Gradebook Missing Status Removal (undo this please)

[brooke_wilkins1]

Undo the Gradebook Missing Status Removal

In a recent Canvas update, the Missing label for submissions that have not been submitted online but that have received a manually entered grade has been removed. This is extremely problematic for me and other K-12 teachers like me who manually enter a grade of zero (0) into the grade book when the due date for an assignment has passed. I have taught my students to use the bright red "Missing" label in the status column of the grade book as a visual cue alerting them that the assignment is missing and has not been turned in. Up until last week, this feature has been an extremely helpful tool for both me and my students because "Missing" has been synonymous with no submission in Canvas. 

Due to the change, I have to open the grade book, manually click on each individual student assignment cell, then change the label from "None" to  "Missing" for every assignment that was given a score of zero. I have 100 to 120 assignments per semester and between 125 to 160 students enrolled in my classes. Since the Gradebook Missing Status Removal implementation, which is just over a week, I have experienced a dramatic increase in the amount of time that it takes me to grade and provide specific feedback on student work. Being able to provide constructive feedback and grade assignments in a timely manner is important to me and to my students. This change is not allowing me to do either effectively.

*Reassigning the assignment gets flagged as "Late" in the grade book. This still isn't helpful because no work submission has been collected for the assignment.

Can this be undone? Is there another tool in Canvas that I can use like this one? Can the score of zero be made bright red so that it can be a simple visual cue for students to see easily when looking at their Canvas grades? 

[lori_campbell]

These are definitely extra steps we don't need right now. I'm not sure why this change was made to begin with. 

[MrsArmstrong]

I actually LOVE this feature. When we went to a hybrid model, I had student submitting online and students submitting on paper. Any student that submitted on paper had a missing flag even with the grade listed unlisted I went in and hand removed them all. Having this feature allows me to offer an online and paper submission options without a lot of extra work on my part. I do put in zeroes, but much less than the number of students submitting on paper. So I make one or two additions of the missing flag instead of 50+ removals. 

[EliseS]

I agree with Brooke. I teach high school and I had a parent call me today returning a voicemail about her daughter's 8 missing assignments. She asked why I was calling since when she looked at the grade book it showed nothing as missing. That's because I had entered zeroes and I didn't realize the status now changes from "Missing" to "None." Having to manually change the status of each assignment is very cumbersome. 

[elad33]

High school teachers need to be able to have zeros automatically flagged as Missing. We just don't have time to manually change the tag for each individual missing assignment. 

[KristinL · Accepted solution]

While this isn't a solution, there is a discussion open about this change in Ideas too.

Allow grades to have zeros with the "Missing" status 

Also, from what I understand, Instructors are supposed to be able to use the "bulk update grades" and maintain that "missing" status. I would try that! I know that means that you need to first grade all of the work that has been turned in, but it may save a lot of clicks in the process.

[brooke_wilkins1]

Thank you for the feedback and I appreciate your suggestion. I have considered using the "Automatically apply grade for missing submissions" and set the grade for missing submissions as 0%. The reason that I haven't used that tool is that students are enrolled in our classes at any time. Each time a new student is enrolled all of the assignments with a due date that has passed are scored as zero in the grade book, which makes a lot of work for me again. With that policy enabled, the newly enrolled students will have a ton of zeroes defaulted to their assignment grades and I'm back to the same issue as before, having to go in and individually change the scores on assignments. I do excuse some of those assignments and add in scores to other assignments to reflect their transfer grade. Overall, the best and most consistent patch for the issues that I see with enrollment and grading has been the "Missing" status the way it was before the Jan 15, 2022 update.

[nmbucklein]

Hi @brooke_wilkins1 ,

Thank you so much for your suggestions! We are always looking to make Canvas more user friendly, so all input is helpful. If you haven't already, I would recommend showing your support for the Idea Conversations page that was linked before by posting your suggestions there! We appreciate you!