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graeme · ‎11-22-2022

Thanks for that! Badges don't seem to be an option at my institution; the attendance page doesn't have the "roll call" format shown in that link. (This inconsistency is annoying, but that's another issue.) The situation has become a bit weirder now, because when I went back to look at these excused absences again, the student's overall grade had, in fact, changed, despite Canvas Help having confirmed for me that it doesn't work that way. After a bit of experimenting (which was difficult, because Canvas doesn't provide the "test student" option with attendance - but that's another issue), I found that it takes 5-10 minutes for the grade to update after a change is made in Attendance. (This is also annoying, as you sometimes need to experiment with the factors affecting a student's grade, and it's not practical to wait 10 minutes each time you change something - but that's also another issue.) As it stands, I think the system may be working the way I want. I just wish it were all a bit more self-explanatory; it would be great if hovering over an option told you exactly what it does, instead of leaving you to guess, Google it, have confusing and misleading conversations with Canvas Help, and plead for guidance from the Canvas community. But that's also another issue.

graeme · ‎11-21-2022

Thanks. But the question isn't about assignments.

graeme · ‎11-20-2022

Students frequently ask for an absence to be excused (for medical reasons, and so on). It seems that in Canvas, excusing an absence only means that a direct penalty won't be applied. I don't have "Grade Settings" set to deduct percentage points for absences, so excusing an absence has no effect on the student's grade at all. But the absence hasn't really been excused if the student's grade is the same as it would have been if it wasn't excused. The point of excusing an absence is to not have that absence count against the student at all. The only way I can see to actually excuse an absence is to mark the student "present," even though they weren't, which makes record keeping a farce.

graeme · ‎09-02-2021

I completely agree. It is very frustrating to set parameters for an assignment only to find later that they meant nothing. In response to dlyons: "there are legitimate reasons an instructor might expect students to embed documents in their assignment submission" - Sure, and if that's what they want, they can select that themselves using the "file upload" option. "What issue is it causing that students are sometimes embedding a document instead of typing their submission directly in?" - The issue, in one sense, is simply that Canvas isn't respecting the wishes of instructors and is effectively overriding our settings. (There are multiple examples of Canvas doing this - such as where it issues notifications to students without any regard at all for what instructors actually want - and these collectively become infuriating. I work better when I'm not seething and cursing.) In a more practical sense, efficient grading generally entails slotting into a "flow," and it is disruptive and aggravating to have to break that when student responses sporadically turn up as links that have to be clicked, particularly when you have done everything you can at your own end to avoid that.

graeme · ‎09-02-2021

Ah! Yes, that's exactly it. I'd had a look around, but didn't see that this had already been raised. Thanks.

graeme · ‎09-02-2021

Make it so that selecting "text entry" for assignments, and NOT selecting "file uploads," actually results in students entering text and not uploading files.

graeme · ‎07-02-2021

Canvas allows an assignment's grades to be hidden only if this option is selected before the assignment has any submissions. Otherwise, a clumsy and counter-productive workaround is required. It makes sense, perhaps, to discourage the hiding of grades after grades have been submitted. Canvas automatically notifies students when they have a new grade, and confusion may ensue if the student cannot then see the grade. But if none of the submissions have been graded yet, the situation is effectively the same as it was before submissions began. There does not seem to be any good reason why the instructor, having received the submissions, should not be able to hide the grades before commencing the grading. The only option the instructor has at this point is to grade one of the submissions first, as this then makes it possible to hide that grade and all subsequent grades for that assignment. This makes no sense, though, as it actually REQUIRES the instructor to do the very thing we are trying to avoid. Canvas should allow instructors to hide all grades for an assignment AT ANY TIME. If and when it is actually wise to use this functionality is something the instructors themselves should be left to determine. Efforts by Canvas to make these (and other) decisions on the instructors behalf just create obstructions to our work while actually worsening the problems they seek to avoid.

graeme · ‎06-01-2021

Teachers have very little control over what students receive notifications for, or over the visibility of course content. It is enormously helpful to be able to set materials to go "live" at a predetermined point in the future. But this requires those materials to be manually "published" in advance, and this results in students receiving notifications at a time that bears no resemblance to anything that actually affects them. This fills their inboxes with meaningless and confusing emails, and this, in turn, results in them not noticing, or not reading, the emails that are actually intended for them to read. Likewise, the material set to go live later on is actually visible to them before that time. Though it remains locked, its visible presence, and any information conveyed by its title, may communicate to the students things that the teacher doesn't actually want them to know about yet (for instance, that there will be a pop quiz). The only way to avoid all this is to never set anything to go live automatically, and to instead manually publish the content at the right precise moment - which can be extremely inconvenient. Canvas policy "puts notification decisions in the hands of the recipient," but it is often the teacher who needs to make that call. Provide teachers with more control over notifications so that they can save their students from pointless, time-wasting, distracting, confusing emails. And provide teachers with the ability to automate when materials actually become visible to the students.

graeme · ‎05-28-2021

Why must my students get an email every time I post an assignment? I post all these in advance, set to go live at a later date. The students get separate instructions about when that will happen. They don't need to be notified that their professor was doing some work at 2:17 am four days before the assignment ever needed to be on their radar. Especially when I realize that I made a mistake and they get a second pointless email, which just confuses them further. They then write to me because they think they are supposed to be doing something, and I have to waste time explaining that they should just ignore those notifications. I make a point of not emailing them between classes unless absolutely necessary, and yet here's Canvas, bombarding them with pointless spam. They end up ignoring the few notification emails that actually matter. Canvas doesn't have any business deciding on my behalf when my students need to be notified of something.

Post Details	Date Published	Views	Kudos
How Do I ACTUALLY Excuse an Absence? Students frequently ask for an absence to be excused (for medical reasons, and so on). It seems that in Canvas, excusing an absence only means that a direct penalty won't be applied. I don't have "Gr...	11-20-2022	673	1
Make Labels Intuitive and Consistent Make it so that selecting "text entry" for assignments, and NOT selecting "file uploads," actually results in students entering text and not uploading files.	09-02-2021	204	0
Allow Assignment Grades To Be Hidden After Submissions But Before Grading Begins Canvas allows an assignment's grades to be hidden only if this option is selected before the assignment has any submissions. Otherwise, a clumsy and counter-productive workaround is required. It m...	07-02-2021	266	0
[Notifications] Give teachers more control over what students can see Teachers have very little control over what students receive notifications for, or over the visibility of course content. It is enormously helpful to be able to set materials to go "live" at a pr...	06-01-2021	536	0
How about, Don't bombard my students with pointless emails? Why must my students get an email every time I post an assignment? I post all these in advance, set to go live at a later date. The students get separate instructions about when that will happen. The...	05-28-2021	335	0

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Member Since	‎12-27-2019

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Re: How Do I ACTUALLY Excuse an Absence?

Re: How Do I ACTUALLY Excuse an Absence?

How Do I ACTUALLY Excuse an Absence?

Re: Limit or restrict toolbar 'insert' features in...

Re: Make Labels Intuitive and Consistent

Make Labels Intuitive and Consistent

Allow Assignment Grades To Be Hidden After Submiss...

[Notifications] Give teachers more control over wh...

How about, Don't bombard my students with pointles...