Disable "What If" Feature

[lindsay_henry]

As helpful as the "what if" feature can be, many students become obsessed with their grade as they create hypothetical situations that lead to "grade grubbing".  We all know too well the "I needed a 92 on the project to have an A and I was only one point away so is there anything I can do?" situation with a student.  

I propose that teachers have the capability of disabling this feature.

#mhs

Comments from Instructure

Thank you for your thoughts and participation around this request. It is never fun to hear about cheating or ways in which individuals abuse trust. We feel that the intended use of this feature is extremely valuable and continue to hear so from students. At this time we are not planning on removing or disabling “what if” functionality within Canvas.

This has been a good conversation, and the conversation can continue, but we will now close this idea for voting. It will remain in the Canvas Studio space, so there will not be a need for resubmission or re-vote of this idea. It has been considered and we have given an official response, even if it is not the one you were hoping for. Thank You.

[chriscas]

Just to add-on to what  @kmeeusen ‌ already listed, there was a "Project Khaki 2015" with much the same purpose as 2017 (and actually helped a bit to shape the current Canvas community site) which I participated in.

While I agree it can be frustrating to see an idea with a decent number of votes turned down by Instructure, I also prefer the openness and honesty in the process.  As a Canvas admin at our institution, I often find myself in a position where things have to be looked at with three different perspectives in mind (the student, the faculty, and the institutional policies).  Oftentimes there is not one decision that will make everyone happy, but in the end I think we are almost always trying to help our students.  Instructure also has other things to consider when looking at features (product complexity and development time/cost), so these decisions have to be even harder for them.  While I do love to have options available, I also appreciate simplicity and know that an LMS that has too many options can become more frustrating for faculty to use and will decrease satisfaction.

For this particular request, I did down-vote because in my own analysis I think the "what if" feature is a definitely a positive thing for students, and I honestly don't see too much benefit to disabling it.  Many others have a different opinion, but with 67 down-votes total, it's pretty clear to me that there is not universal agreement around this idea among the community members here, let alone the larger overall Canvas user base.

[blchitty]

I appreciate your insight, however the request was to give teachers the ability to disable it. Not to disable it all together. 

[laurakgibbs]

There is definitely some overlap between the un-grading movement and other grading reform efforts... and ANY switch in grading practices is an opportunity to have these conversations with teachers and students. Whatever direction people end up choosing, just having the conversation to acknowledge the difficult choices people make is worthwhile IMO. 🙂

[Renee_Carney]

 @sbailey  

You'll also notice that there are many ideas below the 250-300 vote mark.  We earnestly look at all ideas!

[sbailey]

I understand from previous posts that many will disagree, but I am a proponent of academic freedom and the ability to allow others to teach/manage a class different than what I think is "best".

I also understand that there may be other reasons why Canvas chose not to adopt this idea (tech, coding, etc...).  I do appreciate that Canvas has advised that the idea is dead instead of hiding their decision.

[Renee_Carney]

 @sbailey  

Thank you for being an awesome member of this community!  It is difficult to navigate conversations where there are opposing or differing opinions and perspectives and you have just shown us how it's done well!  We appreciate your honesty and passion, but most of all we appreciate your humanity, here!

[wdunlop]

Absolutely agree! Honestly, to go one step further, this is a feature instructors SHOULD have available, and we do not. In order to advise students we as instructors must hide items in the gradebook and just start plugging numbers to determine “what if” before the official Withdrawal Dates. This happens nearly every semester. Oh- and I recently discovered that students get notices that we are making changes, but cannot see them as long as we hid them. However, how anxiety-provoking is THAT! 

[khellyer]

Thanks for this response. I especially appreciate the resources on grading!

[laurakgibbs]

I keep adding new stuff there as I find it. And if you ask students about grading, they will have plenty to say. It's a guaranteed discussion-starter! 🙂

[dkamelhar]

Hey everyone, I see this idea sort of died in the voting stages. I am trying to get it revived. 

Please click on the link and vote for it now and share it with your Canvas friends. Lets try again and see if we can get this passed. Canvasocrocy at its best !!!!!

https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/13230-what-if

[dkamelhar]

I think this feature is crucial for the teachers and students.

I wanted to suggest at least a check box option with in the class to allow teachers to disable this feature. Lets say we are 2 weeks into a semester and a student get a 100 and 90 on 2 assignments. Now they can be come obsessed with this "what if" feature and feel like they are running a 95 avg when there is still plenty more semester to go. If the teacher was allowed to enable this feature lets say 8 weeks into the semester it would reflect a more accurate grade with more viable data.

I think this idea should be brought back up for more discussion and voting. 

[sarah_boutin]

I received an email from an unhappy parent earlier this week complaining that we need to disable this as the student configured the grades to make it look like overdue assignments were submitted and graded. Please fix this so that teachers can disable it. Thanks!

[jayde_colquhoun]

Just to add a different take on this, my institution has turned off the totals column in the gradebook across all courses as a policy determined by registry, so the What If feature is confusing and purposeless for our students. The option to turn it off would mean we wouldn't have make bespoke training guides for students that lamely tell them that the What If feature isn't relevant (and even so we STILL get lots of student queries because they are confused as to what it means).

Comment from Renee Carney

Correy Murphy This is a unique case/policy and we may have a solution to help in this scenario.  I have contacted your CSM.

 @Renee_Carney ‌  @ahanner ‌ - we will also be turning off the totals column in all courses for students based on policy determined by our registry. Renee mentioned this is a unique case/ policy and may have a solution to help - could we hear about this solution also? Thank you 

[c_murphy]

I'm still waiting to hear about this solution as my CSM doesn't know anything about it! 😞 

[Renee_Carney]

Hi  @c_murphy .  I was in contact with your CSM last night.  He now has the resource he needs to help you out.

[ArcherTech]

So is this possible to have it enable/disable by teachers or admin?

This has become a huge problem for our school.

I have reached out to our CSM but just wondering if it's a possibility or not. 

[tcampbell1]

Agreed on having the ability to enable/disable, either per course or per user.