[Assignments] Move or Delete Incorrectly Submitted Assignments

[Chris_Hofer]

If a student submits an assignment to say week 2 folder when it should have been submitted to week 3, currently there is no way to move that assignment to the correct location as the Teacher.  This core functionality exists in all other LCS.LMS and should be considered for inclusion in Canvas's core modules.

Brought over from the old Canvas Community

Submitted by: Michael Black

Date: 6/3/2011

Votes: 112

[ariel_rodriguez]

I agree.  I've been using Canvas for one week and already I need this fix.  

[james_trueman]

Just adding to this.  We've just discovered that when an assignment is muted, the student doesn't have access to the Turnitin report (we encourage formative use prior to submission rather than just using it as a punitive tool only by the academic).  This means we'll have to set up separate Draft assignments for the students to access, which gives them another workflow to think about (not the easiest solution) and will increase the risk of them making submission errors ('I thought I'd submitted - but it was in the Draft').  So that seems to be something that is forced upon us by the platform - and yet we don't that the means to resolve that - because Instructure does not seem willing to develop a solution for us to move a submission to the correct assignment (preferable) or delete a submission?

[tfoster5]

Another LMS I worked with had a "Return to Student" option that was very handy.

[hvaughn]

Currently, files that have been submitted as part of an assignment cannot be deleted. We just had an incident where we realized this needs to change.  Without going into detail other than to say HIPAA protected information was accidentally submitted, I'd like to request to allow both students and admins (or at least admins) be able to delete files that have been accidentally submitted to an assignment. Deleting the assignment is not an option.

[pchaney]

Admins need to have the capability to delete submissions/content - now.  If it takes additional time to make this both an admin and student feature, we should separate this into two features, one for admins (which should be implemented immediately), and another for students, which could take longer to work out (if needed). This way, teachers could request Canvas Admins at their institution remove submissions now as a workaround until the student feature can be figured out. At least there would be some method available for removing content quickly, other than submitting a ticket to Canvas Support and being placed in a queue.

[stefan_hohenber]

I think technically we do not need to sperate this tasks. Because it’s the same process or functionality. Finally it’s an easy function and it’s all about to enable different user groups.

I think students own their work and should have the right to delete their own submissions. Maybe everything we all need is to archive such a possibility for students. So the teachers/admins could ask the specific student to delete her or his assignment. Also in this way we have no problems with the data security here in Europe.

[pchaney]

Hi Stefan,

I heartily agree that students should be able to delete their own submissions, though I see no reason for Canvas to archive deleted submissions. If a student uploads a submission, a copy of the submission already exists on the student's device, so archiving is unneeded. Additionally, there are some situations where students or admins want something to be completely deleted, so archiving it is a problem. This idea was submitted 3 years ago, and still, even Canvas admins cannot delete submissions. If Canvas could fix this for admins, we could help students until they are given the ability. Our frustration, in a nutshell, is that institutions using Canvas do not have the ability to control their own data because of an ongoing limitation in the Canvas LMS.

We discovered this limitation when asked by a college administrator to remove a student's submissions. The student had accidentally submitted files containing sensitive information instead of the files intended, and the student could not delete them. After discovering even an admin could not delete the submissions, we contacted Canvas Support around 9 AM asking them to remove the sensitive files. This was completed after 4 PM after being elevated to L2 support; evidently it wasn't even easy for Canvas Support to do, even with much greater access and rights. We did keep busy during those 7 hours though, trying to explain to others why we as admins could not control our institution's data in Canvas. 

In most learning management systems, what is displayed to the user is based on their role. As a page loads, items would check the role-level  (being passed via querystring, session variable,etc.) and display accordingly. A delete button may or may not be displayed based on role-level.  If someone was clever and tried to get around this, the delete function would also require an acceptable role-level. If role is only the problem, I think this could be resolved quickly. Since it's been 3 years, my guess is that there is more to it, probably something to do with where the files are stored in AWS, permissions/trust, or some other technical reason why Canvas can't easily delete them.

Regardless of the challenges for Canvas LMS engineers, a Canvas admin needs to be able to control both users and content in the LMS they are responsible for - this is a glaring deficiency in Canvas that needs to be resolved. 

Paul

[lynn_schedler]

I don't think instructors should be able to delete submissions because it could open us up to accusations such as the one that was made against me several years ago. I had a student who submitted very little work and so failed my class. She told her father that I had deleted her work because I didn't like her and wanted her to fail. He took this not only to my principal but to our district office. He still didn't believe it when he was told that instructors couldn't delete work and still tried to get me fired obviously unsuccessfully. 

[thomas-rietz]

You can solve this easily using records of deletion and it is a FAR FAR lower risk than the risk of releasing protected information.

[kmeeusen]

Hi  @lynn_schedler 

After reading that, I think you could use a great big Panda Hug!

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