Excluding grades for optional assessments

[kennfj]

I have a scenario where I want students to complete a subset of quizzes but I don't want them to be graded on the quizzes they don't attempt.

The specific circumstances are that each quiz contains a set of peer review questions for a group presentation. There are five group presentations, so five quizzes. However, students only review other group presentations, not their own, so they only complete four of the quizzes.

My understanding is that Canvas will grade them as having failed the quiz they don't complete.

What I want is for them to complete 4 of the 5 quizzes and only the results from the four quizzes they complete get graded. Ideally I could group the 5 quizzes within the Markbook and set it so they only get graded on the four that they complete.

Is there any way to do this?

[jhendersonJDS]

Have you thought about loading the presentations as files within a module for students to view the presentations and then only creating 4 quizzes. Since they are not reviewing their own presentation, they would skip over their project and only review the others. If the peer review questions are the same, there isn't any necessity to add the presentations to the quizzes.

The first question of the quiz could include the group's name. Depending on the data that you are looking to gather, you can consider making the quizzes surveys instead of quizzes so that each question does not have to have a "right" answer. I assume they are getting completion grades for completing the peer review. The classic quiz/survey function would give you what you are looking for, however, the way that the data is viewed in that format is interesting from my perspective. I have found a few different ways to organize the final data to showcase to my groups.

[Gabriel33 · Accepted solution]

Besides @jhendersonJDS suggestion of 4 quizzes, if you need different questions, here are two ways to do that in Canvas while keeping the 5 quizzes:

1. Assign each presentation quiz only to the students that did not do that presentation:
   So quiz 1 will be assigned to all students in groups 2-5. Quiz 2 to all students in groups 1 and 3-5. And so on.
   That can be done by assigning the students individually, or by making sections for each presentation group (if you are allowed to make them) and assigning to the sections.
   Check  How do I assign an assignment to everyone, individ... - Instructure Community - 1191 for instructions on how to assign an assignment to some students.
   
   
2. Make the 5 quizzes into an Assignment Group, and then set a rule to drop the lowest grade (and everyone should have one lowest grade of 0, which would be dropped).
   The advantage of this is less work for you, since you don't need to worry about assigning the students on your end.
   The disadvantage is that it doesn't stop a student from answering about their own presentation.
   To see how this would work, see How do I add an assignment group in a course? - Instructure Community - 970 for instructions on creating the Assignment Groups, and How do I create rules for an assignment group? - Instructure Community - 848 for instructions on making the "drop lowest grade" rule.

[kennfj]

Thanks for the suggestions, @jhendersonJDS and @Gabriel33. I went with Gabriel's second suggestion, which seemed the easiest to administer. The only drawback was that I had to create a new Assignment Group for the peer review quizzes but by using the assignment group setting to "drop the lowest grade" I think I've achieved what we were after. Thanks for your help. I've shared this information with my colleagues.