Mastery Paths creating second "Assign" section with no Due Dates

[ZacharyBowers]

I am attempting to use Canvas Mastery Paths. I have assigned a quiz for students and then students will have certain assignments opened to them based on their performance on the quiz. I have aligned everything based on grade performance under mastery paths in the quiz itself. The assignments are already created that they will have to do and have specific due dates on them. The Assign To group on these assignments are set to Mastery Pathways.

My issue is once students take the quiz, the appropriate assignments open up to them, however, the Assign portion of the actual remedial work adds a second section which includes each individual students name that fell into that mastery pathway but this new assign section has no Due Date, No Open Date, and No Available Until date. They are completely blank. So, I have 2 or 3 students that did not do the assignments given to them in their Mastery Pathway and they have not receive an automatic zero for a lack of completion, nor have the ones that have done it late received a grade penalty for the lateness of the work. Does anyone know of a solution to this issue?

I have attached a video of my issue as well for any that are interested. This is attached as a link below.

https://www.loom.com/share/18640a65ba984299a63e952eb178bf50

[KristinL · Accepted solution]

Hi @ZacharyBowers -

Mastery Paths is such a neat tool! I ran into the same frustration with Mastery Paths and dates when I used it as a teacher. I set reminders in my calendar to go set due dates for the conditional items so students and I stayed in sync.

While this is not an immediate solution, there is a long-standing idea open for conversation. Please consider adding to the discussion and rating (starring) the thread. You'll automatically receive updates if the request aligns with one of the Product Team's projects. Mastery Paths: Automatically Set Conditional Item Due Dates 

[amcvey3]

This doesn't really answer his question, though. I'm having the same issue of Canvas assigning a second Assign To group with student names, but it's not including all the students who have taken the initial assessment. 

[RichardMusgrave]

Please see below for a more effective workaround.

[RichardMusgrave]

I did figure out a workaround for this, but it is still unwieldy, and we really need to get this feature request filled.

This will work if you have one quiz ("the opening quiz") to open one more quiz ("the second quiz"). It may work for longer chains, but I haven't tested that.

Go to "Grades" and assign a 100% grade to the Test Student for "the opening quiz". In Modules, click on "the second quiz", and you will see a new date box assigned to the Test Student. Set the dates in this box as desired. Save and click Continue in the warning box.

I know, I know...it's not ideal, but it's better than having to remember to go back in and set a date after a real student has taken "the opening quiz". 

[david_griffith]

We have used this method with a lot of success . Like you hinted...it's not automatic and it's not ideal, but at least lets us be proactive about adding the dates to the additional Assign to... BUT...and I wonder if you are seeing this too:

We are starting to get (for just over two weeks now) yet more additional Assign To sets for students taking the source assignment after some time around Mar 12. This is even for assignments already assigned to students on the path (early takers or at least before the affected date). We have some conditional assignments that are starting to accumulate 4+ assign to sets.

Have you seen anything like this? Again, we have had no issues until about two weeks ago.

[RichardMusgrave]

No, I haven't seen anything like this. The workaround has been working as intended as far as I can tell.

[david_griffith]

You may want to review existing assignments settings and the view on the batch dates updating page--the pattern of empty Assign To is pretty easy to notice in that view. If it isn't happening to you now, I would love to know why. We have hit an impasse with this one.

We had been using that method for the entire SY23-24 and first half of the SY24-25 year, but around mid-March this year, each time a new attempt was made on the source assignment, a new Assign To appeared. We would populate that empty date field, but as soon as someone else attempts the source assignment, yet another Assign To is created. 

After many rounds with support, they determined it was expected behavior and referenced a line from the guides page on Conditional assignments:

"As conditional items are released to students, individual due dates for items are not applied. To add a due date to conditional items, wait until all students have completed the source assignment and then add a due date to the conditional item."

This had not been the behavior before circa March 12, 2025, but I have to acknowledge that the above note appears to have been under those Notes for a long time. Also, the note and support say to let everyone complete the source assignment before populating dates. We are asynchronous with a policy that students can work ahead, on time, or catch up without penalty. Letting the dates sit empty could last for weeks or even a month or more for us. 

I could never get an answer to why we had not, in over a year and half of using the same method, we had not encountered this behavior before. We tested this method exhaustively before the fall of 2023. It behaved fine all of 2023-2024 and from fall of 2024 through mid March.

Again, I do suggest you check carefully. It is happening with perfect consistency for us now (regardless of assignment type). I have tested extensively again to see if I can get the behavior to ever not repeat. So far, every time we populate a date on a triggered assign to, the next student to enter the path gets a new blank assign to.

Our teachers are almost ready to rebel against our use of Mastery Paths on this one.

[RichardMusgrave]

Unfortunately, you are right. Something has changed, and students are getting assigned to a box that has no due or end date, in spite of my suggested workaround. I'll continue to think about the problem, but I may end up using Prerequisites instead.