can i submit an assignment for a student in canvas

Getting Started with Canvas Assignments

• Last modification date Updated On June 8, 2023
• Categories: Assignments , Canvas , Uncategorized
• Categories: assessment , Getting Started , Grading

Canvas  Assignments  are a way for instructors to provide students opportunities to practice using the knowledge and skills they have gained or to assess student performance related to such knowledge and skills. (Creating an Assignment is the  only  way to create a new column in the Gradebook.)

In Canvas there are four basic  Submission Types  for assignments. The submission types include:

• No Submission : For assignments for which you are not collecting any content from the students.
• Text Entry : For students to enter text directly into a text box on Canvas.
• Website URL : For students to enter a URL (usually to a blog, video, podcast, etc.).
• Media Recordings : For students to upload or record media for submission.
• File Uploads : For students to upload files for submission ( Restrict Upload File Types  will allow you to limit which types of files may be submitted).
• On Paper : For assignments students will submit in person.
• External Tool : For assignments which students will submit through a third-party tool (such as Turnitin, Panopto Video Quiz, and PlayPosit).

Managing an Assignment

Managing assignment groups.

When getting started with Assignments, learn to

• Create an assignment shell with the Canvas guide  How do I create an assignment? 

If you select  Peer Reviews Appear Anonymously , annotation tools in  SpeedGrader  will become unavailable.

If you change the  Assign To  area from  Everyone  to select students after submissions have already begun, and do not have a second set of Assign To dates, submissions from unassigned students will disappear.

• Published assignments are visible as existing outside of availability dates, but students cannot see the details.
• If looking to update the due and/or availability dates on multiple assignments, see   How do I bulk update due dates and availability dates as an instructor?
• If choosing the option to make an assignment a  Group Assignment : If only assigning to specific groups, make sure to click the  X  on the  Everyone Else  choice under  Assign to .

Media Recording  Assignments are not recommended due to technical reasons. Instead, have students submit media by embedding it in a  Text Entry  assignment through Panopto .

Clearly express expectations and criteria for grading by using a  Rubric .

Be cautious limiting submission attempts, as students often make mistakes loading documents and need multiple attempts to ensure you have the correct submission.

• Delete an assignment with the Canvas guide  How do I delete an assignment?
• This duplication process will not work for Quizzes.
• Attach a rubric to an assignment for grading or to communicate expectations to students with the Canvas guide  How do I add a rubric to an assignment?

Accessibility Tips

• Use descriptive text for links, instead of long URLs or ‘click here’. 
• Make instructions brief and to-the-point. Avoid long paragraphs and sentences.
• Consider allowing multiple submission types to accommodate technical limitations students may face.

Assignment Groups  are a way to categorize different graded items in Canvas. For example, you may have journals, blogs, and essays which your students create in your course. Assignment Groups allow you to label and group different types of assignments separately in order to better organize and for ease when applying weighting (see  How do I weight the final course grade based on assignment groups? ). When getting started with Assignment Groups, learn to

• Add and delete assignment groups with the Canvas guide  How do I add an assignment group in a course?
• Move or reorder an assignment group with the Canvas guide  How do I move or reorder an assignment group?
• Make rules governing grading expectations within assignment groups with the Canvas guide  How do I create rules for an assignment group?

Additional Resources

• CTI Resource: What is the Assignments Index Page?
• How do I bulk update due dates and availability dates as an instructor?
• How do I weight the final course grade based on assignment groups?
• Canvas Student Guide

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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.

Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Online learning, submit assignment on student’s behalf.

You can submit an assignment on behalf of your student if they send the assignment via email or on paper or observed in person, after the assignment past the due and/or the end date. This is also for evaluating non-submissions and external submissions assignments.

• Who is this for:  Online Instructors
• What is required:  A D2L Brightspace course shell and an Assignment area
• Go to the Assignment link in the navbar
• Click on the Assignment’s name to view submissions
• From the Users tab, click Show Search Options link
• Select “Users without submissions” from the Submissions list

• You should see a list of students who haven’t submitted any assignment. Click Evaluate next to the student you would like to grade
• Click Add a file to add the student’s assignment file (if available or if student send it to you via email). You can also add your own feedback file.
• Provide student’s grade when you’re ready in the Score text area. Feel free to add audio or video feedback using the Record Audio or Record Video (limited to 3 minutes and as an attached file that students need to click). If you use a rubric, you can also assess using the rubrics tool.
• Click the Publish  button to save the changes. You can click Save as Draft if you’re not ready to release the assessment to the student. If you need to retract or make changes to the grade after you publish, repeat step 3 through 5 to find the student again and click on Published link. After making your changes, Update , or if you retract your assessment, click Retract

Canvas at Penn

Penn's Source for Courseware Innovation & News

Peer Review Assignment Best Practices for Instructors

Canvas has a built-in Peer Review tool that allows instructors to assign student submissions to each other for feedback. This feature can be enabled for groups and can be set up to be anonymous. 

