Quiz set to unlimited attempts, show answers, is "muted" in student view

[pavlicka]

Looking for help on this topic which I've already brought to Canvas now three times and have had no resolution.

I have unit quizzes set up in my course that are designed to have students take, see answers, then retake, so they are able to test their knowledge and strengthen it with each resubmission. To do this, I have the quiz set up for unlimited attempts and set to show answers immediately. The quiz is open for a duration of a few days, then locks; I only grade after the quiz locks since the students are, in theory, studying and retaking before the lock date & time. 

The first three quizzes worked without a hitch; students took and retook the quizzes with access to answers I had provided. This helped them review our unit, with an eye to how they might do on an upcoming midterm or final exam.

With the fourth quiz, even though I have identical settings, something had changed without my knowledge, and students could only take the quiz once before seeing a "quiz is muted" note, saying it was pending final grading from me. Two chats with Canvas help led to no resolution - I was told "this is how quizzes work," despite having demonstrable proof that the first three quizzes had not functioned this way. Unit four thus was a loss - without access to the answers, students could not self-evaluate, and thus didn't take the extra time to study and strengthen their knowledge.

Unit 5 is now live and is doing the exact same thing as unit 4. Another chat with Canvas help told me that it was because I had an "until date" in the assignment - that is, that the quiz would lock at a certain time - but removing this would solve the problem. It has not solved the problem.

I am now facing losing the methods I use to reach learning goals in a second unit, and this is significantly damaging my course at this stage. Since Canvas help seems to have no idea what is going on, I am reaching out to you all. What is going on, and what can I do to fix this?

Please, I am going out of my mind trying to get this sorted.

In the images; the first is our unit 1 quiz settings (the quiz that worked just fine), the second is the current unit settings (the quiz that is not working), and the third is a student's screenshot of the muted message that they did not receive for the first three quizzes but have for the last two.

[james_whalley]

@pavlicka It sounds like the Grade Posting Policy for these quizzes is set to Manual instead of Automatic. You can find out more in this guide: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-use-posting-policies-in-a-course/ta-p/9.... 

[pavlicka]

You're right, and I switched the policy to automatic, but students are still seeing the quiz as muted.

[james_whalley]

You also need to post grades for those that have already been taken. All future attempts should work as expected.

[pavlicka]

I didn't have to do this for any of the first three quizzes, however - students simply took the assignment, saw their results, and were able to re-take the quiz at will without any issue. Why do I have to be involved in this version of the quiz to make their answers visible if the settings are identical?

[james_whalley]

If you are using the same type of quizzes (Classic vs New) for both, I assume the only difference is Manual vs Automatic grade posting. Without being in your instance and seeing your setups in production, beta, and test, I really can't know for sure. But, you are all set now and, if all of your future quizzes like this are set for Automatic Grade Posting, you should have no more issues.

[pavlicka]

This is *incorrect.* As I said, setting the quiz to automatic grade posting did not solve the problem. Please remove the "accepted as solution" response which is misleading.

I am still having this issue, despite having followed every suggestion made in this thread, so this problem is ongoing and still causing significant issues in my course.

[james_whalley]

I'm sorry. You had not stated that the "Post Grades" solution had not worked. Hidden grades are the only reason I know of in Canvas that quiz answers are muted. If quizzes are still muted after changing the quiz's grading policy to Automatic and also clicking "Post Grades" for the quiz, you will need to reach out to Instructure support, as there must be a technical bug.

If you do reach out to support, please share the resolution here as well so that we all may learn.

[pavlicka]

I had stated this as my first reply.

Would emailing instructure support get me any advanced technical help? As I said in my post, I have reached out to Canvas help three separate times for help on this issue and gotten no resolution. Reaching out here has been a last-ditch method, not my first attempt to solve the problem. I clearly need to advance this up the ladder but do not know how to go about doing so.

[cdunn4]

When I get the email from Instructure with the case number, I reply directly to that.  If you can provide the course #, quiz ID, and the student id, they may be able to look at their data to help explain what is going on. If you keep sending the issue through the Canvas "help" window, you may keep getting "contact customer support."  I wish there was something the community could provide to successfully trouble-shoot this.

Searching "muted results" shows that this was an issue about 5 years ago, so it's not new and the trip wires that make it happen have not been removed.

[pavlicka]

Thanks so much! I've just done this, and hope I can get some resolution. I'll post it here if I do.

I also appreciate the note about earlier "muted results" posts - it is good to know I'm not the only one hwho has had this issue, disheartening as the issue itself is.

[cdunn4]

Would a student try to take the quiz on two devices?  If a quiz is running and the student logged in on a separate device and tried to start or resume a quiz running on a separate device, I think this could cause this type of message.  The student can't start a new attempt without submitting a prior one.  I've also noticed that if a quiz attempt runs for an extended period of time, greater than 24 hrs, odd things seem to happen in Canvas.    I would suggest setting a time limit for each attempt.  Something that is more than sufficient but doesn't let the quiz stay open for multiple days.  I've had a quiz run without a time limit and weird things happened. 

Is this only happening to 1 student, a handful?  Does it happen using the app and url or just one?  Always using the url alleviates a lot of issues. 

Another thing to check is to make sure your grade posting for the assignment is set to automatic?  

[pavlicka]

Unfortunately, none of these have solved the problem. I have a student who has been re-taking the quiz upon request to see if the muted response would be lifted; she is not running Canvas on multiple devices at once, and has tried both the desktop and the app version. I went in and set a 120 minute time limit on the quiz as well, but nothing changed.

This is happening to all students.

Thank you for your suggestions; I'm open to more if you have them because this is making all of us absolutely beyond frustrated.