Student withdrawal from class impacts peer reviews

[judy_harmon]

One of our instructors has asked the question below.  I turned first to the Canvas Instructor Guides before submitting here.  There was information about how peer comments remain for a student  who withdraws from a class, but there didn't seem to be an answer for Student A who submitted their review on Student B who has now withdrawn from a class and Student A isn't getting credit for having submitted a peer review.

Question:
"If a student withdraws from a class, they disappear fully. That is fine except for situations involving peer reviews.

Part of the grade given to students on essays involves: "Did the student complete a peer review?" If a student writes a peer review for a peer who then withdraws from class, the system currently does not have a correct status for that. Right now, it states basically that no peer review was completed for that student, which is false. They did complete a peer review; however, that peer's account is not removed from the course. There needs to be a corrective if/then measure in the software so that when a student is no longer in class, peer reviews done by other students are still marked as COMPLETED (even if those reviews can no longer be visible to the grader."

I can submit this through a Canvas ticket, but thought I'd check with the community first to see if others know an answer?

Thanks!

Judy L. Harmon

[chriscas]

Hi @judy_harmon,

Do you know how your school/institution are handling students who withdraw in Canvas?  Canvas has a few different statuses that could be used (deleted, inactive, and completed) in a withdraw scenario, and each one may have a different effect on peer reviews.

My guess from your description is that your school may be using the "deleted" status, which does effectively erase the student enrollment from existence in the course and will probably have some undesirable consequences with peer reviews.  I think inactive or concluded status in Canvas would work better for peer reviews, but could change other areas in potentially unwanted ways too.

The enrollment options are definitely available on the Canvas side, but your school/institution may be using a student information system to sync information to Canvas, and that system may only work with one or two of the options Canvas has.  This really may be something you'll need to talk to your local school/institution Canvas team about, but at least know there are some options available.

Hope this helps a bit!

-Chris