Student Grades after moving sections

[ryanrf]

Hi all,

A student moved to different sections in two different courses. I was asked to migrate the student's grades from both old sections to both the new/current sections the student is enrolled in. However, when I go into the old sections, the student doesn't exist (not do his grades). Is this type of migration possible? Do students lose all their grades/information once they move out of a course?

[mzimmerman · Accepted solution]

Hi @ryanrf 

If the student switches sections within the same course, the grades should be unaffected.

However, if the student is moved to another course--whether it is because they have changed sections, or because the section was later cross listed--then the student's course work and grades are not transferred.  It is not possible to migrate a student's work from one course to another.

[mzimmerman · Accepted solution]

Hi @ryanrf 

If the student switches sections within the same course, the grades should be unaffected.

However, if the student is moved to another course--whether it is because they have changed sections, or because the section was later cross listed--then the student's course work and grades are not transferred.  It is not possible to migrate a student's work from one course to another.

[abunag · Accepted solution]

This is the correct answer.  You could provide the gradebook prior to removing the student (or from your beta/test environment) to the instructor so they can re-enter the scores, but submissions and feedback are tied to the course shell and can't be moved.

[ryanrf]

Just wan to confirm. Unless he section is created with the "section tool" inside of a "Master" course, then essentially Canvas is reading it as a course copy instead of an actual section?

Thank you!

[chriscas]

Hi @ryanrf,

This is going to depend quite a bit on how your school has things set up (and how you define the terminology you're using).

Canvas itself has course shells.  Canvas sections are all attached to a specific course shell.  Canvas enrollments are tied to a section.  A single Canvas course shell can have multiple sections in it if you so choose.

Your student information system (SIS) is also likely to use terminology similar to what Canvas uses above.  The integration between your SIS and Canvas usually determines how these things work together.  For my university, we create a unique Canvas course shell and associated section each semester for each course section on our SIS (for example: we have a Fall 2023 - HIST-100-001 course shell, and a totally separate course shell for Fall 2023 - HIST-101-002, which is also independent from Winter 2024 - HIST-101-002).  I know there are schools/institutions that have their integration setup of create a single Canvas course shell, and put all sections in that single shell (for example: Fall 2023 - HIST-101 would contain sections 001, 002, etc).

The other variable here is how your school/institution deals with students moving/dropping a section.  Canvas has different statuses available for this (completed, inactive, deleted) that will change the behavior.  If deleted is used, the student would be completely removed from the "old" section when they drop or move.  If inactive/completed are used, the student's information would generally be retained in the old course.  For the grades, you may have to toggle the "show inactive" option to see the student in the list, but the data would be there for sure.

Hope this helps explain things a bit more, even though I know I didn't necessarily give you an exact answer here.

-Chris

[JeffreyShaffer]

I had a student move courses entirely after week 3, from an online course to an in-person course. In the original online course, there was no record of the student under "People" or the "Grades". However, under the "Gradebook" dropdown at the top of the "Grades" page, I selected "Gradebook History" and was able to scroll down through all the grades and see a record entry for each grade for the student. I was then able to enter that into the new course. Hope this helps.

[irissolis]

Jeffrey, 

I provide Canvas support to my university, and this is the first time anyone has brought the Gradebook History option to my attention. Just recently, a school moved a handful of students into a new shell because midterm the course was reclassified from an undergrad to a grad level. I had the Records office enroll students back into their original course so their work was visible again and the teacher could export grades and download coursework submissions, then upload these into the shell created for the new classification.

I have had this scenario happen before and Canvas support told me the only way to make grades and submissions invisible again was to return students back into the original course. And this is true, these things are never deleted, they only become invisible until students are returned back into the shell.

Had I known about the History option, faculty could have looked here and copied over into the new shell; however, this would not allow them to see the actual submission and comments made by the teacher. 

I don't know. I am still thinking enrolling the students back into their original course is the better option. And, hopefully the school would learn a valuable lesson and that is to not move students around midway in a term. 

Iris