Grade not being updated by canvas submissions API

[ag759]

Hello fellow developers!

I am trying to upload grades to Canvas using the Submissions API. More specifically, I'm using this from the submissions API:

PUT /api/v1/courses/:course_id/assignments/:assignment_id/submissions/:user_id

I try submitting a put request to the following URL:

'https://canvas.cornell.edu/api/v1/courses/' + courseID + '/assignments/' + assignmentID + '/submissions/' + submissionID

I'm trying to do this via Postman. While I'm getting a 200 ok response, the grade isn't being updated. Here's how I'm sending my request:

The initial grade was 10.0, and I'm trying to update the grade to 45.67. But... It isn't working

Could you help me out, please? 

[todd_vernon]

Any updates or solutions to this? I'm facing an identical issue and have tried various endpoints to update quiz scores. Can not update the score, fudge points or comments. The API returns a 200 but nothing is adjusted.

[James]

I'm not sure what you're sending  @todd_vernon , but  @ag759   wasn't sending proper JSON, but telling Canvas that's what was coming down the pipe.  Also, make sure that you're using the user ID at the end and not the submission ID (that one bit me while I was testing.)

I had this grade

Then I ran the PUT with this payload

And now, my SpeedGrader shows

The 200 code on a PUT means that it was acceptable and the things that could be changed were, but since the format was bad, it wasn't changing anything, which is why the same thing comes back.

If you want to use the other format, don't tell it that it's JSON.

[todd_vernon]

Thanks #james jones‌. That explains the 200 result but I still can't get it to update.

I'm testing with Postman and have indicated JSON. Tried with a copy of JSON. Ensured the user ID was being used. Anything else I can check?

It is a quiz. I can adjust the score and add comments through SpeedGrader but neither is updated through the API.

[James]

 @todd_vernon  

Sorry, I missed the "quiz" part the first time around. In the end, it doesn't matter.

I went into SpeedGrader and changed a grade on a quiz to see what it would do. It used a non-API call to make the change.

The AJAX call was to /courses/:course_id/gradebook/update_submission (notice the lack of /api/v1 in front)

It was a POST and the information passed was 

{
  "submission":{
    "assignment_id":"8499046",
    "user_id":"3346297",
    "graded_anonymously":"false",
    "grade":"12"
  }
}‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Now what we need to do is figure out if there is an API way to replicate that call.

What Canvas is not using is the Update student question scores and comments endpoint of the Quiz Submissions API. The description there is sounds promising:

Update the amount of points a student has scored for questions they've answered, provide comments for the student about their answer(s), or simply fudge the total score by a specific amount of points.

It might be accomplished that way, but the test account I'm using didn't actually submit the quiz, I was just giving them a score. But the 12 stuck.

I then made a PUT to /api/v1/courses/896851/assignments/8499046/submissions/3346297 with a payload of

{
  "comment": {
    "text_comment": "Great Job"
  },
  "submission": {
    "posted_grade": "5"
  }
}‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

and the grade changed.

That means that the Grade or comment on a submission endpoint of the Submissions API is the one to use and that it works for quizzes that haven't been taken as well as other assignments.

Then I went to a quiz that had been taken. Maybe things were different there? The ability to manually enter a score is grayed out in SpeedGrader. All I can do is adjust the point values for the questions or the fudge points and then it automatically calculates the score. I know from the past that adjusting a grade in the Gradebook will adjust the fudge points, so I went there to see what happened on the backend when I made the call.

The assignment ID is 13300109 and we're looking at the same test account as before (3346297)

This time it actually made an API PUT call:  /api/v1/courses/896851/assignments/13300109/submissions/3346297

If you look look at that, you will see it is the exact same call (just with a different assignment ID). In other words, the Grade or comment on a submission is what the gradebook is using to make the change.

What's different, though, is the payload.

{
  "submission":{
    "assignment_id":"13300109",
    "user_id":"3346297",
    "posted_grade":1
  },
  "include":[
    "visibility"
  ]
}‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Back in SpeedGrader / Quiz Moderation, it adjusted the fudge points so the score came out to be 1.

The assignment_id and user_id portion aren't documented and they are included in the pathname, so are they redundant? I tried it with just the submission.posted_grade portion (not even the include.visibility) and when I reloaded SpeedGrader, the score had been updated.

In other words, we have the right API call.

