Roll Missing label in Gradebook back to Beta

[laurakgibbs]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

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UPDATE FROM ERIN HALLMARK: Canvas Beta Release Notes (2017-09-25)

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My proposal is that the "Missing" label feature be put back into Beta so that the engineers and designers can consider what they are doing, and then do it PROPERLY, before they roll it out again.

After a long weekend spent in a long and ultimately useless dialogue with Canvas Support about the Missing label (details here), I am more convinced than I was before that this new feature (rolled out late in the summer) needs to be put back into Beta until the problems are fixed. Other people have documented problems and proposed fixes as follows:

Allow "Missing" label to be enabled/disabled 

Missing Label Placed Incorrectly/Submission on paper and online option 

No MISSING label for zero-point assignments  

Instructor override of missing submission badge 

Manually graded or "EX" assignments still show as missing 

There may be more; those are the five feature requests I know of related to the new Missing label. Rather than voting on how this mess can be fixed, I propose that we vote to roll it back into Beta IMMEDIATELY so that Canvas can take its time to find the best solutions. 

The problems people are having with this buggy feature are abundantly documented in those requests: the Missing label is being applied to assignments that are optional; the Missing label is being applied to assignments that students turn in IRL as opposed to online; the Missing label is being applied to assignments which are graded manually (i.e. my student forgets to do a quiz; I record it manually... it's still "missing").

Somewhere in all those feature requests is the account of a teacher whose students' parents were going to ground the students because of all the assignments the student had (supposedly) missed. I'll let her comment speak for me too; here it is:

Overall, the Missing message is creating more stress. There are literally students who say that their parents are threatening to ground them unless they "get the work in". This notation is literally causing harm and distress in families. It needs to be changed as soon as possible.

PUT IT BACK IN BETA.

Comments from Instructure

For more information, please read through Canvas Production Release Notes (2017-10-07) 

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi, Linnea,

Thanks for explaining your use case in more detail. I've been trying to think of any other options that would help you out, but unfortunately for the moment there aren't many.

One idea for missing assignments would be for her to use the Students with No Submissions account-level report, which displays all students enrolled in a course in a given term that have not submitted an assignment between a specific two-week date range. That report would help her with the missing assignments component.

Late assignments, however, may still be subject to the interpretation of the instructor should the assignment also be allowed to be submitted in class. Again, this is the main reason we reverted the labels to student view.

Another idea is she can still view each student's Grades page and view each assignment individually; this would be easier than going through SpeedGrader, but she could initially see if a submission was made or not. For assignments that have been submitted, she could compare the due date for the assignment, and then view the submission details page to see the date the assignment was actually submitted by the student. The submission details page shows the submission date in red for any submission that is defined as late by the due date.

This goal is a project that can still be done! The long term (and easier options) will be part of the New Gradebook. And testing the New Gradebook may be a great way for her to see the current features—and soon, the new ones, too—and help her improve her goal in more detail.

I hope some of those ideas may help in the meantime.

Best,

Erin

[kristin_bayless]

We need a missing assignment indicator to be entered in the Canvas gradebook so when the Post to SIS (Synch) operation is completed, that indicator will transfer to the SIS gradebook. The work-around is quite a bit of work, as you can see from the teacher comment here:

In Skyward, we can click an option that turns all missing grades into "0" and marks them as "missing." If I put the 0 into Canvas, I have to enter each one of those manually and then after it's posted in our SIS, go mark each one of those manually as "missing."

[lauren_friend]

I thought this feature was rolled back, but I've been getting complaints again. An upset parent just emailed me that an essay was marked as "missing" even though they just wrote it in class yesterday and I have yet to grade it.  I marked it as Submission: No submission, and the grade was blank in the gradebook, so I have no idea why that is happening automatically.  It is wasting huge amounts of my time having to explain it to every worried parent and student who is emailing me.  Learning management systems should not be regularly sending out misinformation to students and parents.  That is just unacceptable.

[Stef_retired]

 @lauren_friend ‌, if you haven't already, would you please submit a support ticket (https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-12877-4152719652?sr=search&searchId=8b35e5bb-d5d7-4e96-8cba...) so a member of Canvas Support can have a look at it?

[kimberly_smith1]

While some of these concerns have technically been addressed in the New Gradebook, the red "Missing" and "Late" labels can currently only be removed on a "student-by-student per assignment" basis. If interested, there is a related feature request open for voting:https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/10605-a-global-option-to-enabledisable-missing-and-late-status...