Student view: View submissions and comments for all submissions

[kona]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

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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!

[julietwilhelm]

Our university agrees that this is an important and needed feature. 

[jacqueline_morg]

Seven years later, and this feature still isn't available? 

I had a student resubmit without reading my initial annotations, and now there's no way for him to see them. I can still see them when I view his previous submissions in Speed Grader, but there's no way to download the submission with the comments attached to the annotations. You can only do that through the 'view feedback' button on the student's grades page... which only shows the most recent submission. Which doesn't have my feedback on it. If staff can see all of a student's submissions, surely students should be able to, as well! The data is there, stored on the website- just give students a link to see it!

I spent twenty minutes giving thoughtful feedback to this student's submission, and now there is no way for him to see him because he resubmitted. Then I spent another twenty minutes trying to find a way for him to see the comments, only to discover that Canvas doesn't allow it! Ultimately I had to take multiple screenshots and copy them into a document, which is... absurd.

I'm particularly frustrated because this is my second time coming to the forums to find a fix for something that seems so simple*, only to find that teachers have been asking for it for YEARS without Canvas taking any action.

*I recognize that often these things are never as simple as they seem, but I find it hard to believe that it would take seven years to crack it.

[Steph_30]

As I said previously: "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."

I have now discovered that "does not translate well to pdf" is in fact a serious understatement for some of my colleagues. I teach Dutch and English, so there is no real issue with pdfs. It's mainly just the fact that some of the layout looks odd. I can download the pdf and attach that to the feedback, so that student does not lose any of the info we have both worked so hard on. It's silly extra work that should not be necessary, but it's doable. (Although it does still confuse students: they keep asking why I can't just allow them to see their previous versions on the site...)

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However, colleagues who teach a language with a different alphabet do not even have this option. I had advised them to use the workaround I described above, only to discover that the Arabic, Greek, Russian... alphabets translate to complete gobbledygook in the pdf. (see my other post here) Any students who received their feedback this way were confused and had to make random corrections. My colleagues have now resorted to making multiple screenshots per task. It frustrates us all to no end.😣

[ttopazio]

Support suggested I comment to keep the thread up-to-date.  7 years.... 

Yes, this is a needed feature!! I had no idea students couldn't see all of the their submissions until one asked if I had been making corrections on their notes because they couldn't see them!!!  If teachers can, it shouldn't be a difficult feature for students to see their submissions. 

[wcosyn]

+1

This feature is absolutely needed, it makes no sense feedback on previous submissions is inaccessible for students (as many outlined before in this thread).  I didn't even realize this was an issue until a student pointed it out as it works differently on the instructor side.

[DeanaWalker]

Why are these dated from 2015 and the problem has still not been addressed. I am trying to revise an assignment, but can no longer see the professor's annotations since I had to submit another document. Now she can not figure out how to get me the annotations, and I can not complete my assignment, and this is a required assignment, If I do not turn it in I do not pass the class. Please fix this.

[AlanIsaac]

Crucially needed feature!

Its absence is very confusing to students!

[mkollman]

This is a challenge that we continue to have with students not being able to see previous submissions and feedback from the instructor.  Would be a big help to have the multiple submission view as faculty have.

[KristinL]

Comments from Instructure

Hi! This feature is available with Assignment Enhancements!

Please see the Assignment Enhancement Users Group for more information and to follow the Release Change Log.

[mhollowell]

@KristinL When I go to the Release Change Log, I see the note about student feedback (see screenshot below). I scanned the list of updates below the 10/26/2022, but I did not see an update referring to students being able to see their prior submissions. I am new to the Release Change Log, so I may be missing something! Thanks for any help you can provide.