Why is unlocking a quiz for one student so ridiculously complicated

[hlcark]

Scenario: one student misses a quiz. The availability window has passed.  You want to open the quiz for that one student, and give them exactly one more day in which to open and take their quiz.  This comes up ALL THE TIME.

Please look at how Populi does this: you are able to go to the quiz, click "add an exception" to the "availability", and give a specific amount of time extension to one student.  Done.

From what I've been able to find (and I've spent almost over an hour trying to figure this out), on Canvas, you have to:

1. Go to "moderate the quiz", act like you want to give the student an extra attempt (no I don't, they get one attempt once they open the quiz, so already this is counter-intuitive, and now by their name it says they get two attempts (?) when they haven't even taken the quiz yet), and click "manually unlock the quiz for the next attempt", but checking that box doesn't accomplish manually unlocking the quiz, and there is no clarification on how to do that.

2. Create a new quiz?????  

3. Then assign the quiz to just that one student????

4. Or don't create a new quiz, and assign the existing quiz to just that one student?  But that doesn't make sense either.

Is this for real?  

This is crazy!  Was this purposefully created to be as difficult as possible?

Or am I missing something?  Please tell me I'm missing something.

And to figure this out you have to read through like five pages of tutorials, none of which tell you the whole answer, and each of which give you several scenarios that are of no relevance to this question, so you are wading through words and not even knowing if you are getting the correct information.

[Chris_Hofer]

@hlcark ...

How many students do you have in your course?  I'm not sure if this would be a workable solution for you...but instead of using the "Moderate Quiz" feature of the quiz, have you considered using the "Assign to" option instead?  I am guessing that when you edit your quiz, your "Assign to" field probably says "Everyone".  But, if you didn't have a large number of students, you could click on the "+ Add" button and then add that specific student with access dates just for him/her, and then everyone else would have the normal access dates that you had originally set up.

In these Guides, Once I publish a quiz, how can I give my students ... - Instructure Community - 1242 (canvaslms.com) and Once I publish a timed quiz, how can I give my stu... - Instructure Community - 999 (canvaslms.com), they have information about how to add extra time to your quiz for a student.  But, this also assumes that your quiz was initially set to be timed.  However, you can add up to 1440 (24 hours) additional time for a current attempt for a student to take the quiz.

If you were wanting to test any of this out to verify for yourself it any of it might meet your needs, you can sign in to your school's "test" environment.  (You normally sign in to your school's "production" Canvas environment.)  The "test" environment is an environment separate from "production" in that you can do any testing and "playing around" that you want to test things out...without disturbing anything in your "production" environment.  I always encourage people to be sure to sign out of the "test" environment before returning to your "production" environment...just so you don't get confused as to which environment you are working in.  Here are a few helpful links for you:

• What is the Canvas test environment?
• How do I access the Canvas test environment as an instructor?
• How do I log out of Canvas as an instructor?

I hope this information might be of some help to you.  Any questions...just let us know here in the Community...thanks!

[hlcark]

Chris,

Thank you for this answer.  I can see that if I click "Add", I can add a student and give them a specific availability window..so, then do I also need to give them an extra attempt?  Because one of the initial tutorials I read indicated that the extra attempt was the way to allow a student to take a quiz after the availability had closed.  Or did I just accidentally allow my student to take the quiz twice? 

For future reference, the first paragraph of your reply to me is exactly the information that I needed, whereas this guide that you recommend (Once I publish a quiz, how can I give my students ... - Instructure Community - 1242 (canvaslms.com) is totally unhelpful, gives all irrelevant information, and on top of that is also confusing.  It was one of the first ones I initially read and I felt totally lost as a result. Just feedback for Canvas on that.  I am sure it's great for a very specific situation, but not for the problem I was trying to solve.   My quizzes are timed, and I do know how to add extra time.  That's not the problem I was trying to solve.

As far as the "testing" environment, I think I have been stuck in that for a few weeks now.  Every time I go to my roster, there is a "test student", and when I try to view my quizzes, Canvas has me viewing them as if I am a student, the timer starts, etc.  I actually want to be viewing my quizzes as a faculty member, I want to be able to see my correct answers that I've entered, etc.  I have never been able to figure out how to do that and it's a little frustrating as well.  One of our instructional administrators who is well-versed in Canvas tried to help me figure out how to see my own correct answers in the quizzes that I created, and between us we couldn't figure it out (beyond going to the master shell, which is an extra step and a pain).  He deleted "test student" for me, but the next time I logged in, "test student" is back, and apparently Canvas still thinks that I am "test student".  Ugh.

I will read the three (!) links about how to get out of "tester" mode, and hopefully figure out how to do that.

Again, thanks for the guidance.

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi again, @hlcark ...

Full disclosure, I am a Canvas administrator and do not teach courses, so my interpretations below may not be 100%, but I'll certainly try to be as accurate as possible:

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@hlcark wrote:

Chris,

Thank you for this answer.  I can see that if I click "Add", I can add a student and give them a specific availability window..so, then do I also need to give them an extra attempt?  Because one of the initial tutorials I read indicated that the extra attempt was the way to allow a student to take a quiz after the availability had closed.  Or did I just accidentally allow my student to take the quiz twice?

---

As I read through Once I publish a quiz, how can I give my students extra attempts?, it says (in the light blue box), "Moderating the quiz lets you allow extra attempts for individual students as well as multiple students at once. This option also allows you to grant extra attempts for students who have not yet taken the quiz." and also, "When extra attempts are given via the Moderate Quiz option, Canvas keeps the highest quiz score."  My interpretation of this is that you are giving "extra" (that seems to me to be the key word here) attempts beyond just the initial attempt.

