Import Grades from CSV should ignore read-only columns

[matthew_weather]

  This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

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

The Gradebook import feature should ignore any column that is marked as "(read only)" in the "Points Possible" second row of the CSV file.

That would allow teachers to do this:

1. Export exiting gradebook
2. Change some grades
3. Upload that same file back

And in fact, that's what is suggested in the documentation: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-2850

However, as of sometime in Spring 2015, we currently have to individually ignore each of those summary columns at the end of the CSV file (the assignment group summaries, the Current/Final score, and the Current/Final grade) by marking them them as "Bogus, ignore" or remember to delete them out of the CSV before upload.

  Response from Instructure

This is a Top Issue and has been resolved in the Canvas Production Release Notes (2015-07-18)

Gradebook CSV Uploads and Grading Scheme

Read-only columns as part of a Gradebook comma separated values (CSV) file are not considered new assignments.

Explanation: When a grading scheme was enabled and the Gradebook exported for a course, the Gradebook created extra read-only columns. When the Gradebook CSV file was imported with no changes, Canvas considered the extra columns to be new assignments. This behavior occurred because the importer was not checking the status of the columns and did not see that they hadn’t changed. Canvas code has been updated to disregard any columns or assignments that do not include any changes from the original file. This read-only column change also applies to assignments that do not include a grading scheme.