Ungraded/Resubmitted Status in Student Submissions

mpcharnley

My course involves students resubmitting assignments that have previously been graded to try to improve their grade. Once they turn in a resubmission, it seems like it's impossible for them to tell if the assignment 1) hasn't been graded yet, or 2) if it was graded and their grade did not improve (assuming they miss the notification or dot that tell them they have a new grade). This isn't an issue on the first attempt (since there either isn't a grade or there is), but once there's a grade in the gradebook, it looks like the assignment shows up as graded no matter if the new version has been looked at yet.

Is there a way to (hopefully automatically) set something like an "ungraded" status on the assignment that students can see? There's a "resubmitted" status in the instructor gradebook that I think does exactly what I would want, but that doesn't seem to show up to students. I've thought about trying to use the "late" status to do that, but I'd rather not have to uncheck that manually for each student while grading.

Jeff_F

@mpcharnley This is a known limitation in Canvas and you are describing the behavior correctly.

From the student view, once an assignment has any grade posted, Canvas continues to display it as graded even if the student submits a new attempt that has not been reviewed yet. There is no student visible status that distinguishes between waiting for regrading and graded with no change. The instructor only resubmitted status in the gradebook does not surface to students.

At the moment there is no automatic way to show an ungraded or pending review state to students after a resubmission.
A few workarounds that instructors use:

One approach is to rely on submission comments rather than grades. Posting a brief comment like Resubmission received and under review makes it immediately clear to the student that the new attempt has not been graded yet. This can be done fairly quickly during grading and is visible in the assignment view.

Another option is to use assignment instructions or a course announcement to clearly explain the workflow. For example, you can tell students that if they resubmit, they should assume it is pending until they receive a new grade notification or comment. Setting that expectation up front reduces confusion later.

Some instructors create a manual status signal using assignment comments or a rubric criterion like Regrade Pending that is temporarily marked during review and then updated once grading is complete. It is not elegant, but it gives students a visible cue.

Using Late status technically works as a signal, but as you noted it creates extra manual cleanup and can cause confusion or stress for students, so most people avoid it for this purpose.

In short, you are not missing a setting. This is a Canvas limitation, and any solution today requires some kind of instructor side signaling rather than an automatic status change.