Use case: Our Law school gives exams that must be anonymously graded by the instructors. The "Hide Names" feature in Gradebook didn't stick, because it could be turned off. In Dec 2015, Canvas released Canvas Studio: Anonymous Grading (hereafter called "AG"), which  allows the account admin  to lock all assignments in an account, subaccount (department) or course to be anonymously graded; this can only be turned off by an account admin. Although it is tantalizingly close, turning on AG alone does not guarantee anonymity to students using Assignments and Quizzes and we are unable to take advantage of it. The solution described below is a more detailed and prescriptive version of Completely Anonymous Grading, Persistently Blind Grading which is up for a vote through August 3, so if it appeals to you, please vote for Completely Anonymous Grading, Persistently Blind Grading!

 

Problem: Once Assignments are graded, scores appear within Grades next to student name and other IDs, and appear in the Exported CSV. An instructor can look in Grades or the csv to find grades next to student names and return back to Speedgrader and adjust them while an assignment is muted. They could also import changes or directly edit grades in Grades. As far as I can tell, there isn't an audit trail for this, as advertised on Canvas Studio: Anonymous Grading.

 

Proposed Solution: While we are not supposed to propose solutions, I believe this one is the most flexible to various use cases: Turning on the AG feature should hide student names and other identifiable IDs (SIS ID, Canvas ID, etc.)  within the Grades table and exported csv. The Search field and Individual View>Content Selection should also be removed when AG is on.

 

P.S. There is another identity leak: When Anonymous Grading is on, don't add student name to filename in bulk downloaded files which comes up for a vote on June 1-- Please vote for both so AG can be truly "Anonymous!"