whistles in Canvas, there are only a small number of Canvas skills the students need to know to succeed, and they should get that first before ever encountering learning materials and activities in Canvas. As P.J. stated, anything less is a disservice to the students.

Honestly, I doubt if even the very youngest students really care what that button is called, but they do care about what happens when they click it, and what they then need to do. I have seen two and three year old's operate info tech, and not have a clue what any of the written words mean. It is some teachers who are concerned, and I suspect they transfer that concern to their students. As for myself, I am old and have encountered so much jargon in my lifetime I don't care if it's labeled "capacious carbuncles" as long as I know what happens when I click it.

Just my $0.02

KLM

[siouxgeonz]

Read the original post and look at the picture to see what the issue is.  

Screaming it in capital letters doesn't make it true; in fact, everybody doesn't know "what it means."   

[siouxgeonz]

So... just in case this were to gain enough up votes... woudl it be conceivable that ... people would read the comments etc. and know what the real issue is? 

I blogged on this on my personal blog and one of my followers replied with this  design words with data   on the importance of labeling things by ... what the people respond to, not what we think they should. Fascinating.

[abode_peter]

The problem with Begin Assignment, is that the assignment instructions are on the Assignment page, the Submit Assignment button at the top of the Assignment page takes one to a widget that allows one to browse for a file submission (in my case). Once they click on Submit Assignment button there are no further instructions in that widget what "Begin Assignment" means if the button was changed to Begin Assignment.

I agree an online course is a bit more confusing for students. I allow student's one week to submit late assignments for reduced points -- and send them email reminders about that --- and for the First Week, I add that if they submit their late assignment and going forward on time and with a passing grade, the Week 1 assignments would be regraded at full credit. After this discussion I will also add to the email instructions how to submit and the 2 links to the Canvas Assignment videos.

I would think that in learning platforms, Submit Assignment is a standard way of naming a button that allows one to submit, at least in the platform our school had previously used, eCollege, though I can see renaming it "To Submit Assignment" with "To" indicating a process, not the final step.

[chplum20]

see you used submit "Thankfully, nothing was submitted!  It just progressed onto the next step of submitting an assignment." so why change it when it is sumented in are brains that submit means to turn in

[Stef_retired]

 @siouxgeonz , if this feature idea reaches the 100-vote threshold, the product team will carefully review the idea and the entire comment thread.

[RobDitto]

This is such a valuable discussion!

[mtoms1]

To my understanding we are "submitting" assignments. I think the term is appropriate.