Import Grade Comments

[johnpj]

Problem:

Instructors need to upload comments for each student for an external assignment and have it displayed in the gradebook view for students.

Use Case:

This is especially significant when uploading assignment scores from an external system (student response "clicker" tools, Scantron services, external learning assessments). Often those external tools have a comments field with important details regarding the student's performance. In some cases the external system includes critical item information (e.g. "You answered A; The correct answer was B").

Proposed Solution:

1. Allow a comments field (column) in the gradebook import csv file.
2. Display the comment in a similar way that assignment comments are currently handled.
3. BONUS POINTS: Allow the comments to be exported in the Gradebook export csv

[kelsey]

Thank you for clarifying that this idea is -not- in the scope of the new gradebook. While this isn't welcome news, clarity on this point will help my colleagues and I determine our next steps.

[nhge]

I regularly teach classes of 450 students. I always provide students after midterm 2 with comments on how they do compare with midterm 1, where they stand in the class, and encouragement. I have accomplished this task very easily in the past with the homegrown LMS at UC Irvine by uploading their midterm scores together with comments. Such feedback is very important to student learning. It is very frustrating to see that Canvas does not provide such an important function in the gradebook and does not plan to include it in the new gradebook even after so many instructors asked for it so long ago. I cannot image that I will have to enter individual comments for every student in such a large class. This problem alone shows that switching to Canvas is a disaster for many instructors. I sincerely hope that Canvas will listen to the instructors and implement this important function ASAP.

[jsraquet]

As you can see this has been "on the radar" for years (YEARS!) with very little progress. I would have worked strongly to evaluate other LMS software before my University selected Canvas. This has been a disaster for us and there seems to be very little effort by Canvas to actually address the issue. I am not sure what else has a scope of priority nor what methods are used to decide the most important. If it is the number of responses I can send an eval and request of our faculty to provide feedback on the forum. Or direct the students who want to have comments posted with their grades to email Canvas directly with personal feedback. Let me know if anyone else would join the group.

Three years has been too long for any action. Please think wisely when selecting a new LMS and make sure this weakness is known by all before a decision is made by your institution.

[jhlieth]

It is rather odd that this is considered a feature request when it really more of a bug. There is already a place in the data for comments for each grade issued; Yet the data upload is defective in that the comment can only be populated with Speedgrader, and there is no automation for it.

As this now appears to be lost in the shuffle due to the silly popularity contest for each bug/suggestion, I have totally lost interest in this forum. It is clear that anything I need fixed will not be fixed before I retire.

[Renee_Carney]

 @jsraquet  &  @jhlieth  

I don't think you've read this thread in it's totality.  This idea is in the top 10% by vote sort and will be going before product during their next prioritization activity.  These ideas never fall on deaf ears, there are just so many that we could never actually develop them all.  I'll refer you to the same blog post as I have others who have had questions about the process itself.  You can find the most recent changes and the summarized history in Adaptation: Feature Idea Process Changes 

I also want to stress the definition of bug, since it can be a hot button word for some.  A technical bug is an error, flaw, failure or fault in a computer program or system that causes it to produce an incorrect result, or to behave in unintended ways.  This is a lot different than 'a feature does not behave how I expect it, or would like it to'. Feature ideas provide an input for the later!

[adicke]

Being able to upload individualized comments and feedback along with grades is an esential feature of good teaching. Having to upload individualized comments by hand will cost us as instructors a lot of time given the size of courses at our university (300-450 students). Ultimately this might deter instructors from doing this type of high quality teaching given this time requirement. For a large university this type of canvas feature is an essential tool and should be implemented as soon as possible.

[jsraquet]

Well it is a flaw and it does not behave how I would like it to (or expect it to) so it does seem to be covered by the bug definition but that may just be semantics. Thank you for your feedback though.

[Renee_Carney]

  @adicke  

Have you used the speedgrader?  If the comments are in fact individualized and not canned, then typing them into a spreadsheet first would be an unneeded step.

[jsraquet]

Then I (or my grader) needs to go through each student's "speedGrader" screen and enter the comment (and the grade if it is not imported). I still think it is easier to work with a spreadsheet and just line-down for the next grade - line over to add comment. Plus you do not need to be  to enter grades.

Is there a way to download (export) all of the grades (full grade sheet) with the comments included?

[Renee_Carney]

Jeff.  I was just looking for the guide that might help give you a similar experience to inputting into excel - if you are not using speedgrader and the annotation feedback tools provided there.

