Quiz visible to students to whom it was NOT assigned

[yorik]

I wrote two versions of a recent midterm and assigned one version to three sections of the class and the other version to the other three sections. I made sure that there were no students assigned to more than one section... But, at least one student was able to see both versions on their Canvas page (and take both versions). She finished version A and then grew concerned (for other reasons) that her work on that version was lost, so she started taking Version B... 

This is not supposed to happen, right?  Is this  known glitch in the software? As far as I know this does not occur for most students. 

Thank you,

Yonatan (UCSC)

[James]

 @yorik  

I would suspect that there was confusion in the configuration of the differentiated assignments before I would suspect Canvas giving it to someone who it wasn't assigned to.

There's a warning that Canvas gives when you do this kind of assignment:

Someone could misunderstand it and think they needed to get rid of the message. But going back and fixing it is the opposite of what you want in this case. You want to continue.

One thing you can check is to go into your gradebook. If these assignments are right next to each other, you will quickly be able to see if someone is assigned more than one of them.

For example, I had four versions of my final challenge. Before the challenge was taken, they had a dash for their grade. 

If students were assigned more than one quiz, then there would be multiple entries in the same row. You want for there to only be one assignment for each student.

If you find multiple items, then that gives you a place to go and try to track down the issue.

[yorik]

Thank you for the reminder to check what the grade sheet says. I will definitely look there...

On the other hand, I frequently give different versions to different sections of students (and I always click continue - thought the first time gave me pause). 

I considered the possibility that the student in question was in two different sections, but she wasn't (I go through the section assignments before each exam

to make sure that everyone is assigned to exactly one section). And like I said - there was only one student like this in the class (as far as I can tell - still have to

check the grade book).

[James]

You didn't include screen shots of the assignment settings where you used differentiated assignments. That's where I would have started, but you said you had double checked things.  Sometimes it is easy to miss something that another set of eyes can pick up on.

How are you determining that someone is only in one section? Is it under course settings > sections, going to the People page, or by looking at the gradebook where the section is listed under the name?

In the gradebook, they are listed with an ellipsis if the section list is too long. Here, my Test Student is actually in three sections, it's just cut off (don't worry, these are not real students so I'm not violating FERPA).

On the people page, there are two sections for me, but if your section names are long, it might wrap in a way that causes you to miss it.

[yorik]

Hi James,

The student who saw both versions of the exam was assigned to exactly one of them, I triple checked, both before the exam and after I learned of the occurrence. 

Moreover this issue has occurred again in a final that I am giving  today - there are three versions, two of which are assigned by sections (with no students assigned to more than one section), and one of which is assigned to exactly one student (by name) who needs to take the exam later (because of time zone issues). I just received an email from a student in the class (not the one to whom the later exam is assigned) who can see all three versions (and wanted to know which one to take).

This is clearly an issue with Canvas. Content is `leaking'. As far as I can tell, it is only leaking to one or two students each time. It hasn't caused any problems yet, because I have caught it. But I can certainly imagine situations where this `leaking' could lead to problems. 

[yorik]

Hi James -

I have some more information about the quizzes being visible to students to whom they weren't assigned. 

The student I mentioned in my last reply (who could see all three versions of the quiz) took the one I told him to, which as it turned out, was not the one which had been assigned to him (I didn't think that it mattered - I was a bit wrong). As a consequence it seems, the exam he took was not visible with speed grader, and he had no grade posted for that exam (and a 0 posted for the version he was supposed to take, but didn't). The grading software in Canvas apparently knew which test he was supposed to take, but the assigning part of the software was confused. 

(I only found out when he contacted me about his grade in the class being lower than expected. I was able to track down his exam using the `moderate' function, so all's well that ends well for him.)

I just thought that you might find this interesting.

Yonatan

[Cami23]

Yonatan - I'm having the exact same issue in my course.  Can you detail how you tracked down the "missing" exam of the student who took an exam that they were not assigned?