[ARCHIVED] Resubmit assignment but keep original filename?

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krumpe
Community Member

It seems that when students submit an assignment and then resubmit an assignment with the same filename, Canvas automatically appends a number to the end of the filename.  For example, if the student submits:

solution.pdf

and then decides to resubmit the assignment using the same filename, Canvas will rename it as:

solution-1.pdf

But what if the student and the instructor do not want the file renamed upon resubmission?  I am thinking in particular about students in my Java programming class, because incorrect filenames will prevent a student's submission from working correctly.

Is one of the following possible using Canvas?

  1. Prevent Canvas from renaming files that are resubmitted?
  2. Allow students to rename a file after resubmitting?

One workaround is to ask the students to zip their submissions, because then only the zipped file would get renamed.  But this adds a layer of complexity I would like the students to avoid.

Thank you for any advice you might have.

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1 Solution
James
Community Champion

krumpe​,  @Chris_Hofer ​

For the reasons described above, I can't see a logistical reason why Canvas needs to do the renaming (and it doesn't for Google Doc submissions), so it must have been a design one to illustrate that the files were actually different submissions. Every file is assigned an unique id. They want to hang on to all uploads so instructors can go back and look at previous submissions. They have a "never discard a student submission" kind of philosophy.

When you download submissions, you get unique names no matter what the filename itself is because the add the unique file id to the name. Someone else was complaining about that   because they needed the short name originally used by the uploader, not the extra stuff that Canvas appends.

Hold the presses!

 @kona ​ just came in for another reason and explained everything, even saying there's a discussion going on about it right now. I have verified this works.

Ignore everything I wrote above.

The file uploads are saved into the student's files in a folder called "unfiled". Even though the concept of a folder is an artificial construct, you can't have two files with the same name, so they get automatically renamed.

What a student can do to fix Norm's problem is this:

  1. Click on the Settings at the top
  2. Go to Files on the left navigation menu
  3. Click on the Unfiled folder
  4. Click on the gear to delete (or rename) the original file - to remove the not wanted.
  5. Click on the gear next to the good filename and then rename it to be the desired name

In the SpeedGrader, the instructor may see a preview for the original file but if you try to download it, you will get a "Page Not Found: This file has been deleted" error. If you go to the latest version, though, it will download with the name the student has renamed the file to be.

If you want to be able to see the original file, you may want your students to rename them rather than deleting them.

Hopefully that makes up for my earlier misunderstanding Smiley Happy

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