Lockdown browser and assignments

[dcooke]

We have found that using a "Student Annotation" assignments allows us to post and have students complete math tests within Canvas. There are two problems, though. 1) We can't use Lockdown with assignments, so can't lock these things. 2) "Student Annotation" isn't a quiz type, so we can't move these to quizzes and use Lockdown. The bottom line is that we can't give math quizzes and tests in a Lockdown.

Seems like an easy fix. All the stuff is there, but just needs to be combined.

[mzimmerman]

Hi @dcooke 

LockDown Browser is only designed to be used with Canvas quizzes.  It works with both "classic" and New Quizzes, but it does not work with Assignments.

[dcooke]

This is known. It is a problem needing fixing.

[chriscas]

Hi @dcooke,

I could *maybe* see adding some kind of annotation question type to quizzes, but I don't think adding Lockdown Browser support to assignments is very likely without a lot of other big and unlikely changes.

Assignments are, in many (or most for us) cases, something students visit once, get instructions, then go off and do work in something like word/excel/powerpoint/google docs and when they are done, come back and submit.  A student may work on assignments for days or even weeks depending on the course.  Lockdown browser just doesn't make sense in that kind of workflow.  There are some assignment workflows where lockdown browser might make sense, but I think it would really create more issues and confusion in general.

Lockdown Browser is a bit more suited to quizzes because they are in general something students do right in Canvas, and start/complete in one sitting.  Usually no external programs, usually no coming back to finish days later...  That's where Lockdown Browser makes the most sense, as least in my opinion.  The issue with adding annotations to quizzes is that I believe those are done through DocViewer, and usually docviewer is set up to more or less fill the entire browser, and I'm not sure it even supports being loaded twice (if you had 2 annotation questions in the same quiz).  This is not insurmountable (perhaps force the one question at a time setting if annotations are used), but it would definitely add complexity to the code.  When the idea conversations area reopens, you could definitely submit this as an idea to see what others and Instructure would think about it.

-Chris

[dcooke]

@chriscas 

Yeah. Somehow I am not being clear. 

To do math (say differential equations or linear algebra), students need to write. There is no quiz form that allows writing on a document. However, in an annotation assignment, one can load a multipage pdf (for example), and then students can write all over it. So they can do a test in electron form. No need for multiple documents. No need to upload, download, or leave the browser. Thus, it would be helpful for that thing to either (a) appear as a quiz type, or (b) be lockable as an assignment. There's really no reason to not make assignments lockable.

I don't actually know how to submit this as an idea. I tried someplace (can't recall), and they said that bit was closed for now. Ugh.

[chriscas]

HI @dcooke,

You are correct that the feature idea area is currently closed, but hopefully it may reopen next week.

I do understand what you're asking for, and agree for your scenario it makes complete sense.  Even though it seems like a simple thing for this scenario, I was pointing out that there are a lot of other things that would have to be considered to make this a reality.  Adding the functionality into quizzes may be challenging because of how docviewer usually works.  Adding lockdown to assignments could be challenging because of all the various assignment types there are.

I would certainly encourage you to check back last next week to see if the ideas area has reopened and submit the idea there once it does!

-Chris