You may wish to share information about the rubrics used on a course or other assignment information such as the brief, prior to release of an assignment.

For Rubrics, these are 'attached' to assignments in Canvas, and students will see these underneath the assignment brief on a published and available assignment. (Canvas does have a 'Rubrics' course menu area that collects together rubrics, but annoyingly this area is not visible to students).

With other assignment information such as the assignment brief, this only becomes available to student when the assignment is available for students to undertake (so Published and also with Available from and Until dates that allow access for the student at the time of access).

Therefore to provide information about the rubric or other assignment details these need to be provided to students via another means. Many staff have this information in the course handbook, some staff provide the information within an overview stored as a Page in an assessment module in the Modules area, and some staff attach a rubric to a dummy assignment so students can see it.

Sometimes students wish to download copied of their assignments with feedback, and sometimes we need to be able to back-up 'offline' copies.

For students, if the work is marked in SpeedGrader, one the grade has been posted the student can use the Download Annotated PDF button that appears at the top left of the document viewer

Screenshot showing the 'Annotated PDF' button for students

This downloads a copy of their work as a PDF file, with the 'in-line' annotations superimposed on top. A word of caution: different software displays the interactive PDF differently, in Chrome for example the comments are not immediately visible, we have found that Adobe Reader DC (a free download) displays the best.

For the general/overall comments, completed rubric, grade and any other elements there does not at this time exist a way to download these for students.

For a member of staff, the same 'Download Annotated PDF' button appears at the top-left of SpeedGrader when looking at an assignment. In addition it is possible to download a copy of the general/overall SpeedGrader comments and the score by scrolling to the bottom of the SpeedGrader side bar there is a 'Download Submission Comments' link where they can be downloaded to a file. Unfortunately at this time there is no way to back up the rubric.

Screenshot showing the 'Download submission comments' link

You may wish to release to students the feedback separately from the grades on an assignment. This may be so that you can prompt students to engage more deeply with feedback, maybe to use the feedback on a second piece of work, or show students a a later date what their earlier draft would have been worth prior to acting upon feedback, or it might just be that an assignment is ungraded. We're normally a bit nervous around Canvas's 'Post Grades' settings (mainly that students might receive feedback or grades prematurely), but it has functionality that can accommodate varied feedback processes.

Here is a workflow that demonstrates a process for releasing feedback separately from grades:

Ensure 'Manual Post Grades' setting is applied in the course, to prevent feedback (and grades if being left) from being released automatically instructions here: Manual Post Grades. Then give feedback comments for submissions in SpeedGrader. (You can confirm the assignment is muted/hidden through a struck-eye symbol that will appear on the Grade column and in SpeedGrader once you leave your first comment or grade).
Use the Post Grades option to release the feedback - even though no grades were entered yet it will release any feedback left so far
At a later point add grades and students will receive them instantly as you leave them. OR if you'd prefer they all receive at the same time, you can reverse the Posting of Grades, give additional feedback/grades and then re-release.

For basic setup instructions see the video on this page of this Canvas course: Creating Turnitin Links in Canvas

In addition, here are a collection of handy tips for using the tool:

Set up of the Turnitin Assignment:

Make sure you choose the correct 'External Tool' when setting up the assignment. There are several tools related to Turnitin that appear in the external tool selection box, but it needs to be “Turnitin LTI”. Please see the link to the getting started video above.
On the Assignment setup screen do not use additional Assign dates and times. Normally with Canvas assignments this would be used to give different students or groups of students varying deadlines but the Turnitin LTI can only have one due date will and takes the latest date selected.
By default Canvas will accept late submissions on all assignments, after the Due date but prior to the Until date. However for this to work with assignments that use the Turnitin External Tool, the 'Allow Late Submissions' option needs to be enabled within the assignment's Turnitin settings: After configuring the initial Canvas assignment settings, you will be presented with a settings screen from Turnitin, and you will find the 'Allow Late Submissions' option under the 'Optional Settings' section. If you need to enable this setting at a later time (for example you discover that students are not able to carry out late submissions) then this setting can be changed later on without ill effect, and you can return to the Turnitin settings to do this by entering the Turnitin assignment and clicking on the settings gear button at the top-right of the screen.