If the built-in tool in Canvas doesn’t meet your needs, there may be other options . 

Before You Start

We strongly recommend working with your LSP if you want to create a peer review assignment in Canvas to create the best experience for you and your students.

• Consider providing clear instructions or a rubric in your assignment for students on what a peer review is in Canvas , how they will grade, and how they can view their feedback .
• We recommend reiterating to students that it is important that they submit on time so they don’t hold the assignment up for others in the course.
• Students who haven’t submitted an assignment can no longer be invited to review others’ work. If students don’t submit, they can’t participate. 

How to Create a Peer Review Assignment in Canvas

• If this will be a group assignment, you will see an additional option to “Allow intra-group peer reviews”. Select this if you would like Canvas to select a member of the same group for that student to review.

Note – Canvas assigns peer reviews to individuals, EVEN if it’s a Group Project assignment. The only project member who will see feedback is the one the peer reviewer was assigned to. It will not be visible to other project members.

• If you select assign reviews manually , instructors will need to go in and pair up the students after students have finished submitting their assignments.
• Instructors should provide a buffer for students to allow for late submissions and not use the same time as the due date of the assignment.
• Once all additional settings have been configured, save and publish the assignment.
• Students will receive an email and a to do list item once they have been assigned a peer to review. Students will not receive a peer to review until they submit the assignment.

Keep in Mind

• We recommend using the Manually Assign Peer Reviews option (see screenshot below) to assign peer reviews later if they need to be done at a specific time. 

• “ If a student has not submitted the assignment or submits the assignment after the due date, the student will not automatically be assigned a peer review and you must manually assign one. ”
• For assignments with Turnitin enabled, only the original student can see the originality score, not the assigned reviewer. Reviewers won’t be able to assess this information, since it isn’t visible to them.

Known Issues 

The manual drag and drop option to assign peer reviews has not been reliable . For the best experience, we recommend using the “assign peer reviews now” option for this need instead.

• Automatic (randomly assigned) peer reviews may take up to an hour to be assigned to students. We recommend letting your students know that there may be a delay before submissions are available to them to review.
• Clear your cache on a PC  
• Clear your cache on a Mac  

Please try the instructions linked above for your preferred browser and then open a new window and try logging in again. 

Clearing the browser cache can also sometimes solve issues students are having with peer reviews, and the above instructions may be helpful to share with them as well.

Other Peer Review Options

• Wharton instructors – contact the Wharton Courseware team ( [email protected] ) for a full list of your options for peer review assignments. 
• If you’re already using Perusall in your course, consider using Perusall’s peer review functions . 
• For group assignments: consider creating a Canvas discussion board or using Ed Discussion to allow students to share feedback with the entire group.

Please contact [email protected] or your Local Service Provider for assistance. 

Last Updated: 31 Oct 2023

June 2024 Canvas Changes and Updates

Posted in News

Canvas regularly releases updates to their system, and on this page you will find a number of important updates that have happened over the past several months.

Discussions/Announcements

Assignments, speedgrader, google apps / canvas collaborations, new quizzes.

Starting summer semester 2024, Discussions and Announcements in Canvas will look a bit different and include some new features. Check out our Canvas Discussions and Announcements Redesign support page for a full list of what’s changing, feature comparison chart and video, and user guides.

Submit Assignment on Behalf of Student is now available. Instructors can submit a file to Canvas Assignments that are set to allow file uploads on behalf of a student in their course’s Gradebook. The submission will include a timestamp as well as the teachers name who submitted the file on behalf of the student. The instructor can also submit multiple files at a time for a single student, and submit beyond the availability date of a Canvas Assignment.

This feature will only work for newly created assignments. It does not retroactively work on past assignments. Also, it will not work with third-party assignment tools ( Turnitin External App ) that do not use the native Canvas Assignment file upload function and process.

Randomize list of students in SpeedGrader . By default, the SpeedGrader student list arranges student names alphabetically by last name. For easier grading, you can sort the student list by student name (alphabetically), submission date, by submission status, and now you can view the students in a random order.

Multi-Select Gradebook Filters are now available for teachers and TAs and can display graded activities by module, assignment group, status, submission, start/end dates or any combination of these options. Multiple filters can be applied at the same time. Check out our support article on how to Filter and Arrange Grade Columns in the Canvas Gradebook for more information.

Canvas has decided NOT to deprecate the Google Apps LTI tool after all, as it was originally planned for June 2024. Canvas does not plan any future development with the Google Apps LTI tool (the tech behind the “old” collaborations option. As a result, we encourage folks to transition to Google Assignments LTI 1.3 when using the collaborations tool in Canvas . 

Canvas New Quizzes at Georgetown are not available to instructors by default. If you are interesting in exploring New Quizzes we recommend you check out 

• How New Quizzes compares to Classic Quizzes
• How to enable New Quizzes in your Canvas course

Build on Last Attempt

In New Quizzes, instructors can allow students to build on their last attempt of a quiz by reattempting incorrectly answered questions. When this feature is enabled, students can only view questions marked with incorrect answers, all other questions are hidden. Students can reattempt incorrectly answered questions until the answer is marked correct in SpeedGrader or they run out of attempts. Students who get all questions correct will not have the option to reattempt.

