Bulk change assignment status

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(48)

Can we add a function to bulk change assignment status?

I'm teaching in a HyFlex module currently. For each class meeting, I create an assignment. Students who have attended in person will be given the points; students who missed the class will be able to watch a recording of it, then submit written response within a week to contribute.

Problem is for the students who attended in person and are given a complete grade without them having to submit anything. Once the due date has passed, they are flagged as "missing", even though they have technically completed the assignment (by attending). It's difficult to visually see how students are doing when everything is labeled "missing".

This use case cannot be solved by Canvas simply by removing the status when a grade is given, since it's possible that a late status needs to be preserved. Therefore, we need a way to bulk change assignments for multiple students.

49 Comments
Logan-1
Community Member

I agree with the need for a bulk change!

The "Missing" label is very frustrating because it only shows up for native assignments, not external tools. Since I use a mix of these, it often appears at first glance that only the native assignments are missing. This is confusing and misleading, but it takes a lot of time to individually change the assignment status. A bulk change option would be great!

I also would like to be able to just remove the "Late" mark as a whole - I put due dates on the assignments so that they are on the Calendar (in an effort to help students stay organized), but do not care if they are turned in past that date. However, it looks alarming (and sometimes demoralizing) to students and their adults. However, I would be content with a bulk change option!!

JenniferSelvin
Community Novice

Sometimes most of a class will turn in an assignment late because of I've screwed something up. I would love it if there were a bulk edit to just mark all students' work on time rather than having to go student by student.

LeticiaMolina
Community Member

I thought there was something I was missing because it just doesn't make sense to not have this option.  My coworkers and I had even spent hours trying to figure it out.  Maybe a "select all"  function with the option to click on individual ones to unselect.

sevenad
Community Novice

Canvas:  I would love to be able to choose both submission types ( "on paper" AND "online")   As when you choose "on paper," once you grade the assignment, the "missing label" goes away.  However, when you have the "online" option, if you grade the assignment the "missing" label does not go away until the students turns in a link. 

teachers looking for workaround: My work around is giving students a text box and a link option.  My in person students type in "did on paper" into the text box.  OR I have students take a photo of the last page of the assignment with my signature showing that they did check their work with me.  

Stef_retired
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

@sevenad You've described a different idea that is a long standing topic of conversation at this actively monitored thread:  Allow Multiple Submission Types on the Same Assign...

mlbalmeo
Community Member

I absolutely agree. Having students in the same class in person and online has made the statuses impossible to manage. Once an assignment receives a grade, it should no longer be missing, regardless of whether or not something was submitted. At the very least, I should be able to open an "Edit statuses" menu like I can with assignment dates and change all to the same status.

kregwelch
Community Member

This really needs to be an option for our teachers!  Students and parents are easily confused by the missing status when their child (attending a Hybrid class) turns in their assignment physically to their teacher but Canvas recognizes it as missing because an electronic copy was not submitted.  We have tried having students type a quick response into the text box (I turned this in to my teacher on "date"), but they don't always remember.

It is so time consuming to go to each individual student and mark the assignments as not missing, that it really isn't worth their time.

AS81
Community Explorer

I would like to be able to mass assign the "Missing" or "Excused" grade labels.

It's easy to mass assign the points using the default grade, but I want the missing assignments actually marked missing so students know they haven't submitted anything.

eddie_bonetdiaz
Community Explorer

I was just trying to add excused or swap the Missing for Nones and started thinking "this is too time consuming, I wonder if someone knows if there's a feature that can make the process easier?"

Here we are though, unfortunately, it looks like there is no solution yet. I guess I'll keep wasting time for the time being.

petersonj
Community Novice

Just finished our first midterm and I thought to myself maybe this issue has a new solution or work around.  Sad to see it is still an issue.  Seems to me this would be something every teacher would appreciate.

kyliharris
Community Member

I cannot believe this feature hasn't already been added. I am a teacher and this has been an issue brought up in the faculty room several times. The issue is: I want students to be able to submit an assignment to me on paper, but for students who are absent on the due date (due to sickness and other reasons), I want them to be able to submit an assignment online by uploading a file. However, by enabling this option for students, it appears to mark all of the students who submitted their assignments in person as "missing".

There really needs to be a setting in canvas that allows teachers to change the status of assignments from "missing" to "none" all at once, so you do not have to change each student's individual assignment status. This has been a big problem to me as a teacher because I have students emailing me telling me they already handed in their assignment in person. I had to tell them to ignore the "missing" status and that they will know if it is missing because I will enter in a "0" in Canvas if I didn't receive it in person or online. It would be so much better if students didn't have big red letters on every assignment saying "missing". This feature needs to be added ASAP, as there have been several teacher complaints about it at my school.

 

Thanks for reading!

stacy_stockseth
Community Member

Currently a Missing or Late label is automatically applied once a due date has passed.  If the teacher has a paper submission, an item may have been turned in, but it is marked as "Missing" in Canvas.  The teacher then has to go into each student individually and turn this label off.  

 

Suggested solution:  Allow teacher to control the labels, rather than having them automated (or allow for the choice).  

DYLANBARNARD
Community Member

This is a basic need that us classroom teachers need.  Currently I have to fix the missing and late status on the back end in my SIS system.  

Please change 🙂

shelli_barnum
Community Member

It would be really great to have an auto-fill option selecting none, missing, late, etc to go along with the scores. 

For example: I have an assignment that is completed in class. Students who are in class do not need to submit anything because they are in class to complete the assignment and the score is earned. However, students who miss class that day need to do the assignment at home, then they need to submit online on Canvas. Canvas automatically marks the students who were in class as no submission. I need to be able to auto-change those in-class students to "none" rather that "missing". It is VERY time-consuming to change each student manually.

megande
Community Member

Please!! Removing the missing status right now is a MASSIVE pain!

I have my students turn in their notes at the end of each chapter and I set all of my assignments up as "file submission" because I like giving them the option to submit pictures so they can keep their packet the whole time but most of my students prefer to just turn it in on paper rather than take pictures of all the pages. Now I'm having to manually change 100s of scores to remove the "missing" status. It wastes so much of my time. 😞

(Because I know what a pain it is, I even shared a file with my students that was just an image that says "turned in on paper" and told them to submit it to Canvas so that their assignments aren't marked missing but only one or two students actually do that)

ksbsroy
Community Member

I also have teachers asking for this functionality.  Sometimes a student is unable to turn in their assignment the way the assignment is set up, and even once it is graded it is marked as Missing or Late.  And the comment about all the Missing work when students change sections is also pertinent in our district.

Please proceed with development of this feature.

ProfeMartinez
Community Member

I have noticed that when a student submits an assignment late, we can adjust its late days. Is there a way when grading by INDIVIDUAL STUDENT to change the status from Missing to Late to NONE, etc. Right now I have to go back into the gradebook and go through each assignment and each student. It would be nice to just do it right away. This should be a feature in both the assignment Speed grader and when clicking from a student's individual assignments grades.

juliadewees
Community Explorer

This is essential; it would save teachers considerable time to be able to bulk change statuses. 

resartoris
Community Participant

Yes - this would make every teacher's work so much more efficient!

michelle_nunale
Community Member

My school is set up for grading periods, so I have to include due dates on all of my assignments. I would love to be able to bulk update status so that my students do not see "Missing" for optional extra credit assignments. An alternative solution would be to allow grading periods to be based on the available until date instead of the due date! Please make one of these possible!