Option to Disconnect Old Outcomes/Rubrics Before Content Import

(2)

Canvas must make it possible for teachers to disconnect old outcomes and rubrics from imported content so they don't ever populate the Outcomes page or the Mastery Gradebook. 

Many teachers have been using Canvas for years, so they have a lot of content to import each fall as they prepare for their courses.  School districts that are standards referenced, meaning teachers keep track of student learning and teacher success through the Mastery Gradebook, may run into rogue outcomes populating the Mastery Gradebook.   As districts edit/adapt Outcomes to meet the learning goals of new online resources, or a teacher changes from one grade/subject to another, a new set of outcomes has to be set up each year for those courses.  Teachers who set up their new outcomes have to deal with the old outcomes that are attached to rubrics in the content they import.  These unwanted outcomes populate the Outcomes page and the Mastery Gradebook making it a process to delete, a permission that many teachers may not have.  Before they recognize the mistake, teachers may assess the rogue outcome making it impossible to delete, and producing inaccurate data in the Mastery Gradebook. 

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If teachers are teaching the same outcomes from year to year, the import process can remain the same.  Canvas needs to create a way for teachers to unlink old Outcomes/Rubrics from imported content for those teachers who may have changed subjects, or have a new set of Outcomes to assess.252789_pastedImage_1.png

 learning outcomes institutional outcomes #removing outcomes from imported content

16 Comments
awilliams
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

Hi  @timothy_kohl . If the outcomes are created inside of Outcome Groups would this provide you the method of deleting a group of Outcomes at once? How do I edit or delete an outcome or outcome group in a course? 

timothy_kohl
Community Participant

Adam, Our outcomes are created at the district admin level.  They are unique to our district, and align with our Data Management System, Infinite Campus.  Teachers don't have many permissions to edit them.  Most teachers who have the same class and outcomes from last year, can simple import content, and the same outcomes will populate the mastery gradebook.  It's the teachers who have changed grades or have subjects with updated outcomes that have this problem.  If they don't notice, and assess a pulled rubric with an old outcome, even I can't delete it.  

sara_samples1
Community Participant

I am in Tim's district, and I have encountered this issue not only with changed courses, but within the same exact course when outcomes have changed from the previous year for some reason.  For example, there was a spelling error in one of the outcomes.  The following year, imported assignments carried with them the old outcome, with the spelling error, and new assignments were associated with the corrected version.  Not only did this mean that the embarrassing typo stuck around, but it meant that the data was analyzed as if these were two completely different outcomes.  V. frustrating!

awilliams
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

Thanks  @timothy_kohl and  @sara_samples  for the additional information. Would it be correct to summarize this idea as a way for instructors to delete outcomes even if they have been previously used? As I think I understand the idea better after some review and research, and was I am going to move it back to Open for Voting.

sara_samples1
Community Participant

I mean, that might be a way of doing it, and I'm not the OP here, but I think that what is being asked, specifically, is that one could import an assignment without importing the outcomes that had been previously associated with that assignment.  So, if in 2015 I created an assignment and associated it with a outcome X, and now, in 2018 I want to do that assignment again, but I no longer evaluate outcome X, I would like to be able to just import the assignment, not outcome X.  

awilliams
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

I did find a similar idea Open for Voting regarding the management of outcomes you may be interested in, https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/8998-publish-edit-and-delete-as-new-options-for-outcomes 

timothy_kohl
Community Participant

Adam,

David Millington's post is very similar, and he made a good point about other similar ideas dealing with outcomes.  I'm not sure his motive is the same as ours.  It sounds like he sees outcomes as a burden.  In our district, outcomes are a necessity.  In a few years, the mastery gradebook should become the leading tool to measure student overall achievement and teacher innovation.  The points gradebook will be a place to demonstrate specific activity proficiency. 