• Build on Last Attempt Feature Video
• Build on Last Attempt Instructor Guide

Answer Frequency Summary tables

You can generate and view reports for a quiz created in New Quizzes. The reports available in New Quizzes are the Quiz and Item Analysis and the Outcomes Analysis. The Quiz and Item Analysis reports include statistics for the entire quiz and individual items. The Outcomes Analysis report includes outcome mastery statistics for all students who took the quiz.

In the Item Analysis Report , the Answer Frequency Summary tables display the total number of correct responses, incorrect responses, and no responses for the following question types:

• Multiple Choice
• Multiple Answer
• True or False
• Change Benefit

This update provides additional information on specific question types for instructors to evaluate student responses and provide appropriate intervention. Learn more about New Quizzes Item Analysis Reports and other Quiz reports available in Canvas .

CSV download support for the Quiz and Item Analysis

You can now download reports for a quiz created in New Quizzes. Learn how to generate reports and download them as a CSV file .

Item Banks Shared in Course Copy

When a course is copied that includes a New Quiz with an item bank, the item bank is automatically shared with the new course. Shared item banks are only visible to users with a teacher and TA course role (or those with admin roles).

• How do I copy a course to another course?
• How do I manually share an item bank in New Quizzes?
• How do I view where an item bank is currently shared?

Don’t see what you are looking for or have questions?

Check out the  Get Help  and  Training & Support  pages for more resources.

Learn about past Canvas changes and updates at Georgetown .

Panopto: Create a Video Assignment

You can create your video assignment by following these steps:

Go to your class in Canvas.

Click on Panopto Video.

If you have any issues, please call 412-624-4357.

Resources for Faculty »

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Course activity icon, calendar published/unpublished, implementation of instructure ui within canvas lms, flip will no longer have a website or app, discussion reporting - no accountability or contex..., canvas assignment uploads to specfic google drive ..., community help, view our top guides and resources:.

To participate in the Instructurer Community, you need to sign up or log in:

• Publish Your Course
• Center for Learning Innovation
• Canvas: Fall 2024

Before your course is published, only the instructors and TAs listed in the course can view the course.  The instructor must publish each course before students will be able to access the course site and view the material. 

• Access Canvas via the OKTA apps page. 
• Go to the course you wish to publish. 
• On the right side, or at the bottom (depending on the width of your monitor screen), locate the button that reads “Publish.” Press it! 

Your course is now accessible to students.   

How do I know if my course is published?

If the course is Published, it will read “Published,” and the button will be green. If the course is Unpublished, the button will be grey and read “Publish.”  

Learn more...

Higher Ed and Technology: Academics at Chapman

Streamline Your Grading with a Little Help from AI Gradescope AI-Assisted Grading

May 28, 2024

What is Gradescope?

Gradescope is an assessment tool that integrates with Canvas to streamline the grading of paper-based and online assignments.

“[…] this tool is invaluable. I love the ease in which instructors can make rubrics and use them in assessing exam responses. The grading system within Gradescope is fantastic and there is a high transparency in the feedback for students.” –Chapman Instructor

“It’s very clear and easy to use to submit homework and receive feedback on exactly where I missed points for each question.” –Chapman Student

What is the AI-assisted grading feature?

With Gradescope’s AI-assisted grading feature, instructors can grade groups of similar answers at once.  For some question types, Gradescope AI automatically forms answer groups for instructors to review.  Watch the following video to learn more about this feature.

How can I get started with Gradescope in Canvas?

In the following guide, you can learn how to access Gradescope, set up a Gradescope assignment, grade submissions, post Gradescope grades to Canvas, and more.

Using Gradescope with Canvas as an Instructor

Need support?

• Email us at [email protected].
• Visit us in the  Virtual Tech Hub for drop-in support.
• Schedule a 1:1 consultation  with an Educational Technology Services team member.

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Preview the Canvas Discussion Redesign

March 5, 2024 by Shannon Muramoto | Canvas

Dear Chapman Instructors, Did you know Canvas has some exciting changes coming to the Discussions tool? These changes are planned to take effect on July 20, 2024. Canvas created a short but informative video highlighting the new features that come with the Discussion Redesign.   Questions? We hope you found this video helpful in what

Qwickly Attendance is now Qwickly Attendance 1.3 in Canvas

May 22, 2024 by Julie Johnson | Canvas

Do you use Qwickly Attendance to take attendance in Canvas? If so, be sure you are using the most updated integration in your Canvas course. Navigate to https://canvas.chapman.edu Go to your course Go to Settings Click on the Navigation tab Disable Qwickly Attendance Enable Qwickly Attendance LTI 1.3 Save your changes Now you are updated

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