Transparency needed: Proposal for Canvas Assignment/Quiz Instruction Accuracy

[HSchaefer]

Students enrolled in the online undergrad program at Regent University use Canvas for all student discussions, assignments, material, quizzes, grading, tracking, etc. Each quiz/assignment/module has a full set of instructions which outlines how many attempts, how much time is allowed, how many questions there are, etc.

Recently there was an instance where, after submitting a quiz said to be 'unlimited,' the Canvas system showed, "no more attempts available." The professor had, apparently, changed the back-end parameters of the quiz to be 1-attempt but didn't update the instructions visible in the student portal to reflect accurate information about the quiz. What was visible to students was misleading and contradictory information from how the quiz actually performed. Students should have transparency and concise information across the portal.

An email from the professor was later found to inform the class there would be only one attempt. Whether a quiz is unlimited or single attempt, Canvas, specifically the instructions for the assignment/quiz, should accurately reflect the correct info, rather than having to hunt for an email to verify what is true.

Would it be possible to build a fail-safe or prompt, or some sort of autonomous action, that triggers when a professor makes a change that will force the student portal to update also? It would be great if there was a way to avoid conflicting information going forward. 

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hi there, @HSchaefer ...

It's great that you and @lshulman are having this discussion.  (I might be wrong, but I don't believe lshulman works for Instructure...as Instructure employees typically have a separate icon next to their usernames here in the Community.)  However, after reading through your initial posting here and specifically your last paragraph, this would need to be re-posted as a feature idea suggestion as an enhancement to Canvas.  Feature ideas are just one of several different ways that Instructure (not Infrastructure) gathers feedback from us as end users to get a feel for what we would like to see implemented in the core Canvas product.  The area to submit your idea can be found at:

• Canvas Ideas - Instructure Community

I'd also encourage you to look at these Guides:

• What is the feature development process for Instru... - Instructure Community - 469504
• How do Ideas work in the Instructure Community? - Instructure Community - 2980
• What are the guidelines for submitting a new idea? - Instructure Community - 535609
• How do I create a new idea in the Instructure Comm... - Instructure Community - 2986

I hope these links will be of some help to you.  If you post your idea, please come back to this thread to provide a link to it so others know where to find it.  Thanks!

[lshulman]

First: why is this issue placed in the community for Discussion Redesign? How is this related to Discussion Redesign.

But to address the issue: this seems like a Professor error. The instructions for the quiz sound like manually added directions composed by a person (a teacher role responsibility).

The professor who changed the quiz setting to allow just one attempt, should have then updated the instructions. 

[HSchaefer]

I completely agree that this sounds like a professor issue and if they change the parameters, they should follow through with changing the instructions and what is visible to the student. I have also notified the professor and the Dept Chair of Education. 

I was directed to post here by the front desk of Infrastructure. I had called the university advising group who then referred me to Infrastructure. The reason your front desk person directed me to post on the redesign discussion was to suggest a way to streamline this going forward; to ask if there is a way to force a professor to be transparent with their changes or automate changes to data/parameters to reflect in the student view. Would like to avoid further discrepancies between what Canvas tells students and how professors have actually set the parameters. 

[lshulman]

So you want Canvas to display a reminder notice for the teacher to "review and, if necessary, update instructions to reflect changes in settings."

This would display when instructor hits "save" changes.

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hi there, @HSchaefer ...

It's great that you and @lshulman are having this discussion.  (I might be wrong, but I don't believe lshulman works for Instructure...as Instructure employees typically have a separate icon next to their usernames here in the Community.)  However, after reading through your initial posting here and specifically your last paragraph, this would need to be re-posted as a feature idea suggestion as an enhancement to Canvas.  Feature ideas are just one of several different ways that Instructure (not Infrastructure) gathers feedback from us as end users to get a feel for what we would like to see implemented in the core Canvas product.  The area to submit your idea can be found at:

• Canvas Ideas - Instructure Community

I'd also encourage you to look at these Guides:

• What is the feature development process for Instru... - Instructure Community - 469504
• How do Ideas work in the Instructure Community? - Instructure Community - 2980
• What are the guidelines for submitting a new idea? - Instructure Community - 535609
• How do I create a new idea in the Instructure Comm... - Instructure Community - 2986

I hope these links will be of some help to you.  If you post your idea, please come back to this thread to provide a link to it so others know where to find it.  Thanks!

[ProfessorBeyrer · Accepted solution]

Making it more obvious that an instructor has changed assignment settings is important for students to see, @HSchaefer, and @Chris_Hofer makes a good suggestion to propose that as an idea. However, the number of attempts is displayed alongside the other Canvas settings. Here is a screenshot of an assignment with one allowed attempt:

Assignment with one allowed attempt.

The same is true of quizzes.

In my own classes I've made the mistake of changing the number of attempts allowed for assignments and quizzes and neglected to change the assignment/quiz instructions (the same thing happens with due dates), and I belatedly switched to not mentioning that information and letting the automatically displayed info from Canvas take care of letting students know.