Disable Student Comments on Closed Assignment

[lnick]

It would be a useful tool to be able to disallow student comments to closed/past the due date assignments. Students are trying to comment with google doc links thinking I will grade that even though the work is late. It also clogs my Canvas emails and makes it hard to find comments that might actually need addressing.

[Setareh]

I have exactly the same problem. It is strange that there is no option to disable comments/attachments after the due date!

[ProfessorD]

I too want to turn these comments off; I've read through the notification advice etc., but I prefer students email me directly with questions about their grades. I've had students write comments that I've never seen and then state in my evaluations I never reply to them. Why can't this simply be toggled off? 

[Olaf_]

Hello,

I want also an option that no comments could be given by students during the hand-in period.

For my colleagues, this is a reason for complaining the old system was better.

Thanks for your time.

Regards,

Olaf

[JessicaShumake]

Several of my students are routinely going into the 'grade' item for an assignment and then clicking on "add a comment," which enables them to upload assignment files after a published deadline has closed in Canvas.

The loophole means that when I assign a zero for a missing assignment, students will then tell me during class that they accidentally uploaded the work as a comment rather than using the required assignment submission area. The student's assignment files are technically there—that is visible to me and the student—in Canvas as a comment.

What this means, in practice, is that there is no technical way for me to lock an assignment once a submission deadline has passed. I would like to prevent the loophole of students uploading assignments, as comments, after deadlines because it is not fair that some students are exploiting the comment feature by routinely uploading files after deadlines and then feigning that it was an accident.

In my humble opinion, it should not be technically possible for students to upload assignment files as comments in the gradebook, after a deadline.

I understand that I can refuse to accept work submitted as a comment; however, I do not want to engage in heated debates about grades or to write syllabus policies that forbid exploiting this Canvas loophole. There has to be a technical solution to this human problem: disable the upload of files as comments in the gradebook after a submission deadline has passed.

[sdstephney]

Yeah, it'd definitely be nice to have this as an option.

I had an instructor complain that a student attach a file as an attempted assignment submission on an Assignment that was clearly labeled by the Canvas system as well past the due date. I totally get that this situation is resolved by an instructor simply not accepting the attempt to submit past the due date via the comments box, but it'd be even better that the student to simply not have that opportunity to do so.

[JessicaShumake]

@sdstephney if an instructor does not accept the work and then the student files a formal grade grievance with the institution, I wonder what the grievance committee would decide. I prefer not be the instructor who is the bellwether in such a grievance, as my school in a new adopter of Canvas.

I wonder if anyone at Canvas thinks this comments loophole is a feature rather than a bug. It looks like the suggested option we're discussing has been languishing in the Ideas Exchange for years now.

What's do instructors have to do to get this issue fixed? Perhaps I can begin advocating a switch to D2L at my institution. I used D2L for over a decade, at another institution, without the LMS working against the instructor by allowing assignment submissions past the due date.

[Gregory_Putman]

This was not a problem in Blackboard Learn that I was just recently migrated away from.

As mentioned above the ability to post files at will after deadlines have passed negates any use of having an actual deadline.  Also makes the option to restrict file types accepted completely useless.

I'm not sure that anyone involved in any of the LMS on the market really appreciate how many students do this sort of thing when possible.  This is very much akin to not accessing work, missing deadlines, then claiming that they clearly remember doing the work and receiving a grade for it but not it is missing to it must have "somehow been deleted," or "maybe my internet connection was flaky when I submitted," or other similar.  (I need more detailed student and TA tracking info, too, but that is another conversation.)

I have the option to disable student comments on announcements that I post - not sure why that was a thing but at least it is an option for me to use or not. 

Options are great - they let me customize the LMS to fit my particular course.  I have many sections of multiple physics laboratory classes, typically up to 30 sections of 6 to 8 courses with up to 800 students and a staff of 30 TAs that I need to be able to keep track of at all times...  at least some aspects.  There are too many different options for conversations.  Conversations are important but with too many options it gets confusing for me and for the students to know what to discuss where, when, with whom we are actually to expect to communicate with.

For my situations in my laboratory courses, assignments need grading rubrics and grading feedback from TA/me only.  Student questions and comments need to discussed in office hours or via one communication channel - email or one messaging forum.  Quizzes need my built in feedback and TA feedback from manually graded items.  All other conversation needs to be in office hours or from the same communication channel as assignments.  It is actually frustrating to have useful conversations about physics concepts, math, lab procedures and observations, etc., in the comment area or in chats at all, so being able to limit that will save student effort, time, and frustration by providing fewer but more useful options for communication.

[rhurtado2]

Comments from Instructure

As part of the new Ideas & Themes process, all ideas in Idea Conversations were reviewed by the Product Team. Any Idea that was associated with an identified theme was moved to the new Idea & Themes space. Any Idea that was not part of the move is being marked as Archived. This will preserve the history of the conversations while also letting Community members know that Instructure will not explore the request at this time.