Ensure admins can circumvent new anonymous marking

[a_craik]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

This request is in relation to this pending development: https://community.canvaslms.com/community/ideas/priority-double-blind-grading/pages/home 

and the unintended preview of the development experienced briefly in production - see comments here: Canvas Production Release Notes (2018-04-21) 

I would like to suggest a less disruptive way of solving this problem (and expanding on what the problem is):

Problem #1 (recognised by Instructure): anonymous grading can be circumvented by the teacher accessing a specific student submission via the 'more details in SpeedGrader' link in Grades

Problem #2 (not recognised by Instructure): non-teaching staff need to be able to access a specific student submission during anonymous grading for administrative purposes. These staff will not necessarily have the permissions to masquerade as students (the admin tasks required are varied, as are the roles that perform them).

Proposed solution: When anonymous grading is switched on in a course, the 'more details in SpeedGrader' link is hidden to users of role-type 'teacher'/'TA' (and any derivative custom roles). Admin staff can still see and use the link, teachers simply can't (unless anon grading is toggled off).

Comments from Instructure

For more information, please read through the https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-14928 .

[natalie_norton1]

Hi  @a_craik ‌   - I can completely see why you might need this, but I don't think this would not work for us unfortunately as many of our 'teachers' who mark also have limited admin roles (eg programme leaders, heads of depts). Would it need to be tied to a permission I wonder?

I seem to remember when we saw the wireframes that you can turn anon marking on and off, but that it would leave a clear audit trail to say who did it when (and poss note of why? Can't remember!). Would that enable your admins to circumvent when they need to? I think this was our plan, although it all depends on final specs. 

[g_bowie]

Just to agree with Natalie's comments above - I think the audit trail is sufficient for our needs. I don't recall it having a note for the reason, but this is something that we would welcome - it mirrors some existing functionality we currently have.

[a_craik]

 @g_bowie ‌ &  @natalie_norton1 ‌, I agree that the dual role scenario of some 'teachers' does indeed make my proposed solution more problematic.

Knowing you're both UK HE (so this will be familiar), how do you deal with cases of academic misconduct (e.g. allegations of plagiarism) where anonymous grading must be left on for marking to continue, but admin staff need to be able to access the specific submission in order to reveal the identity of the student and begin processing the misconduct case?

[natalie_norton1]

ah...that is a difficult one! We don't have anon marking on at the moment, so don't have that issue, but still have problems with academic misconduct as all the feedback and grades need to be held back whilst the investigation is in progress, which is problematic when the assignment is unmuted. We end up having to copy feedback and grades elsewhere and delete from original. Would really like to hear how others handle this. 

[soberoi]

Hi all, 

This is a fantastic conversation going on and I really appreciate the discussion going into this. The output of this conversation will certainly have impacts on the solution of the design. 

As highlighted by both  @natalie_norton1 ‌ and  @g_bowie ‌, the hope is to further facilitate this through the audit trail indicating what happened during the marking process. 

In regards to Natalie's comment:

I seem to remember when we saw the wireframes that you can turn anon marking on and off, but that it would leave a clear audit trail to say who did it when

This is correct. The audit trail will capture when anonymous is turned on or off and by whom. The hope is that this facilitates the need for Admins and to keep the fair marking practices intact. 

I'd love to get additional feedback around this matter to ensure that we are properly implementing this. 

Best,

Sidh

[erinhmcmillan]

Comments from Instructure

For more information, please read through the Canvas Beta Release Notes (2018-07-02) 

[Renee_Carney]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas 

For more information, please read through the Canvas Production Release Notes (2018-07-14) .

[natalie_norton1]

Hi - I don't think the audit trail is in production yet - coming in a later release? 

[Renee_Carney]

 @a_craik  Thank You  for submitting this idea, as well as,  @natalie_norton1  Thank You  &  @g_bowie  Thank You  for your contributions. Your investment in this idea helped refine a feature which is now part of Canvas! 

[soberoi]

Hi  @natalie_norton1 , 

That is correct - the audit functionality will come in a later release. 

Best,

Sidh