Share student assignment submission

(5)
We need a way for instructors and students to easily share an individual student assignment submission with the entire class. In a previous lifetime, we outlined the functional needs in the old forums (see http://help.instructure.com/entries/21210657-publish-or-share-student-assignments-selectively)

 

I know we can create an open graded discussion and allow attachments, but we'd like to take individual assignment submissions and publish it as an example for the rest of the enrolled students. It would be great to have a way to do this, as we used to be able to in Blackboard. Students could also opt to publish their own assignments to share.

36 Comments
scottdennis
Instructure
Instructure

Just a reminder that this feature will open for voting one week from now on August 5th.

p_m1102
Community Novice

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clong
Community Champion

It would be great if student assignments could be shared in an "asset library" or gallery that any student could explore and also interact with.

For instance I'm in a photography class and for an assignment we all had to submit a photo or gallery emphasizing the use of natural objects to help frame your picture. I submit a URL or file to Canvas and allow it to be shared to the assignment gallery then I can go through and explore my classmates work on the assignments.

I envision the student to be able to browse the gallery and:

- Like the work

- Comment on the work

- Rate the work on a 5 star scale.

Wouldn't this be a great way for student to keep learning after the assignment and a great way for student work to be more meaningful?

I think UC Berkeley already has a tool like this developed for Canvas because they crushed it at instcon15​ have a look at ​ and

brendaa
Community Contributor

This would be great.  We have several Art faculty that have requested just such a feature.  They are using assignments, discussions, Box integration, Collaboration, but none of these are a perfect fit.

cms_hickss
Community Contributor

The people in my office were just talking about this issue (as we had it in a previous LMS) and how it was needed. I have shared this URL with them so they can all vote Smiley Happy

sfrey1
Community Novice

My teachers are using Discussions as a work around but it's not streamlined. This would be great.

jsparks
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

Hello, Canvas Family,

I understand the need to share an example of an anonymized assignment to a class when needed for an example (especially for a major project, etc.).  First, this seems like there should be an opt-in process to avoid any complications with FERPA or intellectual property concerns. Second, I am not entirely sure how the process of posting an example as a separate item in a module, discussion forum, or as an attachment to another content item would not be sufficient? Do you want an automated tool to convert a course submission and share it with the class? Rating and discussing the example can be accomplished with existing functionality. I do not believe we would build another tool to facilitate this process.

I am curious to know more about the "why" this is needed as a separate tool.

Kind regards,

Jason

clong
Community Champion

Hi Jason,

So what we are really talking about is an assignment gallery, not just a tool to link to one or two assignment examples and yes it would be an opt in process when the student submits their work. Perhaps you could watch ​ and ​ and then we can continue the discussion?

Stef_retired
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

Deactivated user, way back when, before we adopted Canvas, our antediluvian LMS had a feature that allowed instructors to make a single assignment or multiple assignments available for course-wide viewing. At that time, I put this piece of boilerplate in my syllabus, and have kept it there ever since in the hope that the same functionality would eventually be available in Canvas:

Once journal essays are graded, the instructor may choose to make them available to all students for general review.

..and that's the opt-in. FERPA does not come into play, because students' grades are not displayed. Anonymization isn't a necessary ingredient of this feature imho. Indeed, I'd like students' names to be displayed so that they can contact one another in a public (course-wide) forum to exchange ideas about their work, exactly as they might in a face-to-face classroom after reading their work to the class.

elisabeth_green
Community Participant

I'll piggyback on this and ask that it be an instructor's option for it to be anonymous or not!

rseilham
Community Champion

This can also be particularly useful for group assignments. Let's say you have a group prepare a presentation/document to teach a topic or chapter of the book, then you want to share it with the class. I know there are workarounds right now, but it should be much easier to make this happen.

karen_tinsley-k
Community Novice

For ESL or language instructors, this would be very useful to allow anonymous review of common errors or exceptional work.

sueb
Community Novice

Faculty come up with great reasons to have this feature to promote collaboration and peer review opportunities.  This would be very useful.

dmuller
Community Novice

Great for students to be able to share and see others.

lindalee
Community Contributor

Our faculty are frequently looking for an easy way for students to to share drafts of assignments (sometimes for ad hoc peer reviewing), group projects, slide decks for presentations, and other examples of student work without requiring that students submit them in a second place (a discussion board).

RobDitto
Community Champion

Deactivated user, it seemed to me that most of the use cases shared here focus less on sharing a single sample submission, and more on making it easier to share every student's (or every group's) submission of a particular assignment -- under instructor control. In reply to:

Do you want an automated tool to convert a course submission and share it with the class?

Yes, definitely.  Ideally this would give the instructor control over when the submissions are shared, sidestepping issues with current workarounds such as the following:

  • In a discussion topic configured with "Users must post before seeing replies", students can still see others' attached submissions by:
    • First writing a post;
    • Then reading other students' work;
    • Then revising that initial post (or, worse, adding a new one).
  • With the instructor sharing submissions in course Files, the same files occupy course quota as well as individual or group storage.  It could be more efficient simply to have Canvas present links submissions the instructor plans to share (at the appropriate time).
mtw56
Community Member

I had this very issue come up with a faculty member recently as well. Is there a chance that this option will be implemented any time?

Stef_retired
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

I'll bet that people who are participating in this feature idea discussion will be very interested in  @dlyons ​'s Studio grading in Canvas discussion (and the weblink contained therein)!

jsparks
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

Thank you for the valuable information and updates as to why there is a need for this feature. We can research this for possible inclusion in a future update to the assignments workflows. As any implementation or delivery of this feature is more than six months away, I suggest we archive this conversation for now. I have added this idea to my backlog of possible features.

Regards,

Jason

cms_hickss
Community Contributor

So I'm curious, if it's a matter that it won't be worked on for 6 months, why archive? Why not just leave it in the "Gathering Information" stage? "Archived" always feels like the Idea is really being "Panda-Catted."