Things to check:

• Make sure the API token is for someone who can manage the grades. If you can do it through the web interface but not the API, it might be that you're using the wrong token. You can check this by using POSTMAN to do a GET /api/v1/users/self (no query parameters) and make sure it's who you think it is.
• Make sure POSTMAN is set to PUT and not GET and that you're formatting the body correctly as JSON and that you're including the header for Content-Type: application/json. I use Advanced Rest Client (ARC) instead of Postman. Hopefully POSTMAN will automatically add that content-type header for you when you tell it to use JSON.
• Go to the Canvas live API, which is your base URL + /doc/api/live. Add your access token at the top. Scroll down to Submissions and expand it and pick the course version of Grade of comment on a submission. Fill in the course_id, assignment_id, user_id, and submission[posted_at]. It will show you the call it makes. If it works here, then it's likely a Postman issue or something with the formatting of the JSON.
• You can check your JSON is valid JSON (not the same as something that Canvas will recognize) by going to an online JSON formatter. I use the one at JSON Formatter & Validator at CuriousConcept.com. For example, if I use single quotes around the score, it warns me about incorrect quotes and will fix it for me.

When sending JSON, I have Authorization, Accept, and Content-Type headers. I tell ARC my body content-type is application/json and put in the JSON. It automatically updates the Content-Type for me. It works for me with or without a content-length header.

[todd_vernon]

Thanks! I finally have some success to report.

With the API PUT call:  /api/v1/courses/159581/assignments/327922/submissions/3239072 and a payload of:

{
  "submission":{
    "assignment_id":"327922",
    "user_id":"3239072",
    "posted_grade":1
  },
  "include":[
    "visibility"
  ]
}

It worked...once. I wasn't able to change the posted_grade and have it updated a second time. Would that be expected behaviour?

[James]

 @todd_vernon ,

Progress is good.

I updated the score on the same assignment several times in my testing last night and it updated every time. I was not sending the include.visibilty though. I'm not sure that would play a role on it, though.

[BrianLester]

Try adding the following to the url you use in postman

&submission[posted_grade]=45.67

[RupertRussell]

I have Python code that does the trick for me:

# Purpose: to Update the grades in a canvas unit
# to include the grade for the assignment as well as a comment
# Input is a CSV file with the following columns
# id, name, grade, comment (note these names are case sensitive)
# Output: is a CSV file grades-output-v001
# Code 200 is success anything else is an error
# Author Rupert Russell
# rupert.russell@acu.edu.au
# with assistance from ChatGPT 🙂
# 30/04/2024

import csv
import requests
import os

#Define Course and assignment_id
course_code = "18409"
assignment_code = "35419"

#Define the name of the input CSV
input_CSV_filename = "grades-in-v002.csv"

# Define the base URL
base_url = f"https://xxxx.beta.instructure.com/api/v1/courses/{course_code}/assignments/{assignment_code}/submiss..."

# Define the base filename
base_filename = "grades-output-v"

# Initialize version counter
version_counter = 1

# Generate the initial filename
filename = f"{base_filename}{version_counter:03d}.csv"

# Check if the filename exists, and if it does, increment the version counter
while os.path.exists(filename):
version_counter += 1
filename = f"{base_filename}{version_counter:03d}.csv"

# Now you have a unique filename, you can save the output to this file
with open(filename, 'w', newline='') as csvfile:
writer = csv.writer(csvfile)
writer.writerow(["Student Name", "Student ID", "Grade", "Comment", "Status Code"])

# Open the CSV file
with open(input_CSV_filename, newline='') as csvfile:
reader = csv.DictReader(csvfile)
total_rows = sum(1 for _ in reader) - 1 # Count total rows (-1 because header is not counted)

# Reset file pointer to the beginning
csvfile.seek(0)

# Skip header row
next(reader)

# Iterate over each row in the CSV file
for index, row in enumerate(reader, start=1):
# Access the values of each column
student_name = row['name']
student_id = row['id']
grade = row['grade']
comment = row['comment']

# Construct the complete URL for this submission
submission_url = f"{base_url}{student_id}"

# Construct a submission dictionary
submission = {
"submission": {
"assignment_id": "35419",
"user_id": student_id,
"posted_grade": grade
},
"comment": {
"text_comment": comment
},
"include": [
"visibility"
]
}

# Use your actual API token here
# Use your actual API token here
api_token = "ACC123"

headers = {
'Authorization': f'Bearer {api_token}',
'Content-Type': 'application/json'
}

# Send the PUT request using the constructed URL
response = requests.put(submission_url, json=submission, headers=headers)

# Write the data to the output CSV file
writer.writerow([student_name, student_id, grade, comment, response.status_code])

# Print the progress and additional information
# see: https://cissandbox.bentley.edu/sandbox/wp-content/uploads/2022-02-10-Documentation-on-f-strings-Upda...

print(f"Processing row {index:>4}/{total_rows}, Student Name: {student_name:<40}, Student ID: {student_id}, Grade: {grade:>5}, Status Code: {response.status_code}")

print(f"Output saved to {filename}")