After setup and during submission

Grading and Feedback

On a Turnitin assignment, do not provide a mark or feedback through SpeedGrader. Here Canvas will be expecting to receive a mark from Turnitin, and there is a potential for grades left in SpeedGrader to be ignored or overwritten. In addition, students recognising the assignment as a Turnitin Assignment will be expecting to pick up feedback and grades within Turnitin's Feedback Studio so this may lead to confusion. Our advice is that if you wish to grade using SpeedGrader use a standard Canvas Assignment instead, talking to your school teams for advice.
On a Turnitin assignment, students need to be told to return to the actual assignment to view feedback and marks left in Turnitin Feedback Studio. Confusingly there are links for students to pick up their grades and feedback within the Grades area and within student notifications but these go to SpeedGrader instead (which will be devoid of feedback and grades) so with the potential to cause confusion.
On occasions we have seen grades not syncing from the Turnitin inbox to the Canvas Grades area. This may be because settings have been modified after the assignment has been setup (see points 3 and 4 above). If you experience this then please alert your school and contact IT Services.
Turnitin links in courses can expire, typically after 6 months after creation. This can cause problems where Turnitin assignments are setup in Summer for the rest of the academic year. There are two workarounds for this:
- Create a new Turnitin link before the expiry date. Make it unpublished and set a far away due date. This should have the effect of extending other links
- Login to Turnitin UK with your MWS email and password (seek help from IT Services if your username or password is unrecognised), find the class name related to your Canvas course and extend the expiry date. You have to be enrolled as a Teacher on the course, and have clicked on the Turnitin link for the class to show up on your Turnitin account.

There are a couple of ways you can filter the Grades area or SpeedGrader to only show you the students that correspond to a group.

Both of these rely upon groups already being set up in your course. So in the People area of the course you will already have a 'group set' (i.e. category of group for example 'Seminar Groups') and then inside of this a range of groups (ideally with unique name 'ECON101-Group 1' etc.), and you will have students arranged in groups. If you have not done this then please look at other resources for instructions including how to organise groups in bulk from a spreadsheet. If you already have groups set up, then the hard work is done!

Option 1: Filtering just the Grades area:

With groups in place, within the Grades area you can click on the View button> choose Filters> Student Groups. A Group selection drop-down appears on the right-hand side from which you can choose a group and it reduces the Grades area to just show you the students relevant to the group and their grades. This view preference is individual to each instructor on the course (so if you are supporting colleagues you may need to instruct them on how to do the same).

Screenshot image showing the Grades area of Canvas, the location of the View control, and the Group selection drop-down. The overall image shows the final result with a reduced table of grades relating to only those students within the group.

If you needed to see a submission in SpeedGrader from a specific student, then click on the submission symbol relating the student (icon looks below like a paper with an exclamation mark) and then click on the right-pointing arrow. Then click on SpeedGrader from the panel that floats in from the right. This option is not available to you whilst 'anonymous grading' is turned on for an assignment.

Screenshot image showing the route through from the Grades area to a specific assignment submission from a student. A link is highlighted for the user to press, this brings in a link to SpeedGrader that floats in from the right-hand side of the screen.

This opens SpeedGrader directly at the specific submission, but you may notice that the loading/process is a bit slow, and it does not filter SpeedGrader to only show you submissions from students in the group. An alternative is to use the 'Filter SpeedGrader by Groups' setting as Option 2 below.

Option 2: Filter SpeedGrader by Groups

This is a little bit trickier to setup and administer but can make marking very easy for where there are a large number of markers.

Firstly you need to enable a course-wide setting. Instructions are here: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-enable-SpeedGrader-to-launch-filtered-by-student-group/ta-p/947

Then when you try to launch SpeedGrader (say from the Assignment screen) you will first be asked to select a group from the menu on the right before SpeedGrader will launch.

