[Gradebook Settings] Make late policy affect only attempts submitted after the due date/time

[kowens]

Currently in the New Gradebook, instructors can set the gradebook so that late penalties are automatically deducted. It is unfortunate that in multiple-attempt quizzes for which only the highest-scored attempt is to count, penalties for late submissions can adversely affect scores from attempts that were on time.

For example, suppose a quiz has multiple attempts, and only the highest score is preserved in the gradebook. The instructor allows late attempts with an automatic deduction 25% per day. Prior to the deadline, a student earns a kept score of 75%. When the student attempts the quiz again a day late, he again earns a raw score of 75%. Instead of deducting 25% from the late submission, the gradebook deducts 25% from the kept score. Thus, even though student's highest attempt is the 75% earned before the deadline, his score is recorded as only 50%.

So, I am asking that late penalties apply individually to attempts. Once the attempt is adjusted automatically accordingly, then the gradebook should select or calculate the kept score based upon whatever rule has been set up (such as highest attempt).

[Stef_retired]

Thanks for sharing this idea,  @kowens . Have you already run this behavior past Canvas Support? While it might turn out that this is how the late policy is designed to be applied, we want to rule that out first. If you have not yet submitted a support ticket, please use the instructions in How do I get help with Canvas as an instructor? to open a case—and please include a link to this idea in the description field of the ticket.

And if you have already confirmed this with Canvas Support, please provide the case number.

[kowens]

I did not submit a support ticket at first, because of this discussion I read concerning the issue: https://community.canvaslms.com/thread/22054-late-policy-with-multiple-attempts-on-a-quiz . It seemed like Canvas knew of the issue but was encouraging that an idea for a modification be put forward. But, after reading your comment just now, I went ahead and submitted a ticket (case #04377394).

[Stef_retired]

Thanks for initiating the case,  @kowens , and for providing the link to the related discussion. We will keep the idea in Moderating status temporarily so we can hold some additional internal conversations about this.

[kowens]

I just heard from Canvas Support. In part, they said, "After some further searching I found that our engineering team is aware of this matter and currently has a ticket open to investigate this further. I will go ahead and attach this case to that ticket tracker so that you will receive a notification once they have made progress on this."

[Stef_retired]

Thank you for that update,  @kowens ‌! We'll maintain this idea in Moderating status for the time being pending the results of that investigation.

[Stef_retired]

 @kowens , we've opened this idea for voting as the support process continues.

[ryan_c_lewis]

The problem is worse than this thread suggests and certainly ventures into the realm of "Bug" which seems to be something of a no-no word amongst the Canvas support staff.  Take for instance the following situation:

All of my assignments are marked "keep highest"

I have a student that took a quiz and obtained 100% prior to the due date of the assignment.

After this, she worked on the assignment as a practice before the quiz and received a 90%. This second assignment was late, but obviously not her highest score.

Even though the system should have been keeping her first attempt @100% and on time, it somehow overrides the on time nature of the highest score and applies the penalty to it.

In what world could the intended functionality be to mark an on-time assignment late?!?

Calling crap programming the intended workflow is just silly avoidance of fundamental flaws in the software!  Thus I strongly upvote this very reasonable thread!!!

[kowens]

Thank you for your support, Ryan. I haven't heard anything from Canvas since June 5, 2019, but I am hoping that they are working on a fix for this. Due to this flaw, I am unable to utilize the automatic penalty functionality, because 99% of my quizzes are multiple-attempt.

[lhoover]

Thanks for posting this idea! Just chiming in with our own use case - I think this idea covers our needs. We have several instructors who allow multiple attempts on quizzes and want to keep the highest quiz grade. They also have a late policy in place to deduct 100% of the grade if the quiz is late. Right now, the late policy rule seems to be prioritized over the "keep the highest grade" rule. Any students who have a late submission are receiving a 0.

Ideally, the late policy would calculate first, and then the students would have an attempt that earned 0 points along with other attempts that they have received different scores on. Then, the highest of these three grades would be the one that displays in the gradebook.

[ankerssm]

I agree Ryan! We should not have to up-vote this for Canvas to fix something that is broken.