E-mail Confirmation Upon Assignment Submission

(31)
It would be very useful to have Canvas generate an automated e-mail response when I submit an assignment through the assignment page. This is a feature that my University's legacy system had in place and was very beneficial, especially when issues with submission arose, the e-mail confirmation was a nice comfort blanket to know that my assignment had successfully submitted.
69 Comments
Jeff_F
Community Champion

Do we see this as an option within notification preferences?  Perhaps also give the admin the option of enabling it. 

But perhaps first look at the assignment submission process to ascertain why there are so many concerns.  That is, address the cause of the concern vs. creating a solution outright.

m_johnson
Community Novice

Completely agree - its one less thing for me to have to worry about.  I'm surprised that there isn't an automatic acknowledgement, it seems like me to be a basic requirement.  If students know that they should get a notification of submission then they know to contact me in the event of a problem, rather than every time.  Another feature that might be useful would be to be able to email all students who have submitted (or have not submitted) in one go manually.

jsparks
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

Hello Friends,

We don't have an update at this time, but we are looking at this for future development--just not in the next few months.  Stay tuned for more information.

Jason

jsparks
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

Just wanting to provide an update:  The team is working furiously on the Modern Quizzing Engine​. I recommend we archive this idea for now. I've added this to my product backlog for future consideration.

Regards,

Jason

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team
  Idea is currently in Product Radar Learn more about this stage...

moja
Community Novice

An email would be nice as proof of submission if something went wrong, but a "Submission Successful!" note after they uploaded or posted their work would be great for that moment.  Students report that they have no idea if their work was submitted or not, and forcing them to go check their email in a few minutes doesn't really solve that problem.

schenk
Community Explorer

Any news on this one? We recently moved over from Blackboard Learn, where they had just added this functionality, which was a higly requested feauture by our students.

Now we've moved them over to Canvas and they are practically rioting because this functionality is no longer available to them. 

I would love to see this functionality implemented, because of how much students want this, which therefore makes it a higher priority than other functionalities, in my opinion. After all, with a LMS, it's about making the customer happy.

Björn

chastinec
Community Contributor

+1

Has there been any movement on this?

 @wannerj ‌ just inquired about this being an option a few days ago. I think it would be a great addition and there is already something similar in the system for Instructors/Admin so it should be fairly simple to implement as a student notification option.

272091_submission notification.png

dheup
Community Participant

As a teacher, I would also like to the ability to get email notification for one assignment and not "all or nothing" like it is now. For example, if I have a project made of of 5 assignments, I just want an email when the last assignment is turned in, not all 5.

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team

The Radar idea stage has been removed from the Feature Idea Process.  You can read more about why in the blog post Adaptation: Feature Idea Process Changes.

 

This change will only impact the stage sort of this idea and will not change how it is voted on or how it is considered during prioritization activities.  This change will streamline the list of ideas 'open for voting', making it easier for you to see the true top voted ideas in one sort, here.

amunson
Community Novice

Twice in the last year I've had students claim they submitted an assignment before the due date/time but there has been no record in Canvas that they even opened the assignment. I do not believe that the students were lying, but I do think they were mis-remembering (probably thinking about a different assignment that they had submitted).

We went through the Canvas logs to trace the students' activity and were unable to confirm that the student had opened the assignment. The student even asked us to look at their browser logs, which also confirmed they had not navigated to the assignment page before the due date/time. This took a lot of time and effort and still the student insisted that they remembered doing the work and that Canvas has lost it. It left many people very tired and frustrated.

I know there is a submission confirmation screen that students see (which is great!), but that is a transient notice; they cannot produce that for an instructor at a later time. An e-mail to the student's account that an assignment has been submitted is something that they could produce as documentation that they had submitted the assignment. That would have saved a lot of time, effort, and argument.

We get e-receipts for just about everything these days (including from our testing software when an exam has been uploaded). It would really help faculty and students to have some independent, external documentation from what we see within the confines of Canvas.

crogers
Community Novice

Hi Bjorn, 

Some of the posts above mention the possibility of students altering the emails. Is this something that you ever experienced, or does Blackboard have a way to combat it? 

