[Discussions] Option for setting a number of discussion posts required before being flagged for grading

DESCRIPTION

In order to encourage students to participate more in the online discussion forum for their classes, many instructors require that they submit more than one post to a graded forum. Currently, when students submit just one post, they are flagged for grading in the Speedgrader (orange circle icon). Instructors who require more than one post before the discussion assignment is considered completed or available for grading have to look through each student who has submitted at least one post and see whether they have submitted the required amount.

 

IMPACT

It is a time-consuming task for the instructor to check every student who has been flagged for grading, since, in many cases, a student may not have yet submitted their second (or third, fourth, nth, etc.) submission, leading to wasted time and effort for an instructor.

 

PROPOSAL

Include an option in the discussion forum properties that allows instructors to set the number of posts a student must submit before they are flagged for grading.

129046_2015-11-13_09-59-18.png2015-11-13_09-59-18.png

32 Comments
Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team

This idea is one of the lucky ones that was selected to get a little more time for voting as part of our evolution of the feature idea process. It was selected because of it's vote count and/or comment thread.

*Selection criteria: Most (not all) ideas that received 70+ votes in their initial voting round.

caryn
Community Member

One additional piece of context on this request. A number of instructors use the pedagogical practice of having students post an original response, then reply to at least one other students' post. While this won't get us all the way, it does make progress toward facilitating that type of assignment a little better.

tdionne
Community Participant

Hello,

Is there any movement/new status on this idea?

Thanks,

Trish

kpaynter
Community Member

Yes, please, please, PLEASE do something about this! It's crazy to get notified that "the Discussion is ready for grading" when in fact, it isn't. This is a very simple thing that Blackboard has been doing for years - shouldn't be hard to add in the Discussion settings. See attached image for how Blackboard does it. PLEASSSSSE add to Canvas. Smiley HappyBlackboard discussion settings for number of posts before being prompted to grade

candice_mcphers
Community Participant

Agreed, please add this feature!

samantha_carpen
Community Explorer

Please add this feature!!!!!!!!!

lshulman
Community Participant

What a GREAT idea!

Though I see this has been here for over 5 years with no implementation yet by Canvas.

I just had a student complain about this issue:

"Discussion: as it appears on our dashboard, the assignment is removed once we write in the discussion board once, so it is very easy to forget and hard to keep track of the current work, as well as having to go back and write in the board."

So students would also find this helpful. 

lshulman
Community Participant

I might add one more idea to your list:

ability to indicate multiple due dates for multiple posts. Such as "initial post due by..." "replies due by..." or "first reply due by..." "last post due by..."

Though this may be getting a bit too complicated for Canvas to set up.

I never know what is best practice setting due dates for discussions: the date that the first post is due or the date when the last post will be accepted. 
 

lshulman
Community Participant

I have just re-submitted this idea to start the voting process all over again.

https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/17108-option-for-setting-a-number-of-discussion-posts-required... 

Everyone who discussed or voted for this idea in the past five years, please vote again in the re-submitted idea (just click the link above, should take you there)

Stef_retired
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

 @lshulman ‌, we've archived that idea, which is still open for voting, as it is a duplicate of this one.