[Gradebook Settings] A global option to enable/disable Missing and Late Status labels in the New Gradebook

[kimberly_smith1]

I would like to see a more global option to enable/disable the display of MISSING/LATE assignment labels to our students in their Gradebook. While I appreciate the effort to address our initial concerns about this feature in the New Gradebook, as it is now this option must be managed student-by-student for EACH assignment. The display of these labels as the default is problematic for those of us who allow students to choose among a number of assignments to complete within an assignment group (e.g. making those ‘not done’ assignments neither ‘late’ nor ‘missing’).  

An Example...An instructor with 4 classes in a 16 week semester, with 50 students in each class, allows students to choose 5/10 assignments to complete in a given assignment group. The instructor cannot know which of these assignments students will choose until all of the assignment deadlines in that assignment group have passed. As such, to prevent students from seeing inaccurate late/missing labels in the New Gradebook for assignments that were not actually required, the instructor must:

1) go to the Gradebook column for each assignment in that assignment group (10 assignments)
2) click on the cell where each student’s grade would appear for that assignment (200 students)
3) change the Grade Detail Tray to ‘No Status’ (= 2000 grade detail tray changes)

If you then consider instructors with larger classes, and/or those who allow assignment choices in more than one assignment group, I think the need for a more global option associated with this feature becomes clear. 

For a more detailed explanation of how the option the removal of these labels is currently managed in the New Gradebook, please see ttps://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-13333-canvas-release-new-gradebook#jive_content_id_Grades_Ma... . 

Additional concerns associated with this issue can be found in my post at https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/9339-missing-label-placed-incorrectlysubmission-on-paper-and-o... (Feb. 25th, 2018). 

[laurakgibbs]

Exactly! The reason "missing" is absolutely inappropriate for me is that I give students a huge range of options to choose from; they choose to turn some in, other they do not choose to turn in.

And about "late" ... I use the two deadlines in Canvas as a soft deadline, and a hard deadline. Something turned in after the soft deadline and before the hard deadline is NOT late. It is before the deadline, and that means it is on time based on how I set things up.

[stale_heggset]

Spot on, Kimberly Smith! We need this feature now!

[annette_peters]

I voted up because I like to know if the student was absent or did not turn in there work. If I can mark it missing I know they were absent that day. I then am able to know they can make the work up. If I put it is late, I know that they had the chance to do the work but they decided not to do their work.

[lewisale]

I asked a question about this in the Q & A: Disable Canvas late submission? hoping there was a way I could disable the late submission feature.  Someone shared this feature idea, and I hope there are enough votes for Canvas to add this feature!

I would appreciate this feature as I use grace periods for some assignments.  I like to add the due date in Canvas, so this date shows up for students. However, Canvas automatically flags submissions after the due date as late.  Since Canvas flags an assignment as late (including pink in the grace center) when a student uses the grace period, I believe this does not provide accurate analytics.  

I hope in the future Canvas gives Instructors the ability to control whether or not they wish to flag assignments as "late" for submissions.

[Jeff_F]

Being early I misread this thinking that it was about wanting a feature option setting for the late policies.   Instead I see that it is about disabling visibility of the late work text tag at the assignment level.

Another related, yet different idea:   https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/11380-turn-off-late-policies-at-the-account-level 

[d_jeffries]

I have students who hand me their work. Why should they get a late or missing mark when it is not either of these things?

[Jeff_F]

Given that scenario I would opt to not enable the two late policies.

[marisa_willman]

This is a huge issue for me, as I often give my students the option to turn something in on paper OR through a Canvas submission. Those who do the file submission are fine. Those who turn it in on paper automatically have the box turn red for 'missing' in the gradebook. Even when I manually enter their grade, the red 'missing' designation does not go away. IT IS NOT MISSING! I have to manually click through and change every one individually. It takes forever and is not how I'd like to use my time.

Canvas, PLEASE allow instructors the option to turn this automatic 'missing' off. We're two weeks into the school year and it's already causing distress and confusion for my students. 

[laurakgibbs]

This is why I have not switched to the new Gradebook. My students choose what assignments to complete, and what assignments not to complete. Canvas has no way of handling the simple idea of student CHOICE. When students choose not to do an assignment, it's not missing, and of course it would be distressing if students saw that label, either for an assignment they were not required to do -- and even worse for an assignment they turned in on paper. 

I dread having to switch to the new Gradebook if they don't get this problem fixed before we are forced to switch.

My students were really upset when the missing/late labels were being applied automatically in the old Gradebook; because of complaints from the Community, Canvas stopped the use of those labels in the old Gradebook. It is really disheartening to hear that they did not learn from that lesson and are still causing distress and confusion for students with the (wrong) use of these labels in the new Gradebook.

[audra_agnelly]

We're K12 and are getting some pushback from our teachers on this. They want to be able to offer students multiple ways of submitting their work -- some will submit on paper while others may upload a file. Removing the label from the 75% or your roster who submitted paper copies increases the time teachers spend updating their gradebooks, and since there's going to be a delay between the time an assignment is marked missing and when the teacher updates their gradebook, students and parents are seeing misleading information about their grades. Teachers are fielding emails from parents asking why the work is marked missing when the child says they turned it in, and then there are kids who may get in trouble at home because the parent sees a false missing label. Canvas is an important school-to-home communication tool but the inflexibility of how these tags are applied is creating a lot of confusion and miscommunication.