I am beginning to understand that these similar Ideas need to collaborate on one Idea.  Perhaps there is a solution that will meet everyone's needs.  I guess that is your job.  Can we count all our votes together?  Smiley Happy

de_millington
Community Contributor

Timothy,

While making judgments about one's ideas and actions is perfectly acceptable, casting judgments about one's motives is another. With respect to your uncertainty about my motives, then, perhaps these comments of mine will clarify things:

..."While there is clearly a case to have a visual aid (colour schema) to enhance viewing of Learning Mastery with resect to aggregated values in Outcomes, there is surely a case for the same applied to individual grades".

https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/8998-publish-edit-and-delete-as-new-options-for-outcomes#comme...

...Elsewhere I have stated ideas to improve Mastery and Grade book, as the two are not mutually exclusive.

https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/8973-gradebook-and-learning-mastery-bespoke-smart-views

Several others have commented in agreement saying they love Canvas, but realise that Grade book and Outcomes are not yet the finished product in terms of viewing optimisation. Please realise that while you perceive Outcomes and Mastery to meet the needs typified in the US, doesn't necessarily translate to a universal panacea for all. I would hope that if you read again all my comments in context, in spite of my limitations at crafting the definitive argument,  you would appreciate my motive is to enhance and not diminish the viewing experience on Canvas. To this end, there is a case to encourage Instructure to develop its product vision beyond the parochial needs within the US borders, as huge as that may be. Since Instructure has seen fit to chance its arm at selling its product outside the US border, it will surely have to pitch its ambitions within the requirements of those countries as well. I believe the case I have previously made will, if fully grasped by the Instructure team, help realise this.

timothy_kohl
Community Participant

David,

No disrespect was intended.  I sincerely apologize if you were offended.  

tbunag
Community Champion

In the interim, perhaps faculty could be encouraged to use the "Select specific content" option whenever they are copying content into a new course site?  This can be helpful for a variety of issues, since copying over only the content needed can save time in trying to delete all the extra items.  It won't help all situations (since I believe outcomes would still come over if attached to specific assignments that are brought over), but it might help reduce it a little.

timothy_kohl
Community Participant

Tara,  Our first plan of attack was to import this way for teachers with new 2017 Outcomes.  It was the issue of how the Outcomes stay attached to the assignments.  Right now we have teachers importing content one at at time after deleting the rubric in the old content.  Seems to work, but very slow. For many of our teachers, it is too late.  As an admin I can delete some of them, but many are attached to multiple activities.  

Thanks for the input.

mary_crawford
Community Explorer

At the very least, we need to be able to remove/detach a rubric from an assignment without deleting the rubric. 

dmorton
Community Member

I agree with Mary

lesley_cryderma
Community Contributor

Given that Canvas Rubrics are a major PITA to build, I think it is ridiculous to expect instructors to rebuild the rubrics just so they can avoid importing old account-level Outcomes into their new course. Instructors should have the ability to detach the account-level Outcomes from the rubric after importing the rubric to the new course and then go into Outcomes and delete the old account-level Outcomes.  As of now, teachers have no way to remove old Outcomes from their course. And if they just don't use the old Outcomes but they are sitting in the course, then the account-level Outcomes Report contains a BUNCH of empty entries for each of those unassessed Outcomes. This is extremely messy for the data people to weed through. At the VERY LEAST, the report ought to have the option to disregard any Outcomes sitting in a course that were not assessed.

To be clear, I am talking about account-level Outcomes that are used across the college for assessment, not Outcomes that are created within the instructor's course.

Lesley

timothy_kohl
Community Participant

This would be great for Oshkosh Area Schools in Wisconsin as well.  We are about to streamline our outcomes, design some new courses, as well as adopt some new online curriculum.  Many teachers will have a new look to their outcomes. Teachers may neglect to use the mastery GB the way it should be used to monitor progress because the old outcomes or double outcomes fill up the gradebook.  We call these "rouge outcomes".

ProductPanda
Instructure
Instructure
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