[Gradebook Settings] A global option to enable/disable Missing and Late Status labels in the New Gradebook

[kimberly_smith1]

I would like to see a more global option to enable/disable the display of MISSING/LATE assignment labels to our students in their Gradebook. While I appreciate the effort to address our initial concerns about this feature in the New Gradebook, as it is now this option must be managed student-by-student for EACH assignment. The display of these labels as the default is problematic for those of us who allow students to choose among a number of assignments to complete within an assignment group (e.g. making those ‘not done’ assignments neither ‘late’ nor ‘missing’).  

An Example...An instructor with 4 classes in a 16 week semester, with 50 students in each class, allows students to choose 5/10 assignments to complete in a given assignment group. The instructor cannot know which of these assignments students will choose until all of the assignment deadlines in that assignment group have passed. As such, to prevent students from seeing inaccurate late/missing labels in the New Gradebook for assignments that were not actually required, the instructor must:

1) go to the Gradebook column for each assignment in that assignment group (10 assignments)
2) click on the cell where each student’s grade would appear for that assignment (200 students)
3) change the Grade Detail Tray to ‘No Status’ (= 2000 grade detail tray changes)

If you then consider instructors with larger classes, and/or those who allow assignment choices in more than one assignment group, I think the need for a more global option associated with this feature becomes clear. 

For a more detailed explanation of how the option the removal of these labels is currently managed in the New Gradebook, please see ttps://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-13333-canvas-release-new-gradebook#jive_content_id_Grades_Ma... . 

Additional concerns associated with this issue can be found in my post at https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/9339-missing-label-placed-incorrectlysubmission-on-paper-and-o... (Feb. 25th, 2018). 

[rtincoff]

I would like to disable the missing and late labels. I allow students to resubmit to improve their work and their score. The screaming red LATE is not helpful. I need the assignments to be dated so that they can see the pathway through the class and manage their time. 

I'm tired of Canvas engineers deciding for instructors what is important in our courses.

[MatteoTamburini]

I vote up on this proposal.

[mpjohnson0616]

How has this problem STILL not been addressed by Canvas? In over 2 years, not one employee has even acknowledged this thread. Unacceptable. 

Canvas: listen to your teachers. We know what we need and we shouldn't have to "vote" or have a certain amount of up-votes to have necessary changes implemented. If you want schools to continue to use your service, you simply must be willing to update and make changes based on the needs of the teachers and students who use said service. Get your house in order. 

[cmuir]

Like earlier posters have mentioned, I use LTI tools within Canvas.  If I manually grade an assignment in that tool after the due date (when most grading happens), it marks the student assignment as late.  Even with a "heads up" about this Canvas behavior given to students in advance, many still get very stressed about seeing the LATE label—especially if they've taken previous classes in Canvas where that LATE label indicated points were being lost.

Even aside from the LTI and grading issue, automatically marking assignments LATE just doesn't fit with how I structure my courses and communicate with my students.  I want the option to not do this.

I'm going to try the "Removing Missing and Late Labels" canvancement from @James  this term to remove the LATE labels, but it looks like that only works after assignments have already been marked LATE, not as a way to tell Canvas, "Don't ever mark it LATE."  Please, Canvas/Instructure, give us this option!

[James]

@cmuir 

The external tool I use for grading sends does not behave the way you're describing. My assignments are not marked as late or missing when the student doesn't do them, they just sit there. At least that's the way it was at the beginning of December.

This matches what I remember earlier about external tools were specifically excluded from the late penalty. I think other people wanted them to graded, but there was no easy way for Canvas to tell whether they had been submitted on time or the grade passback just happened after the due date so they were correct in not implementing that for external tools. Maybe I'm confusing missing instead of late --- it's been a while since I've looked at this as the original impetus for the script was to get rid of the missing tags.

I wonder if it's an issue with the external tool rather than Canvas. The lateness isn't determined by the date it was graded. The graded date is a separate thing. However, it may be that the LTI you're using is not sending the original submission date but the current date and time and that's something that could be looked at by the LTI provider. Still, I thought (but haven't checked recently) that external tools were specifically excluded from the process.

What LTI are you using that's doing this? Some plagiarism (originality reports) software interacts at a deeper level with Canvas than some other things. Since I don't use any of those, I don't know what extra twists they may add.

[cmuir]

@James 

This behavior only started with the change to (I believe) LTI 1.3.  Canvas used to be able to tell the difference between student activity on an assignment after the deadline and instructor activity on an assignment after the deadline, but now treats them both as late activity and flags the assignment as late.  Assignments from the external tool never get flagged as missing, so that part isn't an issue for me.

[LindseySharp]

I am an administrator for a subaccount for my campus's Canvas instance.

The "late" flag disturbs the peace of students in some courses which utilize due dates to keep folks on task but do not penalize for late work. It would be ideal to be able to disable this flag for a course. Not using due dates at all is not an ideal solution.

[ScottPrescott]

We would like the ability to globally turn of the "Late" label that is assigned to assignments that are turned in after the due date. We know you can do it manually for each assignment when grading or in the grade book, but as we don't want it showing for anyone in our school we would like a global solution. The "Missing" label is helpful but the "Late" is not. I have read int he community that this is a feature many would appreciate. Thanks for considering.

[Advocate]

The argument that printing a big red LATE tag for work that came in after the due date somehow helps students is the smelliest form of hot garbage. Students that are chronically late are like that for many reasons, none of which you can fix with a red pen. You penalize them psychologically with markings they will have to look at for the entirety of a term. Let this be an option the instructor controls on a per-class basis. If the teacher wants to be a punitive hardass, let them. It's not the job of Canvas as an educational platform to discipline its students, but if you want to make that an optional feature, have at it.

Students with disabilities especially don't need a reminder that they are not as fast as their peers. It is psychological warfare against students who work differently in the name of "helping" procrastinators. That kind of logic reminds me of a parent who would take the belt to their kid excessively for falling short of expectations while telling them "this hurts me more than it hurts you."

Get rid of it or turn it off by default. Lateness is already noted on the submission page. If you really want to encourage timeliness, try rewarding on-time submissions with a big green ON TIME in addition to or instead of penalizing people with a big red LATE that will haunt them for the entire duration of the course. That way you still get to break their spirit a little, but you at least make it worth looking at the gradebook. Or how about splitting the difference and just using SUBMITTED or SUBMITTED. That way you still get the pleasure of making students feel bad about themselves, but you at least make them feel good when they do well.