Randomize student order in SpeedGrader

[KB36]

I've seen that this has feature has been requested a number of times over the years, but I wanted to know if there has been any progress on implementing this as a feature.

I would like to be able to grade submissions in SpeedGrader without knowing anything about the student whose submission I am grading. While I can hide the students' names, this doesn't change the order in which they appear in SpeedGrader, so it can still be possible to know or guess whose work I'm grading, especially in smaller classes.

Currently, the only options are to sort by name, date of submission, or submission status. Sorting by name of course is not helpful, and sorting by submission status is essentially just sorting by name among those who submitted work, so it is similarly unhelpful. The one option that doesn't rely on sorting them alphabetically is to sort by date of submission, but this means that I'm aware that the first submissions I see are from students who submitted their work early, and the last ones I see will be those who submitted their work at the last minute, which introduces a different source of potential bias.

It seems like it would be relatively simple to add this functionality, and given the importance of avoiding bias in grading, it's kind of surprising that it hasn't already been implemented. Is this something that we can expect to be addressed in the near future?

[ProfessorBeyrer · Accepted solution]

Thank you for asking this question, @KB36. As you note, this has been requested and Instructure's response was that the current sort options effectively allow for randomization. Here is an idea marked as completed with those comments:

Randomize submissions in Speedgrader - Instructure Community - 345482

Others there made similar comments about the current sort options not being anonymous enough. The best option at this point is to submit a new idea to add true random sorting to the SpeedGrader. The process for submitting ideas is explained in the document How do Ideas and Themes work in the Instructure Community? 

Creating an idea does not provide an immediate solution to the problem you described, though it is a solution. I’m going to mark it as such and hope that it helps our colleagues who have similar concerns. If you decide to create an idea, please link it here.

[jbig]

Especially in light of studies like this:

https://phys.org/news/2024-04-grades-students-surnames-alphabetical.html

it is clear that true randomization, with and without anonymity options, is needed.  Educators don't want to hurt students just because they're consistently grading them later in the process.  Students tend to submit work around the same time of each due date and their names are their names, so neither of the existing options really works to randomize students.

Please take another look at this.  You are inadvertently harming students by not including, maybe even as default, this true randomization feature.

Thank you.