---

For future reference, the first paragraph of your reply to me is exactly the information that I needed, whereas this guide that you recommend (Once I publish a quiz, how can I give my students ... - Instructure Community - 1242 (canvaslms.com) is totally unhelpful, gives all irrelevant information, and on top of that is also confusing.  It was one of the first ones I initially read and I felt totally lost as a result. Just feedback for Canvas on that.  I am sure it's great for a very specific situation, but not for the problem I was trying to solve.   My quizzes are timed, and I do know how to add extra time.  That's not the problem I was trying to solve.

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If you are having difficulty with any of the written Guides here in the Community, the Canvas Community team has a way for you to give them feedback so that they can review and revise anything for better clarification.  For example, if you look at the Guide I linked above, scroll down to the very bottom of that page.  You'll see a blue "Leave Feedback" button.  Click on that button, and you'll see a form appear that you can fill out specific to that Guide.  This gets submitted directly to the Documentation Team at Instructure (the folks that make Canvas), and they will review your comments to see if anything could be made clearer in that Guide.

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As far as the "testing" environment, I think I have been stuck in that for a few weeks now.  Every time I go to my roster, there is a "test student", and when I try to view my quizzes, Canvas has me viewing them as if I am a student, the timer starts, etc.  I actually want to be viewing my quizzes as a faculty member, I want to be able to see my correct answers that I've entered, etc.  I have never been able to figure out how to do that and it's a little frustrating as well.  One of our instructional administrators who is well-versed in Canvas tried to help me figure out how to see my own correct answers in the quizzes that I created, and between us we couldn't figure it out (beyond going to the master shell, which is an extra step and a pain).  He deleted "test student" for me, but the next time I logged in, "test student" is back, and apparently Canvas still thinks that I am "test student".  Ugh.

---

It sounds like you have some terminology mixed up here...and I'll admit, it is a little confusing.  The "Test Student" role you have been using is not the same as the "test" environment that I'm speaking of.  They are two completely different things.  The "Test Student" role allows you to see what your course would look like as a student.  How do I view a course as a test student using Student View?  You can use this as much or as little as you want within your Canvas "production" environment.  The "test" environment that I mentioned in my initial reply is an environment that is completely separate from your "production" environment.  You do not sign in to the "test" environment using the "Test Student" account.  Rather, you use a different URL to access the "test" environment...as outlined in the Guides I provided earlier.  For example, your school's Canvas URL would look similar to this:

• Production Environment -- https://SchoolName.instructure.com
• Test Environment -- https://SchoolName.test.instructure.com

Anything you do in the "test" environment will not be reflected in your "production" environment.  That's why it is called "test"...so you can "play around" in it without disturbing anything in your "production" environment.  This Guide details how often the "test", "beta" (yet another environment where new features can be previewed before they are released to "production"), and "production" environments are updated.

What is the Canvas release schedule for beta, production, and test environments?

I hope this additional information will be helpful to you.

[amheath]

Tangential to the main subject, but I just wanted to mention a reply to your statement that:

"when I try to view my quizzes, Canvas has me viewing them as if I am a student, the timer starts, etc.  I actually want to be viewing my quizzes as a faculty member, I want to be able to see my correct answers that I've entered, etc."

You'll need to "edit" the quiz to see what you want. In the classic quizzes there is a small option at the top of the question page that says "Show question details" that will expand all your questions so that you can see the options and correct answers.

[SusanNiemeyer]

Take a deep breath. You are making this far too complicated. You just need to "edit" your quiz and create a new box of dates. (Click on +ADD below the Assignment Box.) Then assign that student new dates. The original assignment box will say "everyone else." Done!

Do NOT create a new quiz. That will just mess up your Gradebook. You do NOT need to go into "Moderate Quiz" unless the student needs to retake the quiz.

When you need help, just ask for advice. 

[hlcark]

Susan,

I think you are trying to be helpful here; however, saying "take a deep breath" reads exactly the same as "calm down", which we all know has the opposite effect.  It is okay to feel frustration and to express that- I wasn't being abusive or name-calling.  I was trying to accomplish a task with a limited amount of time and found it exceedingly difficult to figure out how to do something that, on a different LMS, had been very simple.  That felt frustrating.  People get on here all the time and vent their annoyances with this system, as they do on every single software help site in existence.  Maybe it's not perfect human behavior, but I am a non-perfect human, just like you and everyone else. 

Also, "you are making this far too complicated" reads like a criticism and feels patronizing.

If you had taken a moment to read further, you would see that my question had already been answered in a neutral, non-reactive, helpful way by Chris Hofer, after which I asked some follow-up questions that he also answered. 

Finally, your last line, "When you need help, just ask for advice" is EXACTLY what I did here.

Just some feedback: your response would have felt helpful if you had narrowed it down to the part where you explained what to do.  The extra comments around that feel judgy, pathologizing, and condescending, and can serve to put people on the defensive.  

[PatriciaEamon]

Thank you for your calm reply to the passive aggressive response. Canvas needs to get its act together. I will truly say that, as a newly-tenured faculty with a large teaching load at a CC, I hate Canvas. I hate nearly everything about it, in particular how little control we have over it--it's not a tool, it's a mind-numbingly awful time-waster that never actually helps me do my job better. Working with it--and it's not an option not to now, which Canvas knows and therefore will never update/fix the system--has made me seriously consider quitting teaching.