How do I delete a file upload assignment submission as a student or teacher?

[henric]

I have read the following guides:

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Admin-Guide/How-do-I-delete-a-file-upload-assignment-submission-a...

and

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Student-Guide/How-do-I-upload-a-file-as-an-assignment-submission-...

As I understand it, only Admin can delete uploaded files on assignment, right?

But can not a student delete their own uploaded files on assignment? If a student accidentally uploads the wrong file, then the student must be able to delete it? Or that I give permission to the teacher to delete incorrect files. It will be a lot of work for me as an admin if I have to delete files for students who have made mistakes in all the courses and assignments that exist. How to get around this problem?

[Ron_Bowman]

@henric 

You say assignment in your question.  Is it an actual assignment or a quiz?

If it is an assignment, there is no way that I can see for a student or teacher to delete the uploaded assignment.

Having said that, if it does not matter how many times the assignment can be submitted, it is just the last version that is graded, then have the teacher set that option on the assignment.  then the student just resubmits the assignment.  In speedgrader the latest submission is the one that shows - you can also determine the latest submission in the file downloads as well.

If the assignment is to be one submission only as restricted by the teacher, then if a student needs to make another submission due to wrong file (which you did not specify if it is the wrong type- .docs, .pdf, .txt etc - or if it was just the wrong information) then have the teacher add that student to the assignment in the assign to block and give them 2 attempts.  They can then resubmit.

As for the wrong file - if it is an issue with the wrong extension the teacher can restrict which extension is allowed.

In case it is a file type restriction needed - here is the manual page discussing it. (the title for this information page is misleading for restricting file types)

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-create-an-online-assignment/ta-p/950

[BStutzman]

In one of the posts it says to add the student that needs to resubmit and give them two attempts instead of the limited (1), but I don't see how you can do that.  When you add the student it only asks for dates and not number of attempts.  What am I missing?

[henric]

Now I do not understand what you mean.

What I mean is that the student has the task of uploading a pdf file but accidentally chooses the wrong file from his hard drive. Then I would like the student to have the option to delete the incorrect file instead of just uploading a new file. This way, the student and the teacher do not have to see incorrect files in the assignment.

[Ron_Bowman]

@henric -

I agree being able to replace a single file would be nice, but as it stands now, I think your only option is to have the student resubmit all of the files for the assignment.  I have never given an assignment requiring multiple files submitted separately, so I do not know what it looks like when multiple submissions are made.  My guess would be that it is like single files - you only see the latest submissions.  

I just tried out a multiple file submission, and it does act like one file submissions:  I have three screenshots the first shows the view in speedgrader with the latest submission file submissions.  The second shows the drop  down menu to select which submission and the last shows viewing of the first submission.  I downloaded the submissions, and the files I got were the latest submission.  The student also has a drop down menu to view their various attempts.

I think making the student resubmit all the files will not be an issue (provided you allow multiple submissions).  It should not be that hard for the students to select their 5 files and resubmit the correct ones.

Ron

[Ron_Bowman]

@henric 

I guess the screenshots would help.

view of latest submission in speedgrader                                      

  multiple submission drop down

viewing earlier submission

 

 

[henric]

Hi, thanks for the pictures. Appreciate that you are trying to help!

But I have an assignment where I want my students to upload a text document and a number of product descriptions. The task is for the student to describe a craft work and give suggestions for suitable material. I want them to do all this in one and the same assignment. The result is that they upload 5-6 files (1 text document and 4-5 pdf documents). If something like these documents goes wrong and I want the student to make a new submission, it would have been easy if the student could delete previously submitted files and only resubmit the correct files. Now there will be an incredible number of files in many uploads and it will be difficult to get a good overview.

But anyway, the feature I am asking for does not exist today. But I wish at least the teacher could have the power to delete files. Or that it had been possible to make a setting whether to delete or not.
I'm not happy that only the administrator gets and can delete files in an assignment.

How do you submit a proposal to Instructure for a feature that is missing?

[henric]

Hope I do not sound unpleasant or over;) I understand how to do and how to get around my "problem" but I do not understand why you can delete your own files. What is the reason for not allowing students to do this? I can well understand why teachers should not be allowed to delete a student's material due to various reasons.

[Ron_Bowman]

@henric 

Do not worry - Everything you have said is valid and it does get frustrating.

For making a feature request, the information is here
https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Community/How-do-I-create-a-new-idea-conversation-in-the-Instruct...
https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Idea-Conversations/idb-p/ideas

I checked it as already been created by someone else.  Here is the link to vote on it

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Idea-Conversations/Delete-submissions-by-students/idi-p/377766

[ColtonSwapp · Accepted solution]

Hello @henric 

You are correct in that the option to delete a submission is only available for Admin roles. The instructor and Student are unable to actually delete submissions due to their course role permission set. The student can always re-submit to the assignment and the instructor can use the latest submission to be used for the final grade, if needed. 

Hopefully this helps! 

-Colton 

[henric]

Okay. I understand what you mean. But I still believe that the student or teacher should be able to have that power over their submitted documents in an assignment, to be able to delete a file that may have gone wrong. As we use Canvas, there are assignments where the student must send in several different documents to complete the task. If the student discovers that 1 in 5 files is incorrect or has been submitted by mistake, it would have been practical if the student could correct the problem himself instead of submitting all 5 files again. Sure, the teacher can browse through the versions and dates of submitted files, but it feels unnecessary to store files that no one has any use for.
(Hope you understand what I mean, it is difficult for me to express this in English).

[Ron_Bowman]

@henric 

Thanks for replying back and explaining a little more.  I agree it would be nice to just replace the one file out of multiple file uploads.  I have never had students submit more than one file, so I have no feel for what happens in that situation with a resubmit.  I know other instructors here have the students submit a zip file with all the files in it.  

It would be nice if for multiple file uploads, the files would act like they are stored in a folder, and if one had to be replaced, you could just upload it and replace the one that is there - or if we had the delete option - just delete it and then reupload the one.  I have a feeling that this type of setup is not a trivial task to implement.