Best way to let students submit a document without grading or review?

[tobe_baeyens]

Hi,

I’m helping a teacher who regularly asks students to submit a document (e.g. an attendance sheet or signed document) via Canvas. However, this submission should not be graded, not reviewed, and not show up in the Gradebook in any significant way. It’s more like a procedural step.

We tried setting the assignment to "Not Graded", but noticed that the option for online submission disappears in that case, as mentioned in this community post.

We also saw the suggestion to set the assignment to 0 points and use "Complete/Incomplete" as the grading type (see this post). That works better but still shows something in the Gradebook, which may confuse students or staff who aren’t grading these.

Is there a cleaner or more appropriate way to allow file uploads purely for procedural tracking (like attendance) without causing confusion in the Gradebook?

[DrTerriC · Accepted solution]

I would suggest using RCE with a discussion forum if privacy does not matter.. i know some people doing hi flex are using discussions to have students say if they are attending class or not each week.  Another thought would be maybe using a collaborative document if it's just for attendance, etc..  A third idea.. create a badge using Canvas Credentials and issue it based on any submission..  

[Gabriel33]

One option is to make a practice quiz with an essay question, which allows students to upload a file using the rich content editor:

What quiz types can I create in a course? -> Practice Quiz

How do I access the Rich Content Editor? -> Essay Classic Quiz Question

How do I upload a document in the Rich Content Editor?

[dbrace · Accepted solution]

Hi @tobe_baeyens 

To expand on what @Gabriel33 provided, you could do a practice quiz and create a single question that is a "File Upload" type.

• for Classic Quizzes =  How do I create a File Upload quiz question? - Instructure Community - 652
• for New Quizzes =  How do I create a File Upload question in New Quiz... - Instructure Community - 962

I hope this helps.

-Doug

[Gabriel33]

I either completely forgot about those, or didn't realize they existed, thanks for adding it.

New Quizzes don't have a "Practice" option, so to have them not show in the gradebook, the author needs to set its Points as 0, and then select the "Do not display in gradebook..." option that appears after setting the 0 points: Zero point New Quizzes - Instructure Community - 570562

[dbrace]

Thanks for including the tips about how to workaround the lack of a "practice" quiz for New Quizzes.

-Doug

[DrTerriC · Accepted solution]

I would suggest using RCE with a discussion forum if privacy does not matter.. i know some people doing hi flex are using discussions to have students say if they are attending class or not each week.  Another thought would be maybe using a collaborative document if it's just for attendance, etc..  A third idea.. create a badge using Canvas Credentials and issue it based on any submission..  

[paul_fynn]

Following @DrTerriC it is possible to make discussions private by autocreating groups, and setting the enrolment limit to 1. The contributions can then only seen by the student and teachers, and this also gives a groups area where different things can be done by the student.

Whilst I haven't looked at it, I understand the latest discussion release should allow interim due dates to be set, so discussions might lend itself to being used as a portfolio.