[Assignments] Assign to everyone except selected students

There are some assignments that go out to the majority of my students except one or two per class. It would be great to be able to assign to "everyone" and then have a button to select which students are exempt from the assignment.

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166 Comments
Steven_S
Community Champion

A quick upload to adjust accommodations for various students one assignment at a time would be an interesting idea, but I think you might consider supporting https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/16031-special-accommodations-settings-at-student-level which would apply those student specific settings to all assignments automatically after they are set up once for the course. 

anna_sever
Community Member

Canvas currently limits the ability to support our most needy students by not allowing differentiation in Assignments. It is time consuming for a teacher to enter all 25 students individually so as to not assign it to the student who doesnt require it. This feature would be so helpful!

philip_betts
Community Novice

I had to hunt around a bit for the answer because there's a lot of not up-to-date info out there, but it looks like you can do it this way since the introduction of the New Gradebook?:

How do I change the status of a submission in the Gradebook? 

It's not done with the assigning feature, but against the student's entry in the Gradebook - you can set the student to Excuse on a per quiz or assignment basis, and it completely drops the task from their Total.

 @anna_sever , awedwards,  @burford_furman ,  @dbudzyns 

sara_samples
Community Novice

this does not prevent the student from seeing the assignment, it just keeps

them from submitting work to the assignment. which results in students

completing assignments that they should not have been doing, and then being

unable to submit anything, which is actually the worst, most confusing

situation possible.

On Thu, Jul 2, 2020 at 1:23 AM philip.betts@uts.edu.au <

lshulman
Community Participant

Sara, I found the effective way to keep the student from even seeing the assignment they don't have to do, is to make another "assign" to (edit the assignment) for the excepted student(s). Set their "available until" date to a date before the class even starts. 

cathy_wilkey
Community Novice

I love the idea!  I've done the same thing that Laura Shulman just suggested, but it would be great if we didn't have to make another assignment and assign those few students.  It's a bit of work and time consuming!

alexfischer
Community Explorer

Seriously, I'd be happy with an overhsul of the student selector. I'd

rather x out students I don't need,than type all the students I do.

On Thu, Jul 2, 2020, 8:12 PM cathy.wilkey@besd.net <instructure@jiveon.com>

sara_samples
Community Novice

yeah see the thing is I know and have been using the "work arounds" like

the assignment dates, but the point is that we should not have to be

manipulating the system with workarounds when the option to just do it

properly could be implemented.

Students can see the assignments they are excused from in their gradebook.

On Thu, Jul 2, 2020 at 8:23 PM alexfischer@lindberghschools.ws <

hai
Community Member

Same thought, this feature + print quiz feature + implement Turnitin in Quizzes. These features have been open for voting for years and yet, no action taken.

jbielecki
Community Participant

My problem is that I need to accommodate some students with double time on a timed quiz. I don't think there's a way to change the time for one student (right?), so I've had to set up a second, separate assignment with double time and assign it to just that student. That works, but I then need to unassign that student from the original quiz. The only way I have been able to do that is to *manually* assign it to every student in the course other than the one being accommodated. What I'm hoping for is something like the "Everyone Else" option, but it seems the only time we get the option for "Everyone Else" is when an individual student has been assigned a different due date in the same quiz.

Just spitballing, I was thinking I could assign this quiz to that student with a one-minute due date window, effectively ensuring the student won't use this assignment and giving me the option to use "Everyone Else." The only problem is that if it is assigned to that student, it will show up in the gradebook, so these points (two separate quizzes) will be in the gradebook twice for this student.

Part of my reason for wanting this unassign capability is that I don't get these accommodations memos all at once. They come in one by one, many before drop/add ends, and I'd like to set this up as the memos come in. However, manually adding everyone else's name (as noted above) before drop/add ends could mean I leave out someone who adds the class after I do this.  

Currently, it seems my best option is to wait until drop/add ends (so I have a final roster of students in the course) and then and only then manually add, one by one, all students except those being accommodated to the assignment. Unassigning an individual student would be a better option for me.

Thanks!