Removing Unused Assignment Columns in Gradebook

[jennifer_mcgee]

Hi all,

I rotate class projects from semester to semester.  I have created three 'Assignment Groups' in Canvas to organize the three different projects and nest the individual assignments for each project within each group. Let's call them Project 1, Project 2 and Project 3.

However, even when all the assignments are unpublished, the name of each "Assignment Group" remains in the instructors and student grade book.  So this semester I want to assign Project 1, but not Project 2 and 3. I unpublish all the assignments from P2 and P3, but yet in the gradebook there are total columns for P2 and P3. 

How can I get rid of those columns so that my students don't start questioning P2 & P3? 

Thanks!

[kblack]

Hi  @jennifer_mcgee ‌ - It is picking up any Assignment groups that still exist on your Assignments menu item in Canvas; yes, even if there are not any assignments in it.  Fortunately, this is easy to fix:  head to Assignments and delete the offending Assignment Groups.  While this page below does not deal with this exact issue, if you check the third screen capture down, it illustrates exactly where you do this:

How do I move or reorder an assignment group? 

Just select the Assignment Group's settings icon and click Delete.  That should do it.

I hope this helps, Jennifer!

[kmeeusen]

Hi Jennifer:

I would suggest muting those assignments.  The group columns will still display, but the assignments will be inaccessible.

Learn more at  https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-12961-4152724339 

Kelley

[kblack]

Yes, Jennifer--list to the other "K" in the answer... @kmeeusen  , rather than Ken!  He is, of course, correct:  my method would either remove the assignments altogether or offer to move them to another assignment group.  (Canvas gives you a warning to that effect whenever you delete an Assignment Group with assignments in them.)  The bottom line, in the latter case, is that you would still have to mute them in that other assignment group, anyway. 

I realized after my itchy trigger finger posted the answer that you'd prefer to keep the assignments for later use!

[Chris_Hofer]

Hello there,  @jennifer_mcgee ...

I have been reviewing older question here in the Canvas Community, and I stumbled upon your question.  I wanted to check in with you because we have not heard from you since you first posted this question on January 16, 2018.  Have you had an opportunity to review the feedback that you have received from  @kblack  and  @kmeeusen ?  If so, did either of their responses help to answer your question?  Or, are you still looking for some help with your original question?  If you feel that either Ken's or Kelley's response has helped to answer your question, please feel free to mark his answer as "Correct".  However, if you are still looking for some assistance from members of the Canvas Community, please let us know by posting a message below so that someone might be able to assist you.  For now, I am going to mark your question as "Assumed Answered" because we've not heard back from you and because there hasn't been any new activity in this thread for quite some time.  However, that won't prevent you or others from posting additional questions and/or comments below that are related to this topic.  I hope that's alright with you, Jennifer.  Looking forward to hearing back from you soon.

[ambouche]

I also have this problem.  I rotate many assignments and this semester because of the coronavirus lockdown I also have duplicated assignments (an online quiz along with one that is not online). I don't want to delete the assignments or assignment groups;  I just don't want to display them in the gradebook when they are not being used in a particular semester.  It makes it very hard to find what I need in the gradebook to have so many unused columns in it.

[lunamaga]

I have the same problem. There are columns I'd like to delete. How can I get rid of them?

[erica_wagner]

I have the same issue. I have a bunch of online exams I will not use this semester because this class is in person and I will simply have each unit exam as a paper submission. But I do not want to delete the unused online submissions because I will likely copy this class template in a future semester that could be online. So I will have duplicate "Unit 1 Exam," "Unit 2 Exam" etc. columns in my grade book, which is distracting and annoying, even if the ones I am not using are unpublished and (I hope) invisible to my students and not counting toward their point totals.

How can I completely remove them from the grade book I see this semester without deleting them from the class completely? I have been dragging the column widths to as narrow as possible to minimize the space taken up by assignments and exams I am not using this semester, but they are still rather distracting and make for a lot of rightwards scrolling.

[ewilkes]

I agree that assignment groups housing my rotating assignments should be unseen in my grade book. Because there seems to be no recourse, I just call the assignment group something that students don’t know such a hyphen (-). I don’t write anything else for the name of that assignment group. I know what the symbol “-“ means. That way when students See it in their grade books they don’t question the label or get confused. It would be nice if Canvas addressed this issue. Look at the test student view of the grade book, and you’ll see how students see it.

[a_tognetti]

i also throw my hat in seconding this issue. 
in my case i have a group with several activities that serve a very specific function. They are however NOT counted toward the final grade and the % value for the group is set to 0 ...there is NO reason this group should show up as a column in my grade book
A very simple solution would be an option where, when you click the 3 dots and select -edit- for a group, along with name and % selection you see a check box with "include this group in final grade/gradebook" 

[erica_wagner]

This is an old question, but I have a similar one regarding unused quizzes. I asked separately, but no one has answered.

I have old versions of some quizzes saved in canvas, but I am not using them this semester (I copy courses over to new semesters and rotate exam versions). They are unpublished but still display in columns in my grade book. Is there a way to keep them from cluttering up my grade book so I don't have to expend as much energy and time scrolling past them?

[Ron_Bowman]

@erica_wagner 

I am not sure if this will fix the issue you are having.  There is a way to set up the display to either show or not show unpublished assignments.

The instructors guide page on viewing unpublished assignments may help you.

[erica_wagner]

Thanks for pointing this out, as I probably would never have found that feature myself.

It may be what I will have to do, though it will also hide the unpublished assignments that I will be publishing and using later on, once they are finished and ready for the students to see. Having those in my grade book is pretty helpful, since I am a very visual person, and they serve as a reminder of what I need to do as the class progresses. I have a lot of stuff in my assignments and quiz folders. Sometimes I use old assignments as the basis for new ones too, so I like to keep them to copy portions into new assignments etc.

What I am really looking for is a way to individually turn off certain unpublished assignments but not others, but it appears this may not be possible?