[SpeedGrader] Grade discussion posts and attachments with DocViewer

All discussion posts and attachments (MS Word, PPT, PDF files, etc.) should be displayed in SpeedGrader like an assignment so that teachers can use mark-up tools to add comments to those posts and attachments using Crocodoc DocViewer.

Background: In some of our courses, we use discussion forums in two ways (in addition to regular discussions among students):

  1. Research activities: In which students submit substantial posts that require the observance of the APA Manual formatting guidelines.
  2. Peer review/instructor preview activities: In which students attach their research assignments for review by their peers and instructors for feedback before final submission.

This feature would be useful for commenting discussion posts and discussion attachments like one would grade an assignment using Crocodoc DocViewer. The ability to add comments to those posts and files would make the LMS more useful.

Added to Theme

35 Comments
mieke_hoing
Community Participant

I agree that DocViewer should be available for all kinds of submissions. I upvoted this idea and also created this one for documents that are uploaded in quizzes: Inline preview and feedback for file upload quiz questions.

drubin1
Community Participant

What you really are suggesting, and it is a good idea, is to have Canvas allow annotated feedback for text responses just as it already does for uploaded files, etc. That could apply to any assignment, not just discussions.

lbrown48
Community Explorer

If this feature was eliminated because students couldn't read comments added by instructors, can you make it a read-only option? Otherwise it is really difficult to grade discussion boards posts that are added as a doc or pdf file in speedgrader. 

rallen
Community Novice

What I would like is to be able to use annotations within discussion boards.  I do not necessarily have the students submit anything.  I want is to be able to correct students in misspelling of words or grammatical errors.

sawyerl
Community Novice

Having the ability to grade discussion forums in the same manner that is used for assignments will greatly improve student learning!

sawyerl
Community Novice

Inline comments on the discussion forum will be beneficial to student learning!

sawyerl
Community Novice

I agree. Adding annotations within the discussion forum is a great idea.  The tool for grading assignments should be added to discussion forums too.

irene_omara
Community Explorer

Adding my voice in here too - I represent an entire department of staff who are using graded discussions for reflective journaling. We need annotation functions in order to give proper feedback on writing, structure and to track word count!

Please run this again!

ecuprof
Community Member

I would like to see the Comments in Speedgrader to be anonymous for Discussion Board assignments.  

irene_omara
Community Explorer

Following this up a year later to say again that I would really like this function for discussions -  on behalf of myself and colleague that use Discussions as graded reflective blogs.

It doesn't make sense to have a grading option on discussions if there is no annotations function for it in the speedgrader.

How is it possible to run this for voting again?