missing assignment report in canvas

Get a List of All Students and Missing Work from Canvas

Published: 2020-05-18 9:16 AM |

Category: Code | Tags: canvas , canvas api , canvas lms , code , programming , python

In a Canvas course, you can quickly check the number of missing assignments for single students relatively quickly. You can also message groups of students missing specific assignments from the analytics page (or the gradebook). What you can't do is get a list of all students in a course and their missing assignments in a CSV for quick analysis.

In my never ending exploration of the Canvas API, I've got a Python script that creates a missing assignments report for a course, broken down by section.

I have my own specific thoughts about using the "missing" flag to communicate with students about work. The bigger picture is that while we're distance learning, it's helpful to be able to get a birds-eye view of the entire course in terms of assignment submission. We also have enlisted building principals to help check in on progress and having this report available is helpful for their lookup purposes.

What it does

The script uses UCF's canvasapi library to handle all of the endpoints. Make sure to pip install before you try to run the script. The Canvas object makes it easy to pass course and section references around for processing.

Because each student has to be individualy looked up, it uses multiple threads to speed it up. There isn't much compute, just API calls and data wrangling, so multithreading worked better than multiprocessing.

For each section, the script calls for each students' submissions, looking for workflow_state="unsubmitted" specifically to handle filtering on the Canvas servers.

From this filtered list, it creates a final list by checking the submission history and any excused flags. A list is then returned to the main worker and the section is written as a whole to keep the processes thread-safe.

When the script is finished, you'll have a CSV report on your filesystem (in the same directory as the script itself) that you can use.

Improvements

Currently, missing assigments are joined as a single string in the final cell, so those could be broken out into individual columns. I found that the resulting sheet is nicer when the number of columns is consistent, but there could be some additional processing added to sort assignments by name to keep order similar.

Canvas is also implementing GraphQL endpoints so you can request specific bits of data. The REST endpoints are hepful, but you get a lot of data back. Cleaning up the number of bytes of return data will also help it run faster.

Thank you kindly for your post. This helps tremendously to see how my 5th and 4th graders are doing in all their subjects.

Comments are always open. You can get in touch by sending me an email at [email protected]

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Setting Automatic Grades for Missing Assignments in Canvas

If a student has not submitted an assignment and the due date has passed, you can either enter a zero in the Canvas Gradebook manually or you can have Canvas automatically assign a zero using a Missing Submission Policy.

It is important that every item in the Canvas Gradebook has a number or a value. If you do not enter a grade for an assignment, Canvas will ignore the assignment in their final grade calculation, resulting in an inaccurate, possibly inflated score. It is also important to enter any zeros immediately after the due date passes rather than at the end of the semester so that students’ grades are an accurate reflection of their current standing.

To use the Missing Submission Policy feature :

• Open your Canvas course and select Grades in the left-hand navigation.
• Click on the gear icon in the upper right-hand corner of the Gradebook. The Late Policies tab will now appear.
• Select “Automatically apply grade for missing submissions” and enter 0 in the field below.

Canvas will now automatically insert a zero into any missing assignment cell after a due date has passed. You can always override this score if you choose to accept a student’s assignment after the due date.

Setting a Missing Submission policy affects all assignments in a course, including assignments with due dates in the past. To exclude a specific assignment, mark the submission as something other than Missing in the Grade Detail Tray. Applying a missing submission policy will not affect previously graded missing submissions. See  How do I apply a Missing Submission policy in the Gradebook?  for more information.

Note that you can also use this feature to automatically apply deductions to late submissions.  See  How do I apply a Late Submission policy in the Gradebook?  for more information.

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An Excel Macro file to format missing assignment reports created by Canvas.

egoossen/missing-assignment-report-generator

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Why it’s hard for students to “just turn in” missing assignments, and how to get them unstuck

Mar 29, 2023 | Blog

With the end of the semester on the horizon, many students may feel overwhelmed by low grades or feeling behind in some of their classes.

As a parent, it can be stressful to see that your student has overdue work, or get notifications from their teacher that they’re missing assignments. 

It’s even more frustrating when you’ve told them over and over again how important it is to “just turn it in”…but the work is still showing up as missing.

The reality is that no matter how simple it might seem to an outside observer, doing missing work is almost never as easy as “just getting it done.” If they haven’t done the work yet, there’s a good chance that something is getting in their way. 

If you can figure out what the problem is before jumping in to help them (or make them) do the work, you’ll dramatically increase your chances of success.

In our experience, there are usually 3 main reasons students resist submitting their missing work…even when it seems like “just turning it in” would be SO much easier!

Reason 1: They think it won’t make a difference

Once the due date for an assignment has passed, students often de-prioritize it and move on to focus on upcoming assignments instead. It’s tempting for students to justify this by thinking “there are lots of other assignments, missing one or two won’t matter.”

