[Assignments] Group Assignments - Display non-grouped student comments

[gladysie]

The issue:

For a Group Assignment, if a student does not belong to a group, neither they or the instructor will see comments left for the student in SpeedGrader or Submission Details.  However, the comments / attached file will appear in the student’s gradebook for the student and instructor and appear in the Inbox if filtering by Submission Comments.  Furthermore, when a student logs in, they will see they received a comment and clicking on the link will bring them to the Submission Details page, where they will not see any comments.  If the student submits a comment on the Submission Details page, it will not appear or give any type of error message.  The instructor will not see this comment in SpeedGrader or Submissions Details, but will see it in the Canvas Inbox.

Comments made while submitting by a non grouped student will exhibit similar behavior.  

Grades and rubrics can still be applied to students not in groups and are displayed everywhere you would expect them to be displayed.

This is not a case of needing to use “Assign Grades to Each Student Individually”.  Students in groups should still be graded and receiving comments as a group.

I was told that this inconsistent behavior is working as intended, so I am requesting that the “feature” of displaying comments and file attachments in SpeedGrader and Submission Details for students that are not in a group in a Group Assignment.

Why this matters:

Students often need to be removed from a group and finish an assignment independently for a variety of reasons.  Not being able to see the comments in SpeedGrader and Submission Details adds an additional burden to instructors and students.  SpeedGrader should be a one stop shop for instructors and Submission Details for students.    

It is also inconsistent design.  Our students are coached to check for feedback under the Submission Details, as instructors like to use a mix of rubrics, comments and annotations.  I'm not looking forward to updating our resources with "If its a group assignment and you're not in a group, check the Gradebook for comments, Submission Details for the rubric and annotations, and while you can comment under Submission Details, you won't see it, so check your inbox for a reply from your instructor, assuming they noticed it." 

To recreate:

Create a Group Assignment.  Enter SpeedGrader and comment on a student that is not in a Group.  You will not see a comment.  Go to that student’s Gradebook.  The comment will be attached to the assignment.  Go to Submission Details for that student.  You will not see the comment.  Impersonate the student and click on the notification from the homepage.  You’ll see it takes you to Submission Details, but no comment will be displayed.

My role:

Instructor, Canvas admin

[d_j_corbin]

Thank you for this suggestion, @gladysie and I completely agree! I was just about to create the same idea because one of our teachers had the same problem where they couldn't see their own comments on an assignment for a student that does not belong to a group. We have a case with Instructure on exactly this issue, Case #08049498.

@Stef_retired I cannot possibly see why it is intended that the teacher can neither see nor delete their own comments. There's got to be a better way for Instructure to do this.

Also, I don't see mention of this under the section about Group Assignments in Instructure's own guide. Perhaps Instructure should write that the comments cannot be seen or deleted, and where to find them in this case?

And if anyone knows the answer, please let me know how we can delete teacher comments for these submissions, without enabling "Assign grades to each student individually".

[Stef_retired]

@d_j_corbin  If you'd like to suggest changes to the documentation, please use the 'share your feedback' link directly under the lesson.

[d_j_corbin]

Ok, thanks!

[milesl]

Thanks for flagging this. Canvas has a lot of trouble handling group and individual submissions. See this related issue about graded discussions: Speedgrader support for ungrouped discussion posts - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com)

Canvas either needs to fix the issues, or block individual submissions to group assignments.

[d_j_corbin]

Thanks, @milesl ! I've just voted for your idea. Have you written about the problems with SpeedGrader support for ungrouped discussion posts in the Discussions Redesign group? You should add it as a new topic so your suggestion is included in the development process!