[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

[MWilliams24]

I cannot comprehend how this is still not a feature in Canvas.

Scenario: Student inadvertently submits their assignment prematurely/incomplete (but to the correct portal)

• If the assignment was set to single submission only, the instructor now needs to:
  • set the assignment to two submissions for ALL students, and to avoid giving other students a second submission, the instructor needs to organise a time to make the assignment available to only this particular student, then needs to change the assignment back to single submission and make it available to all students again.
• The instructor is forced to live with the clutter and annoyance of having an assignment submission which does not belong there.

Scenario: Student inadvertently submits to the wrong assignment portal

• All points above, plus
• The instructor can no longer unpublish the assignment portal because it contains submissions.
• The instructor can no longer convert the assignment a group assignment because it contains submissions.
• The instructor is now consistently prompted (via the Dashboard to do list) to grade a submission which does not need to be graded.

Scenario: Student inadvertently submits to a past assignment portal which has already been graded

• All points above, plus
• The Gradebook icon now suggests that the student has not been graded because their most recent submission is not graded. To get around this, the instructor needs to click ‘Use this same grade for the resubmission’ – essentially grading a submission for a completely different assignment using the grading rubric/rules for this assignment.

Add on to this the extra workload for instructors (and us admin staff) when they contact us to ask how to delete a submission, only for us to have to tell them that it is impossible in what is supposed to be a modern LMS. Even the archaic Blackboard Learn allowed submissions to be deleted.

I do see value in the core philosophy that is “keep a record of anything and everything”, but when it results in headaches and workload for countless instructors, students and admin staff, a line must be drawn. It would not be a monumental task to allow deletion of submissions while keeping a record of who deleted the submission and when (for auditing purposes).

If there are concerns about instructors inadvertently/recklessly deleting submissions they shouldn’t be, then this can be made available to admins only, or a toggleable user permission. Alternatively, this can be made “difficult” for the average user (e.g. only make it possible through the API).

This has been requested on the Canvas Community since 2011. This idea has had hundreds of comments and five-star ratings across multiple idea threads over the course of more than a DECADE. In 2015, Instructure posted an update stating:
It's a great feature idea and we would like to solve this problem. However, our immediate roadmap is overflowing with other great ideas and we will not realistically get to this feature request in the immediate future. I'm going to have to Archive this for now, but don't lose hope. This is a really solid feature request and one that deserves our attention. It won't evaporate from our minds just because it's archived right now.

Well, fair to say it has evaporated from your minds and I think we’ve all lost hope.

[MWilliams24]

I cannot comprehend how this is still not a feature in Canvas.

Scenario: Student inadvertently submits their assignment prematurely/incomplete (but to the correct portal)

• If the assignment was set to single submission only, the instructor now needs to:
  • set the assignment to two submissions for ALL students, and to avoid giving other students a second submission, the instructor needs to organise a time to make the assignment available to only this particular student, then needs to change the assignment back to single submission and make it available to all students again.
• The instructor is forced to live with the clutter and annoyance of having an assignment submission which does not belong there.

Scenario: Student inadvertently submits to the wrong assignment portal

• All points above, plus
• The instructor can no longer unpublish the assignment portal because it contains submissions.
• The instructor can no longer convert the assignment a group assignment because it contains submissions.
• The instructor is now consistently prompted (via the Dashboard to do list) to grade a submission which does not need to be graded.

Scenario: Student inadvertently submits to a past assignment portal which has already been graded

• All points above, plus
• The Gradebook icon now suggests that the student has not been graded because their most recent submission is not graded. To get around this, the instructor needs to click ‘Use this same grade for the resubmission’ – essentially grading a submission for a completely different assignment using the grading rubric/rules for this assignment.

Add on to this the extra workload for instructors (and us admin staff) when they contact us to ask how to delete a submission, only for us to have to tell them that it is impossible in what is supposed to be a modern LMS. Even the archaic Blackboard Learn allowed submissions to be deleted.

I do see value in the core philosophy that is “keep a record of anything and everything”, but when it results in headaches and workload for countless instructors, students and admin staff, a line must be drawn. It would not be a monumental task to allow deletion of submissions while keeping a record of who deleted the submission and when (for auditing purposes).