But what they often don’t realize is that because of the way most grading scales are weighted, even one or two zeros can have an enormous impact on their grade. Showing students the difference it makes to turn in just a few assignments can increase their motivation to get the work done. 

Here’s an example of the difference it can make to turn in just a few missing assignments before the end of the semester:

Overall grade with 3 missing assignments: 78.3%

Overall grade when assignments are turned in: 90.1%

It’s hard for students to calculate these averages in their head, so it can be really powerful for them to run the numbers and see firsthand exactly how much they have to gain from making up their missing assignments.

When we do calculations like this with our students, they are almost always surprised by how much this makeup work could improve their grades, and feel much more motivated to submit the assignments when they can see for themselves the difference it will make.

Reason 2: They think it’s too late

Another reason students often resist doing makeup work is that they think it’s too late to get credit for it. 

Even if they’ve done the math and know that submitting the work would make a difference in their grade, they still won’t want to turn it in if they think the teacher won’t accept it.

Especially for introverted or anxious students, it can be very intimidating to have conversations with their teachers. They might think they’ll get in trouble for asking to submit their work late, or worry that the teacher will say “no.”

The good news is that many teachers are flexible with their late work policies and allow students to turn in overdue assignments even when it is past the “official” deadline to submit them.

So if students can find the courage to ask for help, there is a good chance that their teachers will respond positively and allow them an opportunity to make up the work.

For students who are struggling to reach out to teachers, we often find it is helpful to roleplay these conversations in coaching sessions if they’re not sure what to say, or work with them to email their teachers if they’re not sure what to say.

Reason 3: They feel overwhelmed

Students who are behind on their work often have challenges keeping track of due dates, managing time, breaking down complex assignments, prioritizing work, staying focused, or following through with plans….which is why they fell behind in the first place. 

These challenges can become even more daunting when they are behind in their classes, and trying to complete makeup assignments on top of their normal workload.

This can feel so stressful that a lot of students avoid or put off doing makeup work even when they   know   how much it would improve their grade.

For these students to get their work submitted, it’s essential to help them find ways to…

• Break down the assignments so they have a realistic plan for getting the work done that they’re confident they can actually follow through with
• Lower the stress they feel while they are doing the work so they will be less tempted to avoid it
• Visualize the progress they are making so they can see that their efforts are making a difference

Providing support

When students have a lot of makeup work to complete, having some additional support to help them work through it can be invaluable. 

For some students, this may mean finding a tutor to help them with the content they didn’t understand when their teacher was first presenting the material. 

For other students, having a family member or friend nearby as a source of moral support to keep them company while they are working (and a motivating reward to look forward to as soon as the work is completed) can be enormously helpful.

Other students may benefit from working with an academic coach to help them get unstuck and started on their missing work. Sometimes, having someone else who is not a family member step in to help can reduce stress and conflict at home and make it easier for students to take the steps they need to get back on track in their classes. If you think this type of support would be helpful for your student, please feel free to reach out and we’ll be happy to help! 

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Assignment submission types in canvas.

Canvas lets you decide the way you want students to submit their assignments. You specify the submission type in the Submission Type box when you create the assignment. Assignment settings always remember and display the settings created or edited in the previous assignment in the course.

On This Page

No Submission

External tool.

Choose No Submission when you do not want students to submit an assignment in Canvas. You can use this assignment type to create extra columns in the Gradebook, or when you want to create an assignment that involves multiple scores.

Choose Online when you want students to submit their assignments in Canvas. When you use the online submission type, you can specify online entry options.

Text Entry : Students can submit their assignment directly in the Rich Content Editor .

Website URLs : Students can submit a URL that fulfills the assignment.

Media Recordings : Students can submit an audio or video recording that fulfills the assignment. They can either record new media or upload existing media.

File Uploads : Students can upload a file to fulfill the assignment. Note that if your institution has enbled Google Docs as a submission type, students can connect to Google Docs as a web service to submit an assignment as a Google Doc, Google Sheet, or Google Slide. However, these files will convert to their Microsoft counterpart file type—Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, respectively.

If you want to only allow certain types of files for assignment submissions, click the Restrict Upload File Types check box and manually enter a list of accepted extensions in the Allowed File Extensions box. In the case of an odd or unusual file type, try adding it to your course to confirm the file is accepted before requesting students to submit the file type.

Select On Paper when you want students to submit an assignment to you but not through Canvas. When you choose this assignment type, Canvas creates a column in the Gradebook for grading purposes. However, you must enter the grades manually.

Choose External Tool when you want students to submit their assignments using an external app (LTI) enabled for your course. You must enter a URL for the external tool.

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