[Gradebook] Improving Grading and Missing Feature

[HALEYRICHINS]

Problem statement:

Issue: I have noticed that when I make an assignment on canvas, or even a place to just put a grade in, it will show up on my students page as missing. So for example, I have an assignment that students can get full points on if they participate in our class discussion. If they do not participate, they need to do the canvas assignment. The problem is, when I put in grades manually for the students who participate, it still shows as missing even if there is a grade for it. This is causing my students to complete the assignment when they don't have to because they already got the grade for it from participating in class. Pictures Google Doc Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RTN2u29eI2jY04bxf1K6ynQKoQWWoPWtC81pMLMxK7I/edit Video Link: https://www.awesomescreenshot.com/video/28655130?key=0a42a21b1838ee74ab72638e69e39d40

Proposed solution:

When an instructor puts in a grade for an assignment/quiz/discussion, even if the student has not submitted anything, it should not be shown as missing and on students to do list. Almost as if the teachers grade overrules the submission or lack there of. Why: This solution will prevent confusion for students about what assignments they need to complete.

User role(s):

instructor,student

[KristinL]

Hi @HALEYRICHINS -

Thank you for taking the time to share this idea with the Community! How do you label the missing assignments? Do you do this manually or by a rule in the Gradebook?

[HALEYRICHINS]

@KristinL Thank you for reaching out regarding my post. I would be happy to clarify. I use the rule in the gradebook to default missing grades to a 0. I have noticed though, when it grades those missing assignments, it does not grade the students assignments that i have already put a grade in for, even if they never turned in the assignment. So my grade does overrule the automatic 0 put in, but a message will remain displaying "missing" on my students page, despite having the grade for it. I have also noticed that for assignments that are "on paper" and "no submission" as the turn in option, the automatic grade rule in the gradebook does not grade missing assignments. I hope this answers your question. Feel free to reach out again with more questions regarding this request. 

Thank you so much!

[NicoletteStaley]

@HALEYRICHINS , Thank you for providing more information about the problem that you are having, and based on the information you provided, I think I understand what is going on in your course and where exactly you are seeing the room for improvement.  First the me explain the behavior that you are seeing:

• You have a Automatic Late/Missing policy enabled in your course, this isn't actually related to the issue at hand (though it doesn't seem that way at first), but it is related to why you are not seeing this behavior with "On Paper" and "No Submission" assignments.  Since Canvas has no knowledge regarding whether or not these assignments are submitted by the student or not, they never are affected by a Late/Missing policy and only will appear as Late or Missing if the status is manually marked by the instructor.
• The icons that you are describing as "Missing" are actually the "overdue" icon that displays on the Modules page of a course.  Since the assignment has a due date in the past, and the student never submitted in Canvas, it is considered Overdue.  As you can see in the screenshots of your gradebook and the student's view of the assignment details, the assignment isn't marked with a missing status, just the Overdue indicator.  If you viewed the student's Assignments page, you would see the assignments listed in Overdue as well (not in Completed, Upcoming, or Past).

This overdue icon can definitely cause confusion though!

I believe what you are suggesting for Canvas to improve is that the Overdue icon is removed when an assignment has a grade and is not marked with a Missing status.  Essentially, that the Overdue icon aligns with the Missing Status for the assignment and not the actual Submission status. Can you confirm that this is what you mean?

[HALEYRICHINS]

@NicoletteStaley 

Yes, I believe that is what I am referring to. I have also noticed, and on a different suggestion post I made a few months earlier, I did notice that assignments that are overdue will remain on the students "to do" list as well, even after their is a grade for it. (See screenshots here ) I didn't realize that it had something to do with the automatic grade system. I used to just use the "set default grade" feature to put 0's in for missing assignments, but I noticed that students were getting confused with their grade when it showed up as 0 but not marked as missing. I would get students who would come in after the assignment's closing date and claim they didn't know it was a 0 because it was missing. Now I know that this is very much just another excuse students try to use, but I like having my back covered when it comes students excuses. To get around that issue, I started using the automatic grade system so then it would mark those missing assignments as "missing" and give them a 0 for it so then they couldn't use the excuse that they didn't know it was missing. I then realized that this feature wouldn't grade assignments that were "on paper" submissions or "no submissions" assignments, so I had to find other ways on grading those missing assignments. It wasn't too big of a deal, but then I started to notice that assignments that were overwritten with a grade I put in were still showing up on the students "to do" list as well as displaying the "overdue" icon next to them. This is what inspired me to reach out to canvas support in the first place, which brings us here. Thank you for helping me out with this. I just thought I would bring up my concerns so then canvas can be improved. I love using canvas and am very grateful for all of its unique functions, and I just want to see if there were little minor changes that could clear up possible confusion that the students might experience when it comes to their graded assignments. Let me know if there is anything else you need from me. 

[HALEYRICHINS]

@NicoletteStaley 

I reread your message and I wanted to clarify that yes, that is exactly what I am suggesting to improve canvas. By removing the overdue icon on assignments that have a grade for it, regardless if there is a submission or not, I feel like that would help clear up confusion for my students. If it could also be removed from their "to do list" as well, that would be great. My suggestion is that if a teacher inserts a grade for an assignment manually, regardless if there is no submission from a student, or if the assignment even has a submission, that assignment should be considered as complete and be removed from the students "to do" list and not be marked as "past due". I hope that clarifies things.