In gradebook, change mute & unmute assignment to be section specific AND graders can mute/unmute only their sections

[schumad3]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

Situation 1: As an instructor or course monitor you manage multiple sections of a course on a single Canvas page, you are the instructor and grader for all sections.

In my case this can be two sections of one course where I am teaching and grading both sections myself, however the two sections meet different days of the week (Tuesday vs Thursday). The Assignments feature already lets me set available and due dates independently for each section while creating only one assignment, which shows in the gradebook.

However, when in the gradebook if I want to mute the assignment until I'm done grading all of them so students get feedback at the same time (and I don't get barraged with emails mid grading) my only option is to mute all sections at once. Ideally I would like to be able to mute sections independently so I can grade the Tuesday section's assignment first, and unmute it first so they get their feedback by Tuesday. At the same time the Thursday section would remain muted longer since I have a few more days to finish up grading that section. Unfortunately the only option right now is to mute all sections and get all the grading done earlier than it needs to be, or don't use the mute option at all.

Situation 2: As an instructor or course monitor you manage multiple sections of a course on a single Canvas page. You are the instructor for all sections, but you have a different grader or Teaching Assistant for each individual section.

In my case this is 10 sections of one laboratory course where a graduate student is the Teaching Assistant and Grader, there is a different graduate student for each section so in total there are 10 different graders. Each Grader/TA is assigned to only one section and has been added so they "can only grade the section they are enrolled in."

Once again the Assignments are created as a course wide assignment with independent availability and due dates for each section depending on the time they meet during the week (T-Th). Each grader only has the ability to see their section's grades and grade only their section's student submissions. However, when the individual graders use the mute/unmute assignment feature (without their knowledge or ability to know) the mute/unmute is applied across ALL sections. This is opposite what it should be. If they can only interact with grades from their section any mute/unmute they perform should only affect their section.

The ability to mute/unmute assignments in the Canvas gradebook is clearly a beneficial and useful feature. It keeps feedback fair and equal for all students, it by default notifies students when an assignment is unmuted and their grade is available, and it frees the instructor/grader from having to respond to grade questions before finishing grading an assignment.

Unfortunately as it is right now, it is mostly useless for multi-section courses managed under one course page. Changing the mute/unmute assignment feature to be applicable course wide or by individual section would greatly improve its usefulness.

Comments from Instructure

For more information, please read through the https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-16958-canvas-release-notes-2019-07-13 .

[jordan]

Thank you for submitting this feature idea! In order to attract the support of other Canvas users to support an idea we always encourage those who submit feature ideas to review and do their best to comply with these tips: How do I write a good feature idea submission?​

If you need to make any adjustments to your original feature idea, just visit your feature idea page at any time, and click the "Edit" button (right-column), make changes, and click "Publish"

In the meantime I will update your feature idea to go up for voting on October 7th!

[jordan]

Hey  @schumad3 ​I just noticed that another feature idea came in Just a day before your, on Sept. 10th. It looks like a very similar feature idea specifically about speedgrader - ​

I think it would be great if you and  @eprada ​ could work together to combine your two requests into one. It sounds like the gist of both ideas is that you want to offer grading controls to designated groups of users. Is that right?

[Renee_Carney]

This idea is now open for voting Wed. October 7, 2015 - Wed. January 6, 2015.

For more information on the voting process check out How does the voting process work for feature ideas?

[vkg]

Here at the University of Michigan we see some classes where they'd want to mute/unmute by section and some where they'd want to mute/unmute for all sections at once.  To accommodate both, perhaps if a TA is restricted to grading his/her section only s/he could mute/unmute by section but if someone with who is NOT restricted mutes/unmutes it could apply to all sections.

[johnpj]

Here is a related help ticket I received from a Biology Instructor that teaches a course with 37 sections:

"I think it wrong that GSIs with access to only 3

sections can mute and assignment for 37 sections. I think this is poor

design on the part of CANVAS."

[johnpj]

I just found out about this feature idea today and I think I can get a lot of folks to get interested in it if you just give me a few extra days of voting. Don't we get a grace period for the holidays?

[jdiehl]

I got my vote in only moments before it closed, and I see it jumped a dozen votes in just those few minutes.  There is a lot of interest for this at our school.  We are definitely voting for a holiday extension. 

[mjennings]

So if voting is open from  Wed. October 7, 2015 - Wed. January 6, 2016, shouldn't we have the entire day of the 6th to vote? Kind of disappointed that I came through looking for things to vote on before they closed and found that they have already been closed.

sad panda

[Renee_Carney]

Hi Canvasers!

Thank you for your comments.  We took them into consideration. 

The movement of ideas between stages is completely manual.  We try to streamline the process as best we can; unfortunatley this means we have to make a few compromises in the opening and closing of voting.  In order to open the new cohort for the month we have to close the old cohort first.  Our general goal is to have the outgoing cohort closed by noon PST and the new cohort open for voting by 5pm PST (these are approximate times of course).

We did consider your request to open this idea until end of day today, and we decided not to.  We took into consideration the precedent we would be setting for other ideas.  There are other ideas that were closed today with many more votes than this one.  We could not justify extending voting for this idea and not others, sorry.

We do allow (and encourage) resubmission of popular feature ideas.  You can read more in Can_I_resubmit_an_idea_after_it_is_archived​.

[atentoni]

I resubmitted this idea verbatim, and Canvas has agreed to open it for voting again.  Let's get it done this time!

You can vote for the re-submitted idea here: