Students marked "pending" status but have viewed pages in the course?

[tregg76]

This is a screenshot of a student that has the pending flag still attached to their account, but you can see from the Last Activity that they have been in the course. This screenshot is from the People section of the course. 

I can also confirm in their Page View details on their account that they have viewed course URLs including the invite link and various modules. 

How is this possible? I thought the student had to either accept the invite or if they viewed the course, that the pending flag would disappear? 

I've searched forums and haven't found anything concrete. The closest forum that explains this issue is this, where I believe it's being suggested that the students may have accessed via a direct link - I tested this and could not replicate and don't understand how a student could view the invite link and still have a pending flag?: 

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Archived-Questions/ARCHIVED-What-s-this-pending-invite-about-and-...

Has anyone run into this before and know the cause so we can fix this?

[tregg76 · Accepted solution]

Was finally able to replicate the issue. The only cause we can find is that students that are already enrolled in our instance of Canvas are using a direct link to a course or module while also not accepting the invite. We thought changing the course visibility from "institutional" to "course" might prevent them from viewing course/mods with a direct link while also not accepting the invite, but this was proven to not be true. 

As far as we can tell, there is no way around this issue other than to remind staff and students to not use direct links and to encourage them to accept invites asap. 

[dbrace]

Hi @tregg76,

In looking at the student's entry in the "People" area and its table, it appears that the student might have two enrollments (based on the "Roles" column) in the course.

Does the student have two enrollments in the course?  Are there multiple "Memberships" when viewing their "User Details" page?

• How do I view a user's profile in a course as an i... - Instructure Community - 1087
• How do I view user details for an enrollment in a ... - Instructure Community - 1216

If yes, does the non-pending enrollment/role although them to get into the course within accepting an invitation?

-Doug

[tregg76]

Hi Doug - thanks for the quick reply. The students are in two Sections, but with the same Role. When I view this students User Details, I do see separate enrollments listed for this same course, differentiated by the Role. However, all of our students are in the system in this way, and the vast majority do not have the flag issue. Below is a screenshot of the issue student, as well as another student who has been in the course and doesn't have the flag. 

And below is one more student with the flag, but that has activity logged. On both students, I see that the last activity has the same timestamp across both roles/sections. So I'm thinking there isn't a pending/non-pending enrollment or roll?

And yes, when viewing their Memberships, I see more than one listed (see below). However I also see this on a student who does not have the pending flag. 

Thank you for jumping in - hope these screenshots help

[dbrace]

Thanks for those screenshots and additional details, @tregg76.

I do not have a specific answer/explanation but I do have some things that I would look into if I were in this situation.

1. What happens if you use beta and act as the student?
2. Do you see an invitation at the top of their Dashboard?
3. Are you able to get into the course without accepting it?
4. If you are able to get into the course without accepting it, is the invitation still on the Dashboard when you return to the Dashboard?

When you stop acting as the student and return to the "People" area, is the "pending" flag/status still there?

-Doug

[tregg76 · Accepted solution]

Was finally able to replicate the issue. The only cause we can find is that students that are already enrolled in our instance of Canvas are using a direct link to a course or module while also not accepting the invite. We thought changing the course visibility from "institutional" to "course" might prevent them from viewing course/mods with a direct link while also not accepting the invite, but this was proven to not be true. 

As far as we can tell, there is no way around this issue other than to remind staff and students to not use direct links and to encourage them to accept invites asap. 

[dbrace · Accepted solution]

Thanks for that update, @tregg76.

What you have described does make sense. The challenges to this will be with course design because of (1) being enrolled into the course twice and (2) when creating an announcement, something that faculty may do on a week-to-week basis, it can be common to use the RCE and its hyperlinks feature to link directly to content.

If you are able to manage (or at least understand the reason) those challenges internally, you should not have anything to be concerned with.

-Doug