Thanks!

schenk
Community Explorer

Hi,

they had unique IDs for the confirmation e-mails in the backend, so it wasn't possbile to forge e-mails for submissions that had not actually happened. There are some pitfalls with submission notifications for sure, but the question is what the conflict resulotion procedures are in cases where a student claims to have submitted an assignment and the associated penalties. If there really is an issue where a student hasn't entered on time but are claiming they have, I would just give them the option to hand in immediately once. If one and the same person regularly comes with such issues I would take a harder stance and trust in the system being correct.

rrafferty
Community Member

I teach public speaking. Quite often the time between submission and feedback can be anywhere from a few minutes up to four days.  Having the ability to provide specific messages that remind students of the turnaround time and to encourage them to work on other assignments (rather than waiting around), would be a huge benefit for my students. 

 

I wonder about the status is of this idea?  Does it have enough traction to move forward?  

awilliams
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

Hi  @rrafferty  Welcome to the Canvas Community! To answer your last question, the vote total plays a part in the Community input our Product Team receives, but it does not directly translate to "traction." You can read a lot more about this in What is the feature development process for Canvas? 

However, thinking about the situation you described, I am not sure if this idea would necessarily be the best solution to help you motivate students to work on future assignments while they await feedback during the turnaround time. Have you considered using the "Message Students Who" functionality of the Gradebook described in How do I send a message to my students from the Gradebook? I am thinking you could use this on assignments that come after the one you are currently reviewing to remind the students who have not turned in that assignment to work on it as you grade the current one. I hope this helps, and again, welcome to the Community!

rrafferty
Community Member

Hi Adam,

While I appreciate your response, it does not solve my issue. I already use the "Message Students Who" in the grade-book, but it's almost always a an after-the-fact message. My primary goal is not motivation to work on assignments, but to remind students that (a) I received their submission, (b) that my feedback may be up to four days, and (c) suggest they continue working on other parts of the course.

I know that students receive a confirmation green check mark but I still get questions about a submission coming through, and, despite syllabus content that clearly spells out the feedback cycle, students still message me wanting to know why their assignment has not been graded.

Using an auto-response set-up with customized messages would go a long way toward reducing unnecessary back and forth with students and would help to calm students who are worried about submissions and feedback.

?Dr. Richard Rafferty

Adjunct Faculty

Pierce College

p: (360) 400-3761

a: Stone Education Center, JBLM, Bldg 6242

w: www2.pierce.ctc.edu/military/ e: rrafferty@pierce.ctc.edu

lesley_cryderma
Community Contributor

This is exactly right. I'm dumbfounded that this is not an option yet! It seems like such a "duh" idea!

yangby15
Community Novice

To receive an email confirmation is vital. It is like receiving a receipt at the store. We have proof of submission if we have an email to confirm it. The lack of this function doesn't make sense. What is the reasoning? 

hangerls
Community Explorer

For professors to be able to compose their own email message that students receive upon completion of a quiz or assignment would be a tremendous move forward!

We have a mandatory course with many quizzes that new students must complete based on their previous coursework and major. Students must complete different quizzes based on their quiz results. Many times they do not have time to move immediately to the next quiz and receiving an email will provide them with a reminder and instructions for what they need to do next.

Our previous LMS had "actions" that could be set based on specified criteria. It worked great for us!

In addition, as one other member stated a simple email confirmation to the student removes a lot of doubt and reassures students, they can prove they submitted, irrespective of any (very unlikely) problems within Canvas itself. Always good to have a receipt on submitting an important piece of work.

Please reconsider adding this functionality to Canvas. It will only make it better!

kate-torno
Community Novice

I have had a number of students ask for this.  Sometimes it's because there is discrepancy later (even next semester) whether grade was fair and whether final assignment was turned in or not.  Sometimes it's because students are not on computer that makes it easy to see that submitted message,etc.