Moderate Quiz not an option - why?

[hmacdermott]

I'm puzzled - thanks in advance for reading.

I am a Canvas admin at my institution. My husband is a professor at another institution so I can see the difference in their instance vs. ours. For example, for whatever reason, at his school, he cannot create a new Canvas course. He also doesn't have access to fill out his profile.

Anyway, he would like to be able to see how much time each student spent on a quiz, information that is available on the Moderate Quiz page. BUT Moderate Quiz isn't an option for him and I can't figure out why. 

The class in which he's like to see how much time each student spent on a quiz has ended, but I don't think that's the issue - I checked my own instance and even for courses in which the term or course date has ended, Moderate Quiz is still an option for me as an admin and for the instructor (if I masquerade as them).

What am I missing? Any ideas? Thanks again for reading.

[Chris_Hofer]

Hello @hmacdermott ...

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My husband is a professor at another institution so I can see the difference in their instance vs. ours. For example, for whatever reason, at his school, he cannot create a new Canvas course. He also doesn't have access to fill out his profile.

• Canvas administrators have the option to allow (or not allow) other people (non-admins) to create courses.  This is found at the very bottom of the admin "Settings" page...under the heading "Who Can Create New Courses".  Check out the section near the bottom of this Guide called "View Who Can Create New Courses": How do I set details for an account? - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com).
• The ability for users to edit their profile is also on this same page.  In the Guide I've linked above, check out the section on "View Features" (about half-way down the page).

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Anyway, he would like to be able to see how much time each student spent on a quiz, information that is available on the Moderate Quiz page. BUT Moderate Quiz isn't an option for him and I can't figure out why. 

The class in which he's like to see how much time each student spent on a quiz has ended, but I don't think that's the issue - I checked my own instance and even for courses in which the term or course date has ended, Moderate Quiz is still an option for me as an admin and for the instructor (if I masquerade as them).

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What version of the quizzing engine are you using (current Classic Quizzes or New Quizzes)?

• Quizzes Overview (Instructors)
• New Quizzes Overview (Instructors)

Looking forward to hearing back from you soon!

[hmacdermott]

Hi @Chris_Hofer , thanks for the reply.

And thank you! As an admin, I know those features can be enabled. I have no idea why his school has purposely decided to not allow them, though. Seems silly to not allow instructors to create a sandbox course in which to build assignments or quizzes in a safe place.

His institution has both Classic and New Quizzes enabled. The quizzes in which he'd like to see how long it took for a student to complete are classic quizzes.

Cheers,

Helen

[Chris_Hofer]

@hmacdermott ...

In my former role as a Canvas administrator, we did not allow instructors to create their own courses.  If an instructor requested a sandbox course, we set this up manually for them.  Since the vast majority of our course shells came directly from our SIS (Student Information System), we didn't want people creating additional course shells on their own.  (Checking this option would have allowed instructors to create all kinds of shells, and if they mistakenly created a new course shell meant for students, none of the students would be enrolled in those manually created shells because of how our SIS was integrated...so sandbox course requests came through my department.)

Regarding the quizzes, it sounds like students have already submitted the quizzes, right?  If you have done your own comparisons between his course and yours ... and you're unable to determine any significant differences between the two, you might want to reach out to Canvas Support to see if they can help troubleshoot this with you.  I would be curious to know what they say, though.  So, if you do choose to reach out to them, could you come back here to provide an update?  Thanks!

[hmacdermott]

Aye, I will definitely share a solution if I find one!

[chriscas]

Hi @hmacdermott 

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The class in which he's like to see how much time each student spent on a quiz has ended, but I don't think that's the issue

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I am going to guess that actually is the issue.  I checked our instance, and indeed when a course is concluded (we do it by term dates), the moderate, "show student quiz results" and other features do seem to disappear.

I can understand the moderate function disappearing, as it's really meant to allow for extensions and extra attempts, which wouldn't be available if the course is concluded anyways.  I am a bit stumped at why "show student quiz results" isn't still an option, but at the same time nobody that I can recall in the almost 10 years we've had Canvas has actually complained about this.  We leave courses open for faculty for a week after the term ends so they can finish up any last-minute grading, remove copyright content, etc, but then after that our courses go into concluded (read only) mode even for faculty.  This helps us preserve a decently accurate record of activity/assignments/grades/etc in Canvas in case we ever need to refer back to it for a student appeal or something.

-Chris

[hmacdermott]

OK! I think I figured it out. The difference between his school and my school is how "Teachers can access from" is set up.

I went into our test instance to try something. In a Fall 2019 course with quizzes, the Moderate Quiz link is available. I edited the Fall 2019 term and changed "Teachers can access from whenever to Jan 3, 2025 12:00am" to "Teachers can access from whenever to term end (Dec 20, 2019 11:59pm)".

As an admin, I am still able to see the Moderate Quiz link. When I masquerade as an instructor, I cannot see the Moderate Quiz link.

Now I know what to tell my husband to ask his Canvas admin to do so he can see this information!

Thanks to @chriscas and @Chris_Hofer for chiming in. I appreciate you two taking the time.

[chriscas]

Hi @hmacdermott,

Yes, I do believe that is the relevant setting.  That is the one which we set at one week after term end for the institution I work at.  I think it would be fine to have your husband ask his admin team if they'd be willing to change that date, but I would say there is a fair chance they may not do that.  Changing that date gives teachers full access to modify the course, which is something that some schools do not want to allow for a long period of time.  On the other hand, some schools allow courses to be edited for years after they are taught.  Since that setting affects all courses, it is one that will probably need a lot of discussion before changing.

-Chris

[hmacdermott]

Me again ... so the Canvas admin at my husband's school very kindly opened the course participation end date to next week BUT the Moderate Quiz function is still not available. He's still in a read-only state.

I can't figure out what other setting would need to be changed so he is no longer in a read-only state. Any thoughts?

I looked into section dates and the start and end dates for the course sections were not updated. I read that course sections dates can override term and course dates, but that would only impact students, no? I tested in my Canvas instance by going into a course in which the term has ended, added a course section date that has already passed, and the Moderate Quiz feature is STILL available to me as an admin and as the Teacher (I masqueraded as them).

Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks for reading!

[hmacdermott]

Aye, I told him to ask them to do this in their test/beta instance. Hopefully they’ll be willing to. If not, he’s going to have to use Speedgrader to click through 40 student submissions for 18 quizzes!

[chriscas]

Hi @hmacdermott,

It could be that the school hard-concludes enrollments instead of just doing it by term date, in which case they'd need to unconclude his enrollment too.  That would be my first guess, though I'm sure there could be other things at play here.  Canvas is pretty flexible, which can be a good thing so schools can run things as they see fit, but it makes figuring something like this out very difficult since it could be so many different things.

-Chris