Graded submissions disappear from Gradebook when moving a student between sections

Question

When a student is moved to a different section, or removed from a section while remaining enrolled in the course, any assignments they have submitted or quizzes they have completed disappear from the Gradebook. This occurs because the affected assignments are assigned to specific sections ("Assigned to"), and the student's new section is not included in that assignment.

I understand that this is expected behaviour in part: if the student has not yet completed the assignment, it makes sense that it would no longer appear. However, for an assignment that has already been completed and graded, the grade should remain visible.

Part of the problem is that when a student is moved or removed from a section, there is no warning that the student has already submitted work and been graded on assignments tied to their original section.

A further issue, which I consider a bug, is that teacher comments left in SpeedGrader for the assignment remain visible for the moved student, even though the grade and submission no longer appear.

Do other institutions experience this problem?

adam_c_voyton · Answer

We don't generally run into this outside of cross-listed courses, since our standard practice is to have a single section per Canvas course. Enrollment changes are handled through our SIS/LMS integration, which adds and removes users automatically as registration changes occur.

In situations where a student has already submitted work and then drops or changes enrollment, one option is to export the gradebook before making section-related changes if you anticipate needing a record of the student's grades.

We also have a custom report that pulls deleted enrollments and associated grades from Canvas. That helps us with attendance questions, grade disputes, and other situations where a student's submission history would otherwise be difficult to access without temporarily re-enrolling them in the course, auditing the Gradebook, and then removing the temporary enrollment.

That said, I agree there appears to be a UX issue here. The lack of warning when moving a student who already has submissions and grades can easily lead to confusion, especially when instructors are unaware that section-targeted assignments affect visibility in this way. The fact that SpeedGrader comments remain visible while the associated submission and grade disappear is particularly inconsistent and strikes me as a bug rather than intentional behavior.

james_whalley · Answer

@cheungtamhe01 This has not happened tons for us. When it does, we often recommend assigning activities to the individual student on anything that they submitted in their old section and excusing them from anything that had been due for their new section during their enrollment in the previous section.

As far as a warning when moving students between sections, I imagine that could be helpful when making manual changes, but almost all of our enrollments are managed via SIS.

The fact that comments remain when assignments disappear is definitely a UX bug in my book. I would recommend reaching out to Canvas Support to report this — be sure UX Bug is in the title, you explain the current state, and you explain how you would expect it to work.