How do I leave comments for students in the New Gradebook? shows how you can navigate through each student directly in the gradebook to input the grade and comments.  This might help your workflow? 

[jhlieth]

It seems that you are missing the point, Renee. Asking if we are aware of Speedgrader suggests you are not aware of the issue. This thread is about automation through upload of csv files; Speedgrader has no automation that I am aware of. We are not searching for a manual work-around since those of us who need this to work have already found that there is no Canvas-based automation work-around. The reason we upload a CSV file (which is the core context of this thread) is to automate the process so that we don't have to type the information in manually.

Perhaps you are puzzled about how our workflow might include comments that are not typed in individually. In my workflow, the information destined for each student consists of (1) the grade that a student obtained, along with (2) a text string (calculated) which communicates to the student how s/he answered each question, along with the correct answer(s).  The raw data comes from machine-scored systems. So both the grade and the comment are in the file as part of other automation; it is not inputted by hand. With large-enrollment courses, moving it by hand individually into Canvas is precisely what we do not want to do because it takes hours and is fraught with error.

[Renee_Carney]

 @jhlieth  

You are correct that this is not a workflow that I am familiar with, nor have I had experience with, and it is unique to large courses.  You have an automated system that provides a canned but calculated response, which is a different use case than what I have seen presented in this thread before.  I'm wondering, does this always need to be done in the form of an assignment, or could you set up a quiz that provided the same type of feedback but on a question by question basis?

[caleb_kemere]

This is exactly the work flow that lead me to this thread two years ago.

I've been trying to abandon Canvas for the course where I do automated

grading, but so far have had to cut and paste manually (ugh) for two years.

Caleb Kemere : 713-348-6089 / 832-356-6089 : MS-384 : BRC727 :

http://rnel.rice.edu

Asst. Prof, Rice University Electrical & Computer Engineering

On Fri, Sep 21, 2018, 6:02 PM rcarney@instructure.com <

[lisa_tutty]

I have 500 students, and I don't have the time to copy and paste 500 comments
 

[jsraquet]

Then I (or my grader) needs to go through each student's "speedGrader" screen and enter the comment (and the grade if it is not imported). I still think it is easier to work with a spreadsheet and just line-down for the next grade - line over to add comment. Plus you do not need to be   to enter grades

this is an earlier note and somehow  was missing. Neither I nor my graders are  at all times when we are grading. This would require us to be , have Canvas active and speedGrader on the screen just to grade each assignment.

[jsraquet]

Also - if you are in this group please ask co workers who have issues with this to add a comment and make a vote. Since it is a popularity contest and they measure popularity with votes we may just need more voters. I am looking for an effective way of contacting our faculty to do so.

[jsraquet]

jsraquet@uncc.edu wrote:

Then I (or my grader) needs to go through each student's "speedGrader" screen and enter the comment (and the grade if it is not imported). I still think it is easier to work with a spreadsheet and just line-down for the next grade - line over to add comment. Plus you do not need to be XXXXX  to enter grades

this is an earlier note and somehow XXXXX  was missing. Neither I nor my graders are  at all times when we are grading. This would require us to be XXXXX , have Canvas active and speedGrader on the screen just to grade each assignment.

where the word XXXXX appears I actually had the word that describes "actively connected to the international computer network we use for most of our communication - including this note" but it does not appear to like that term. I had not noticed this before. I just do not want to be hooked-up every time I am grading.

[Stef_retired]

 @jsraquet , is "on-line" the word that is missing from your various posts (notice I had to add a hyphen to make it appear here)? If so, our third-party community software provider is actively investigating this issue. Please have a look at "" arbitrarily removed from content‌

[erc2]

Our use case with large classes (250 and 1,000 students this semester; 1,500 and 900 students next semester) necessitates copying/pasting of individual comments from spreadsheets into assignments via SpeedGrader because Instructure has not addressed roles/permissions adequately. We need a way for our TAs to do the individual grading (for our case, that is not the issue--they DO read and comment on each submitted assignment one by one) that allows them to access the submission and enter a grade/feedback for that submission but NOT to access the entire gradebook (i.e., all of the students' grades and all of the secure assignments [exams, etc.]). Roles/permissions is another longstanding issue that we have met with Instructure about multiple times, and we know that many others at many other institutions over several years also have been discussion with Instructure. The upload of comments from a spreadsheet to Canvas would be a band-aid for us, but it would be a welcome one!

[jsraquet]

That's the problem - I do not know how many times I missed this and just noticed the problem/error.

Thank you very much for the direction Stefanie.