Non graded assignment

[tweidner]

Hi Canvas Community! I am trying to set up an assignment where students will upload their submission but I will not grade it and it will not appear in their gradebook. I essentially just want them to upload their PPTs by a certain date then I will pull them all and display in class. 

I tried to do within the assignment with display grade as not graded but then it removes any submission option. How do I allow them to submit to something but it does not appear in their gradebook. 

Thanks! 

Tessa 

[JeffCampbell]

A couple of options to consider:

1. Do as you have with it set to Not Graded? While they cannot submit, there is an option to attach a comment. They can attach files to comments, so they can upload the PowerPoint to you that way. 

2. Set the grade to Complete/Incomplete, then checkmark the option underneath that says it will not count for the final grade. Leave the points as 0. This way, it will let them attach it as a submission, but have no actual value to the grade. Plus, it will put a blue box at the very top that notifies students it will not count towards the grade. This will still leave it in the Gradebook however, but at least it will not impact the grade. However, it also means you can go into Speedgrader and mark the task as Complete. Students then know you have received it and you can filter for not submitted or Incomplete.

[tweidner]

Hi Jeff! 

Thanks so much - I do have it set to be display as Not Graded and in Canvas' guides it says I should still have submission area access. But I oddly do not. 

 

We will have over 50 of these submissions - therefore I ideally do not want these assignments in the gradebook. 

How do they attach a comment? Is this through speedgrader? 

thanks again! 

 

[JeffCampbell]

When they open the assignment, they should see a spot in the upper right that says "Add a Comment". If you use the "View as Student" option (make sure it is published first), you will see that too. It opens a panel on the side of the page where they can upload it to a comment.

How do I add a comment to a submission as a student?.

[tweidner]

Hi Jeff: 

Unfortunately this did not work for me as I have turned it to Not Graded so it will not appear in their grades - so they are unable to leave a comment. 

You can see it under assignments but not under grades to leave a comment. 

Appreciate your help! 

[JeffCampbell]

While viewing as a student, click on the assignment to open it up rather than trying to add comments from either the Assignments page (which shows all assignments) or the Grades page, which is what your screenshots show. When tested on my end, it shows an option to add a comment in the upper right while on the assignment itself.

[tweidner]

Hi Jeff - do you mind sharing your screen shot. When I tried it I still do not see this. It is clearly my error if you are able to see it! 

 

[JeffCampbell]

Here is a screenshot of what I see. This is with Display Grades set to Not Graded. I'm not sure why you are not seeing this specifically, but suspect it could be a setting at the admin level for your institution. Maybe someone else with my understanding of that side might be able to address if that is an option.

[tweidner]

Hi Chris - Definitely an admin setting! I really appreciate you sending this screen shot I will include this and contact our Canvas Admin and ask where my Add Comment button has gone. 

Do you mind sharing the settings to this assignment? Then I could share that as well. 

Thanks!! 

Tessa 

[JeffCampbell]

Display Grades is set to Not Graded. No due date since I am just testing the display grades option. Grade is set to 0 but the Not Graded makes that void.

I cannot state it is definitively an admin setting. It just makes me wonder if there might be one impacting this.

[tweidner]

Appreciate this so much Jeff! 

[chriscas]

Hi @tweidner,

I'm not clear from reading this thread if you've tried the #2 suggestion @JeffCampbell provided.  That is how I would generally advise our faculty to handle a situation similar to this.

"Set the grade to Complete/Incomplete, then checkmark the option underneath that says it will not count for the final grade. Leave the points as 0. This way, it will let them attach it as a submission, but have no actual value to the grade. Plus, it will put a blue box at the very top that notifies students it will not count towards the grade. This will still leave it in the Gradebook however, but at least it will not impact the grade. However, it also means you can go into Speedgrader and mark the task as Complete. Students then know you have received it and you can filter for not submitted or Incomplete."

-Chris

[tweidner]

Hi Chris - thanks so much! Unfortunately I do not want it to appear in the gradebook since we have 50 of these it just clutters the gradebook heavily. But thank you greatly for the suggestion! 

[chriscas]

Ah apologies, I has that messed up in my head, I thought you just wanted them not to count towards a grade, not that you didn't want them to show up at all.  That definitely does add complication to this...

I know @JeffCampbell is helping you with his approach #1, but  even though it might be workable for your specific assignment setup here, you may have other teachers unhappy with students potentially continuing that kind of attaching/submitting behavior later on in their academic careers.  You'll see quite a few posts here in the community from teachers frustrated that students are using that method to try to bypass regular submission deadlines, restrictions, etc...

I do have one other suggestion, which may or may not be helpful.  Instead of using as assignment, you could create an ungraded discussion for this and have all the students post their PowerPoints as attachments to a reply.  That could potentially even save you the work of downloading and compiling them all if the goal it to really just have the slides available to all of the students.

-Chris  

[JeffCampbell]

@chriscas sees more of that side of frustration working at higher education compared to middle school where I am at. His points about the issues this can cause is definitely a valid issue and one I would not have considered. 

There may not be a one-stop solution to your issue. It will likely require some form of compromise in one area to achieve the goal elsewhere. I think Chris meant creating an ungraded discussion (he mentions posting it as a reply). I missed that you wanted to share with your class and that would be a very workable solution.

[chriscas]

Yikes, yes I definitely meant an ungraded discussion!  Just went back and fixed my earlier post.  Thanks for catching that!

I agree this there might not be a single exact solution here, but I hope we've given at least a couple options.

I'll also say that as far as I recall, choosing "not graded" has never allowed a submission, but I'm wondering if my memory doesn't go back far enough at this point.  We have had the feature called "assignment enhancements" enabled for a number of years here, but I know some places still have it off.  It's possible that @tweidner's school/institution enabled that recently and that the pre-enhancement version fo things did allow submissions with no grades. 

-Chris

[JeffCampbell]

I don't recall either, but definitely an interesting thought.

[tweidner]

Hi Chris - this should not cause other teachers to be upset. It is mainly because I need the students to upload their PPTs and then I download them prior to class. But I need to make sure everyone does upload their slides. 

It is more odd that Canvas Panda says I can do this and it worked before and now suddenly does not. 

What you say set up an ungraded assignment that is what I was trying to do but it did not allow for submission. Which was odd. 

Appreciate your help!! 

Tessa 

[clpatter]

Another option would be to use Classic Quizzes. Create a quiz with one "File Upload" question, and then set the quiz type to "Practice Quiz." A practice quiz won't display in the Gradebook, but students can upload a file to it. It would also be easy to see which students hadn't uploaded yet by visiting the quiz "Moderate" page.

I'm not sure if you can set up something like this in New Quizzes because we don't use New Quizzes yet.

[tweidner]

That is a great suggestion if individual - I have a few that are group. But this is a great work around for now!! And you can do this with new quizzes! 

Thank you! 

[dbrace]

Hi @tweidner,

There was a bunch of back-and-forth in this so I am not sure:

1. if you came up with something that will work for you
2. if you did, which comment to use the "Accept as Solution" option for

If everything is good to go, would you pick one reply as a solution so that this question is closed out?

If you would still like some advice, please let reply back and let us know.

-Doug