Excuse Assignment in Gradebook

[CommunityTeam]

  This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas  Learn more about voting...

  Idea will be open for vote May 5th, 2015 - August 5th, 2015  Learn more about voting...

As an instructor, I want to excuse an assignment for a student or students. When "excused," the assignment would have no impact on the student(s)' grade. Common use cases include excluding assignments for students who start late in the year or have a prolonged absence. Other uses would be making one assignment count for one subset of students while another subset have a different assignment that counts towards their grades. Other examples would be capstone projects, optional assignments, or extra credit. Excusing a student from completing an assignment should also remove the to-do list item for that student.

transferred from the old Community

Originally posted by: Jeffrey Rolan
Special thanks for great contributions by: Rob Ditto, Alaine Davis, Kevin Reeve, Mike Kisow, Neal Shebeck, and Chris Long

  Response from Instructure

Canvas Production Release Notes (2015-06-27)

Canvas Studio: Excuse an assignment (Phase 1)

[kbesaw]

Bookmarking this for a few of my schools that have reached out to me on this issue.

While I am here, what methods are others that find ideas like this useful using to spread the word?  I've done some of the mentioning and I've passed links as well to specific people that may not have set up a profile yet.  Any other ideas that I might be missing?

[scottdennis]

Removing "Ability to" from the title of this idea to make it more easily sortable with similar ideas.

[crawfom]

Along with the "EX" mark for and Excused Assignment, our district would also like to see a "Z" mark.  A "Z" mark would give the student a zero so it would affect their grade, but would also leave this assignment on the to-do list.  I understand that Canvas has a feature that will count all blank grades as zeros but many students and parents do not know about this or do not like to toggle back and forth.  This "Z" mark will force the issue and there are no surprises about grades for all involved.

EX = Excused Assignment that will not count toward or against a student's grade, and is not on the To-Do list

0 = Counts as a zero for a student's grade, and is not on the To-Do list

Z = Counts as a zero for a student's grade, and the assignment remains on the To-Do list

[Stef_retired]

This is already on the Canvas Roadmap: Canvas Studio: Excuse an assignment (Phase 1)  !

[SethBattis]

So, communityteam​, should this even be open for a vote? I mean, I'm voting it up even though it's already under development because… hey, I want it!

[mlattke]

I agree with  @SethBattis ​.  I voted it up, but if it is already on the roadmap, is this something different or just a reaffirmation that we all want it? 

[scottdennis]

I can't conceive of a good reason to kill voting at this point.  Can you?

[mlattke]

Fear that it won't get 30 votes because people think it is already happening.  LOL.  I want this feature so bad I can taste it.  And by the way, excused assignments taste like chicken. 

[scottdennis]

LOL, Michelle

[SethBattis]

 @scottdennis , I guess it's not so much that I think the voting should be stopped… but it seems like it should have been more carefully vetted before being opened up for a vote?