Inconsistent submission formatting in Speedgrader view

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KhosiLunga
Community Member

Hello

 

The instructor requested students to submit pdf or .doc assignments. The assignments instruct students to follow APA formatting. They get scores deducted if they do not.

The instructor sees some inconsistency in the APA format, with a fraction of students in Speedgrader view. For example, the page numbers are swapped, and the reference section is moved to different pages. However, when downloading the submissions, the formatting matches the required APA style.

What could be causing this?

She teaches a large class and would like to use the speed grader view to grade students' work as it is more efficient than downloading each student's submission.

Could you please share some insight into how to resolve this?

 

Thanks,

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1 Solution
chriscas
Community Coach
Community Coach

Hi @KhosiLunga,

DocViewer (the tool which displays/previews the files in SpeedGrader) will probably never render documents identically to how they appear in word in every situation.  99% of the time, things would be indistinguishable between DocViewer and Word, but if an instructor is getting very detailed in grading formatting, I really would recommend downloading the files and opening them in Word.  The most common thing that would throw off formatting, page numbers, and the like would be use of unsupported fonts, though there can definitely be other causes as well.  The  What types of files can I preview in Canvas? - Instructure Community - 617187  guide shows what fonts are supported in DocViewer, so students could be asked to use those for the best chance of having DocViewer render the file exactly how Word does.

I hope this info helps!

-Chris

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