Removing assignments from "missing"

[alex_voigt]

Is there a way to easily remove the "missing" label from assignments on Canvas that doesn't involve having to individually click on EVERY student's grade and unclick the "missing" option? It is extremely tedious to do that at the end of a semester and a super-annoying feature of Canvas compared to the Skyward gradebook that allowed you to enter an assignment and unselect missing en masse with students. Nobody's been able to give me a clear answer on this -- including our school's tech integrationist -- and none of the videos I've watched on it are helpful. I know students can swipe assignments off of their to-do list, but they still show up missing on assignment reports with Grade Guardian and I'd prefer not to waste multiple hours on something that menial, especially since I'm teaching multiple preps this year.

[Jeff_F]

Hello @alex_voigt  - if I had this situation I might consider adding the desired / suggested due date to the end of the assignment name and omit the due date from that field. Doing so will help me avoid the system applying a status such as 'missing'.

How does this sound?

Best, Jeff

[alex_voigt]

The problem there is that the assignment would no longer show up as missing on the student/parent end, which would create challenges for them being able to address it at home. It's basically a Catch 22 of wanting the gradebook to be efficient to manage while simultaneously making it possible for parents to easily keep up on their kid's progress. I just hate how clunky/tedious Canvas is to work with and I REALLY don't like how non-user-friendly it is for parents.

[chriscas]

Hi @alex_voigt,

I guess the direct answer to your question is "no" this cannot be done easily in bulk.  There may be a way to programmatically do it via the Canvas API, but that would likely be even more work to code (especially if you're not a coder by trade).

@Jeff_F gave a potential workaround for the issue for future courses/assignments, but I'm curious about your course/assignment setup.  Canvas would only apply the missing tag automatically for online submission type assignments that do not have a submission.  In many cases that is pretty straightforward and correct, but in your case it appears that it's not the behavior you'd like.  Are you accepting work both online and on-paper and that's causing the missing tag to be incorrectly applied for students turning things in to you in-person?  Are you excusing certain students from doing the assignment and that is where things are going wrong, smoething else?  It may be better tyo try to figure out how to prevent the missing label from being automatically added when you don't want it, with Jeff's suggestion being one possibility.

Look forward to hearing back from you!

-Chris

[alex_voigt]

The issue is that Canvas is still applying the missing label after assignment windows have closed and even after the end of a grading term. It serves no purpose at that point for an assignment to have a "missing" label because students can no longer turn it in for a grade and it's creating confusion with both parents and students in terms of assignments they should be prioritizing. The only real solution seems to be for me to individually go through EVERY assignment with EVERY student and click 3 different times just to remove the missing label on one assignment for a single student. Given that I have nearly 200 students with roughly 35 assignments in a grading term, that's a pretty big task to fit into an already-packed teaching schedule, especially when that sort of issue should be addressable through Canvas settings. 

To reiterate, I just really dislike how tedious and non-user-friendly Canvas' interface is for this gradebook. Our school used to utilize Skyward for grades and I keep requesting us to go back to that because of time-wasting features like this.