Canvas - ORA
- Matthew Harrington
Analytics
Staff-Graded Assessment
Canvas has advanced support for staff-graded assignments (calling them submission assignments), with a grading tool called SpeedGrader to assist with staff grading.
On the assignment setup side, these assignments support the following types of submission:
File upload (also allows taking a webcam photo as the submitted file) - allows the learner to upload specific file types of no more than 5GB.
Text entry - a WYSIWYG editor for entering text. Despite the name, the editor is actually fully-featured, and appears to allow embedding other media in the text, so it’s more of an HTML submission.
Student annotation - allows learners to add text to documents such as forms, test booklets, and PDFs in their browser.
Website URL - Submits a URL where the work can be found.
Media recording - records in-browser using the learner’s webcam and microphone.
External tool - Allows links to an LTI tool that is configured to work with staff assessments in Canvas
Assignments can be assigned to learners or to groups, allowing group submissions to take place. In the case of group submissions, student annotation submissions are not allowed.
Grading in Canvas takes place in their SpeedGrade tool, a dedicated interface for assignment grading, which allows annotation, grading, and feedback. Grading is tied to a rubric, but the rubric is not enforced, simply displayed to the grader.
Submissions can be sent anonymously if the feature is enabled, hiding the submitter’s identity from the grader. The student’s ID number is still displayed, but not their name, allowing for less potential bias in grading.
Canvas has sophisticated tools for assignment submission, and the most complete feature set when it comes to manual grading, likely due to its in-classroom context.
Links:
How do I submit an online assignment? - Instructure Community
How do I hide student names in SpeedGrader? - Instructure Community
Peer Assessment
Canvas’ Peer Review Assignments assign assignments to specific learners within a class for grading. When a learner is assigned something to grade, they receive an in-app notification, as well as an email telling them that they have an assignment to grade. Staff can assign learners manually, or allocate assignments randomly.
Submissions can take the following forms:
Text entry
URL entry
Media recording
Student file annotation
File upload
Multiple types of submission can be allowed, but not required (so you can require a text entry or a file upload, but not a text entry and a file upload).
To complete a peer assessment, learners must leave a comment, and grade their assigned submission using a rubric provided by staff. Peer reviews can be anonymous or identifiable, allowing learners to view (or not) the name of the learner that they are grading.
Learners cannot earn points for completing a peer review (something that Canvas documentation points out specifically, indicating that this is a frequently asked question). Instead, staff are instructed to create a separate manual grading category for peer review participation and issue grades manually.
Learners use a tool called Canvas DocViewer to view and annotate files, either when reviewing file submissions, or when submitting an annotated file for their own submission. DocViewer allows the learner to insert comments, drawings, and text directly into a file. DocViewer has a broad range of features not directly tied to peer assessment so, in the interest of focus, see the links below for more information on this tool.
Links:
Self Assessment
Canvas has no self-assessment tool, but building one has been added to their roadmap for 2024 due to educator demand. It’s surprising to me that one didn’t exist sooner, as the academic use-case is the one most likely to want self-assessment, and it’s been requested many times over several years.
Above: The Canvas roadmap item for self-assessment, which appears in the “Later - Q1 2024 & beyond” area of their overall roadmap.
Links: