Deeply Link to McGraw Hill Connect non-graded items without creating a Canvas Assignment?

[kathleen1]

Hi - we have a course that's deeply integrated with McGraw Hill Connect. We're using a lot of graded activities from Connect, but we are also using videos, chapter readings, etc. that are not graded. We want to deeply link (a 1:1 mapping) from Canvas directly to any given reading, video etc. 

We're able to link everything directly from Canvas to a Connect resource; the problem is that each link creates an assignment (with submission type "external tool") in Canvas. This, of course, creates a gradebook column in Canvas too - which is extremely messy (we have about 50 of these non-graded links/columns). We can hide the grades in Canvas, but we can't hide the columns - which does us no good.

I've experimented a lot with different approaches, but so far, no luck. I thought creating the assignment, and then copying the URL in the external tool field to a new External Tool that is not an assignment would work - but it does not. Does anyone know of a way to link from Canvas to a specific Connect resource without creating a Canvas gradebook column?

Thanks for any help you can provide,

Kathleen Barringer

Excelsior College

[kathleen1 · Accepted solution]

I heard back from our McGraw Hill Connect Rep yesterday. He tells me that when they move to LTI 1.3, we will have the ability to deploy 0 point assignments from Connect and they will not create a grade item in Canvas.