If there are concerns about instructors inadvertently/recklessly deleting submissions they shouldn’t be, then this can be made available to admins only, or a toggleable user permission. Alternatively, this can be made “difficult” for the average user (e.g. only make it possible through the API).

This has been requested on the Canvas Community since 2011. This idea has had hundreds of comments and five-star ratings across multiple idea threads over the course of more than a DECADE. In 2015, Instructure posted an update stating:
It's a great feature idea and we would like to solve this problem. However, our immediate roadmap is overflowing with other great ideas and we will not realistically get to this feature request in the immediate future. I'm going to have to Archive this for now, but don't lose hope. This is a really solid feature request and one that deserves our attention. It won't evaporate from our minds just because it's archived right now.

Well, fair to say it has evaporated from your minds and I think we’ve all lost hope.

[PMH]

I am concerned that it is impossible for faculty or students to delete files submitted to an Assignment Dropbox. This likely violates University privacy policies. It certainly violates my own policies as I take student privacy very seriously.

• A student (or I) could inadvertently/mistakenly submit a confidential or proprietary file to an Assignment Dropbox on the Canvas course site. In the past, I have had multiple students submit their confidential peer evaluation to a team Dropbox on our Desire2Learn course management system. Fortunately, I was able to delete those files before team members saw those confidential files. Canvas has no such protection as instructors can't delete student submitted files.  
• There must be a way for instructors to delete files on Canvas. Instructors must be able to delete student submission files without having to seek the assistance of a campus administrator.
  

[MatthewOstrande]

We really would like to be able to remove an incorrectly submitted assignment.

I do not understand why people are commenting that it is unnecessary if students can resubmit the assignment. It affects the student's grade if a grade is posted (we have 16 graders on our Canvas site) thus affecting the averages that we are trying to track. We also allow only 2 submissions per assignment.

[Gregory_Putman]

Hi,

I'd like to add my voice to this concern.  I'm responsible for all of our university department's lab courses.  We have post-lab homework assignments (new quizzes), in-class group lab work (assignments), etc.  When students are absent from class sessions the group work still gets submitted for the entire group.  I use assigned lab partners for the in-class work.  When students are absent from lab meetings and the assigned group reporter submits the group work all members of the group get a submission including the data, graphs, analyses, calculations, etc.  The absentees also receive copies of all the work that their partners did during class.  In the past with other LMS I could simply delete the submission from the absentee's account, then allow them to submit their own work after completing a make-up session.  I am not able to do this in Canvas (first semester with live students and TAs in Canvas class pages) so... students now show up for make up sessions and use the work their partners submitted to fill in their lab work when TAs are not sitting at their table and working with them.  It would really be great to have the option of deleting submissions - and also have a record of the work being submitted and deleted made.  I have no control of what my TAs are able to do in our Canvas pages (Canvas programmers please address that conversation/feature suggestion) so I would need records of deletes in addition to the ability to delete.  Also LOTS of mistaken submissions as folks have commented earlier.

This is my 28th or 29th post about issues that seem to be basic functionality issues with Canvas.  I'm new and expected a big transition but is it really concerning to see so many issues that have conversations dating back to 2015 or 2016 that still haven't got any attention due to lack of social media interaction/upvotes...  New features definitely need to have enough potential use to make them worth programmer time/cost but issues like this regarding basic functioning should be addressed.  Please let me know if there is a different venue that should be used for reporting basic functionality issues like this.  (Other issues include not being able to designate bonus questions in new quizzes, no ability to bulk edit times when bulk editing dates on assignments, grade book does not calculate an actual average grade without cumbersome work-arounds, no ability to override grades in the grade book, etc.)

[marafinom]

Just checking in on if this feature has any development - seems like a huge oversight, and this thread started in 2016.

[RaeJobst-GU]

Just wanted to add another voice to the request for this functionality. Also relates to this discussion: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Question-Forum/How-does-a-student-delete-a-submission-to-a...

[marafinom]

Has there been any development on this? Seems it's still not functional in Canvas, and many instructors have expressed their frustrations.

[tfjackso]

Upvoting this one!  Since 2011!

Folks, I did figure out that you can check "excused" on a submission and at least it will go away on those pesky reminders when all but one assignment have been graded. TJ

[PBart0]

@MWilliams24 has written a brilliantly thorough post on this.  I see no way to upvote it.  Hence this post.