Student view: View submissions and comments for all submissions

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

 
Right now students can only view their most recently added submission to an assignment. This means that all previous submissions to the assignment are not available to students, including feedback that the instructors have provided. This is a big problem because students are losing critical information that could help promote learning and understanding.We need to eliminate this lossylearning problem and make all assignment submissions visible to students!
193 Comments
hechla
Community Participant

@Stef_retired - this beta feature still needs a lot of work. I discovered it while searching for a solution to this issue and I walked through it with a couple of faculty. I will check out the Student Assignment Enhancements Group and post in there as well, but one of the issues is that, for students, while viewing their grade/feedback on the assignment, the only way to view the previous assignment submissions it to go back to "Resubmit Assignment." That's clunky as can be. 

rcottrel
Community Explorer

I totally agree! I'm surprised that this idea from 6 years ago still hasn't been implemented. Can we get it back on the review track? This has been very frustrating for me and for my students, and is really an equity issue that students can't access previous comments to continue to improve their work and writing. Please support anti-oppressive grading practices by making all submissions/instructor comments available to students, not just the most recent one.

aoberma1
Community Novice

Yes, @hechla and @rcottrel

I would like to see this happen too! 

jfasano
Community Novice

Yes! This is a huge problem.  Students should be able to see all submissions for an assignment, and the feedback they are provided on each submission.  Often, I require multiple documents to be submitted to complete an assignment. Students cannot see which documents they have already submitted, or the feedback I provide.  Correcting this problem should be a priority..  It doesn't make sense that students can only see the most current submission. 

EileenMonks
Community Novice

I find it not only dis-heartening but counterintuitive that students can not see previously submitted assignments. I regularly have students submit work, either in pieces or needing continued feedback on their work. If they can't see it, how are they to know where they are right and where they need to focus more attention. 

Students/parents need to have access to view their previously submitted assignment pages. Thanks!

URSL_Fontys
Community Explorer

I want to add a comment here as well. This is very annoying and it discourages us from using the re-submit feature at all. Instead, we will be creating duplicate assignments so that student feedback is not lost for students. This is absolutely ridiculous and bad design. Please get this back to review!

swells3
Community Explorer

Many of my assignments require students to submit multiple things--screenshots of source copies, handwritten scansion, etc.  I have to tell them multiple times not to submit more than one document, and teach them to combine everything into one long PDF, rather than the much more intuitive system of adding attachments in separate files--because otherwise, they only see the last thing they submitted (usually a source copy) and then I write a bunch of comments on their essay that they can't even access.  At least half of the submissions I get, I need to contact the student and have them re-submit their multiple files as one long single file, every time having to explain that Canvas has this glaring design flaw where I can see their multiple submissions but they themselves cannot.  

 

Then, when I allow them to resubmit an essay they've revised, although it would make much more sense to have them submit in the same assignment window where it would replace the grade, I don't want them to lose the extensive feedback I wrote on the first one.  So I have to instead create a whole new assignment window, make the revision worth zero so it doesn't show up in the grade book as a double grade, and then remember to go back into the original assignment to adjust the grade after I read the revision in a different window.  WHY?? Please allow them to see all of their submissions!

Mr_HaleYa
Community Member

Literally just want to be able to view all my submissions. if I upload a text submission then click resubmit and upload a video media submission I can not find the text submission unless I am a teacher or get on my phone and look in the app

ArnieSchoenberg
Community Member

I’m a ok glad it’s “OK to be critical and express frustration from time-to-time” here, because it’s been over six years since we started complaining about this bug.

Steph_30
Community Contributor

I've heard so many colleagues request this "view previous submissions/annotations" feature, and I wholeheartedly agree with them.

We are a language school, and so our students have to submit a lot of essays. We encourage them to resubmit improved versions and to keep an eye on their personal growth. However, to do this they have to be able to see previously received feedback. How else will they keep track of improvements, frequent errors and things they consistently do well?

I currently have to tell my students to download the speedgrader feedback as soon as they receive it (unfortunately, it does not always translate well to the pdf), before they upload a new version.

(What puzzles us most is why this feature is apparently only available in the app...)