Self un-enrolled bug

[jsowalsk]

A Catalog customer has reported that when she goes into her Canvas course for Catalog that some students (about 5) in her course appear to be missing from the People tab when she was comparing the enrollment reports from the Catalog Analytics tab. Come to find out, these students self-unenrolled (dropped) themselves from Catalog from within their Student Dashboard. However, the reports in Catalog are not reporting this action and are still notating that these students are active.

The solution to this so far is comparing the timestamp listed in their Canvas profile in the people tab under memberships where it mentions "enrolled as student" and "completed". Other than looking into this record, we would not have known where these students went. Here is a screenshot of what I am referring to:

 

We think that this is a bug and needs to be reported. Please let us know if you see this bug as well.

It seems as if there is a button installed for students to drop the course, here is the documentation from Canvas that discusses this button:

https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-1520 

I submitted a ticket to Canvas and here is their response:

Thanks for contacting Canvas Support. I'm sorry that you are having issues with having enrollments from Catalog not show as dropped in the Catalog.We are aware of this occurring in the system. If the students for the course drop from Canvas, unfortunately, it doesn't pass back to the Catalog, though if they drop the course from Catalog it will keep the enrollment current for both the Catalog and for the course. For that reason, we recommend that the students drop from the Catalog, and not from Canvas on it, and that will keep the Catalog analytics current on it. Unfortunately, the students themselves would need to enroll in the course from Catalog and drop it from there to resolve that for you.

Kind regards,

Jessica

[sbarry2]

We have experienced this also. We've had a couple of instances where students dropped and we were unaware. Our workaround is to have someone check daily against the payment system (authorize.net) and Catalog. Our hope would be to be able to turn off "self un-enroll". We ask students to contact us if they would like to un-enroll.

[jsowalsk]

Hi Steve,

Here is some code to get rid of the self-unenroll button in Canvas:

/* Hide the "Drop Course" button that appears for students who have self-enrolled. */

.self_unenrollment_link {

    display:none !important;

}

You can put this code at the subcatalog level or globally.

Jessica

[jschaffer]

 @jsowalsk ‌,

Is this in all Canvas instances or just in the Catalog?  Do you have a screenshot of where the button appeared for students?

Regards, 

Jason Schaffer 

[jsowalsk]

It is just for Catalog. Unfortunately, I do not have a screenshot any longer.

[cdaley]

We also experienced this issue before we hid the Drop Course button in Canvas (but not the Catalog Dashboard drop as that works for us). The greatest impact came when the student was disallowed from re-enrolling for the Catalog course, as the Catalog record still showed that s/he was enrolled. Instructure acknowledges this issue and the Help Desk advised that we use CSS to hide the button, which we did, but there has been no fix offered for the poor student whose Catalog record lists an inaccessible course.

[jsowalsk]

You could unenroll and then reenroll them or reset his/her password. Just a thought.

[kathy_harris]

Does the user have another email account? They could create another account in Catalog with a different Email address.

[jennifer_hogan]

 @jsowalsk ‌  @cdaley ‌ do either of you have steps or other information on how and where to enter the code (Jessica) or the CSS to remove the Drop Course (Carol).  We are having the issue that they are dropping themselves because they self enrolled and we do not want them to drop.

[jsowalsk]

It is in the custom CSS for Canvas. If you have a developer then they can find the code and put it in. We had our integration specialist do it for us.

[jennifer_hogan]

Thank you, I will check with ours!

[jsowalsk]

No problem. Let me know if you need me to check with her if any questions come up.

[kevinhitt]

My institution uses a Free-for-Teacher version, which to my understanding, does not grant the functionality of being able to customize the theme editor to add CSS / JS. 

Are there any Account / Admin settings, or any best practices, that could help us hide this "Drop this Course" button from students when they access Canvas?

[jsowalsk]

Here is what we use in Canvas:

/* Hide the "Drop Course" button that appears for students who have self-enrolled. */

.self_unenrollment_link {

    display:none !important;

}

[kevinhitt]

Unfortunately we cannot add custom CSS in our instance of Canvas, since it is the free version. 

I will keep searching & ask our implementation team if anything can be done. 

Thank you.

[jsowalsk]

Or I would ask your CSM or message support to see if this can be done.

[JustinBrooksby]

Amazing that the button is still there because it is basically a bug.  I just removed it from our page using the CSS, but why is it even there?  Would be better to have a button referring the person back to catalog and then unenrolling from there.

[jsowalsk]

I agree, Justin. However, I think it is because people who register for courses don't want to have to go back to Catalog to unenroll/drop the course. However, this is an issue since the analytics in Catalog will not be accurate.