I am unable to delete student submissions, neither can the student, and the Canvas storage is "full" on her assignment

[MichelleKistler]

It seems that neither I nor the student can delete old submissions. This is a video assignment, and she has uploaded twice. (The student was modifying her video and resubmitting before the due date.) Now, she is saying Canvas will not let her upload a third .mp4 file because the "storage is full." 

Is there really no way to remove assignments?? (Yet another thing we could do in Blackboard that we seemingly cannot do in Canvas.) *Sigh*

~Michelle

[SusanNiemeyer]

Canvas does not permit either an instructor or a student to delete assignments because these submissions are a record of the work that the student has done in the course. This can be important in a couple of scenarios:

1. The student submits plagiarized or subpar work. If the student is able to delete that submission, he or she could try to come back and contest a failing grade.

2. If an instructor deletes a submission, a student might come back and complain that he or she was unfairly treated. 

In both cases, having an accurate record of the student's submissions is quite important.

Instructors can easily allow for additional submissions if necessary, and then grade the final submission.

[MichelleKistler]

Thank you. I do understand that. This key issue for me above, perhaps moreso than not being able to delete the drafts, is the lack of storage. The student cannot submit her final work to the assignment space. I will have no final record of the final, graded submission at all because she cannot upload it to the assignment space. 😞

[Chris_Hofer]

Hello @MichelleKistler ...

When students submit work to you via Canvas Assignments, attachments *do not* count towards their quota of available storage space.  This should not be an issue for your students whatsoever.  This is detailed in the light blue box at the top of this student Canvas Guide:

• How do I submit an online assignment? (see the second paragraph)

As shown in this Guide:

• How do I view my user files as a student?

...there would be a "Submissions" folder within one's user files (you may also have this as well).  That folder has a small padlock icon on it...indicating that files cannot be deleted from that folder.  If a student were to look at the contents of that folder, he/she would see additional locked folders containing files that were submitted for assignments in the course.

I wonder if students are attaching files to the comments portion of the assignment?  For example, if you have an assignment where you are asking students to first submit a draft to you and then later on a final version of the same product, students may be first submitting the draft file to you using the instructions in the first link I provided.  That file would not count against a student's file limit.  However, if the student were later submitting the file as a final product to the same assignment but by using the "Attach File" link (near the "Media Comment" link) as shown in the section on "Add Comments" described in:

• How do I view assignment comments from my instruct... - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com)

...then I can see where a student may quickly run out of storage space.  Attaching files as comments to an already existing submission would count against the file storage limit.

This is all a lot of speculation on my part, but I wanted to throw this possibility out there in case any of your students might have been trying to re-submit work in this way.

I hope this might help in some way.  Keep us posted...thanks!