How do you delete a submission as a student??? HELP

[PAYTONCHIRILA]

idk how to delete a canvas submission as a student HELP ME 😭

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @PAYTONCHIRILA,

In general, students will not be able to delete submissions from Canvas.  I believe there are a number of reasons for this, including having accurate submission records.  The good news is that you can usually just make another submission, which would somewhat take precedence over the original (but your teacher will see both if they want).  Sometimes teachers or the admin team for Canvas at your school/institution can delete an individual file from a submission if it's absolutely necessary, but you'd need to reach out to them at your school, as the global community of Instructure users which you posted to doesn't have any access to your Canvas account or anything like that.

Hope this helps!

-Chris

[wikisqueaks]

This doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Yes, having records of what was submitted for multiple test or legitimate re-attempts does make sense. However, there should be some way to remove a submission in the case of a mistake. For example,

Suppose a student uploads, by accident, the incorrect file that includes personal information unrelated to school. As soon as the file uploads and Canvas renders the preview, the student realizes their mistake. I do not see why they should be prevented from removing this file within a few minutes of submission. This seems like an oversight that other learning platforms have dealt with.

There's no reason that a teacher needs a record of their mistake nor access to that file. Depending what the student has accidently uploaded, it may also put the school or Canvas at risk of liability since they need to securely store that personal information.

Of course students need to be careful when choosing what files to upload, but mistakes happen, and I think design should reflect that.

[yeelinda]

It is completely ILLOGICAL and UNACCEPTABLE that Canvas still does not allow students or instructors to delete a submission even though people have been asking for it for YEARS. Having accurate submission records is one thing, but there are cases where a student does NOT want the instructor or anyone else to see the submission they made in error. This just happened yesterday: A student was supposed to upload a group assignment, which the entire group can see and gets graded on, but instead uploaded the group evaluation, which is supposed to be PRIVATE. Now the student is panicking because all her group members can see what she said about each group member and no one can delete it. Students make mistakes for different reasons: sometimes they are just careless but other times they are stressed, exhausted, and sleepy and they end up clicking on the wrong file, something that may be inappropriate and no one else should see. But we should not punish students for making such errors by keeping those submissions permanently for the student, instructor, and sometimes even other students to see. Canvas is causing DISTRESS for everyone for the sake of accurate submission records. PLEASE ALLOW STUDENTS AND INSTRUCTORS TO DELETE SUBMISSIONS!

[paul_fynn]

Hi @yeelinda , I have to disagree on some counts - the current set up probably reflected what was logical at the time, and even within our own institution what is logical can vary even within units of delivery. In terms of acceptability, Caveat Emptor; we do need to recognise that Canvas is a global product and it takes time to adapt it to different logics and understandings.

@chriscas we have a different twist on the same issue, which is that a teacher created a group activity as an individual assessment, and now wishes to make it a group assessment. One student has jumped the gun and submitted - even if we make the student inactive and remove them from the assignment, the validity checks 'know' the student submitted and won't let us switch to a group activity setting - any thoughts please ??

[chriscas]

Hi @paul_fynn,

In that case where there is a single unneeded submission and you want to change settings, I'd honestly just duplicate the assignment and make the changed to get the new version set up as you'd like.  Once that's done, you should be able to delete the original version of the assignment entirely.  You may have to re-link things from modules/pages/etc depending how the course is designed, but it should be relatively quick work.

-Chris

[paul_fynn]

Ah, but you forget that we have a managed assessments system @chriscas and are not as free and nimble as colleagues who can roam freely and nimbly over their Canvas instance 😁

I would speculate that someone with the requisite Canvas admin permissions *might* be able to change group settings despite the 'submissions already made' override which seems to be highly attuned to the presence of any assessment, even where a submitting student is inactive or has been removed from the assignment.

@yeelinda I'm pretty sure that UK HE regs generally require that any submission made stands, which is what Canvas protocols enforce .... so locking against deletions would seem to be quite logical (and acceptable), if a little inconvenient, in the UK.