This will launch SpeedGrader for the assignment, but only show you the submissions from students that belong to the group. This gives advantages such as for navigating through submissions via the Previous and Next buttons, or for use for dividing marking or assignment moderation.

If you are looking to launch SpeedGrader for an assignment from the Grades area (for example to grade quiz submissions), if you launch SpeedGrader here without first selecting a group, SpeedGrader will display a green pop-up message such as "The group "[Group Name]" was automatically selected because no group was previously chosen. You can change the selected group in the Gradebook." What this means is that Canvas wants you to select a group first within the Grades area: follow the instruction in Option 1 above.

One caveat is that this setting can become very annoying: it applies the filter to all other assignments in the course whether it is needed or not. It also has repercussions when moving from the Grades area to SpeedGrader. So our advice so far to module leaders has been to expect to use this setting temporarily and to communicate to fellow instructors/graders about the feature and any changes they may experience.

Some of these approaches can seem a little complex, especially as we are learning to use Canvas and seek to establish practices. If you or your department would like advice your assessment processes please do check with your school office for any locally established approaches, and feel free to reach out to CIE (cie@liverpool.ac.uk) for further advice.

By default students would see a total calculation of their grade in Canvas, but if you have not set up appropriate assignment weighting via assignment groups, this may be inaccurate, and some lecturers would also prefer this kept hidden initially within the course

To hide the Grade Totals following instructions here: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-hide-totals-in-my-students-grade-summaries/ta-p/671

Once totals have been hidden, as a member of staff you will observe that 'crossed-eye' symbols appear next to grades within the Totals column.

Students will see this message within their individual Grades area:

Screenshot showing the message that students see when grade totals are set to be hidden. Screenshot reads "Calculations of totals has been disabled"

Here is an example from a Canvas Assignment (that uses the Online submission type and will be graded via SpeedGrader)

Screenshot of a Canvas Assignment that will be marked in SpeedGrader

Example of an assignment that uses the Turnitin External Tool (LTI):

Screenshot of a Turnitin Assignment inbox

Second example of a Turnitin assignment inbox (where the browser is made smaller):

Screenshot of an alternative configuration of the Turnitin inbox where the web browser window is made smaller

Canvas can accept any type of file for an assignment submission, however in order to display work within SpeedGrader for marking it must be from a specific range of common filetypes. SpeedGrader can also display other submission formats such as video, images or websites, but for submitted documents it will only accept documents such as Microsoft Office filetypes (.doc, .docx, .pptx etc.), or Adobe Acrobat pdf.

For a full list of those file types that are presentable in SpeedGrader see: What file types can be previewed in Canvas

A common problem with files that students have submitted is where students have submitted files created and saved in the Apple 'Pages' file format. You can verify if this is the case by attempting to view the submission in SpeedGrader, and seeing within the Submitted Files panel on the right a file with the '.pages' extension.

A way to prevent this is to use the 'Restrict upload file types' setting when creating the assignments. This prevents studens from being able to upload anything apart from these filetypes, and encourage students to instead save as a 'pdf' type file. For more information see: How do I create an Online assignment

Students are advised on the assignment submission screen what file formats are acceptable, and it may be good practice to advise students on this elsewhere within the module resources. Most desktop application now capable of saving to PDF and it might also be worth highlighting to students that they are entitled to free Office 365 installations for Mac or PC: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/csd/office

Canvas does not provide emailed submission receipts to students, instead they can return to the assignment to see a submission summary screen (see an example here showing date/time of submission). Schools commonly advise students that a screenshot of this screen can serve as proof of submission.

Here is a student guide produced by School of Engineering showing students where via the submission summary: Guidance on Canvas Assignment Submissions.docx

If assignments are submitted via the Turnitin External Tool then a download Digital Receipt button appears within Turnitin's Feedback Studio.

Members of staff have fed back that the 'Message Students Who' is a useful tool in the Grades area when running assessment with large cohorts. This can be used to send a message to all students who have not yet made an assignment submission, maybe a few days before the deadline to head off any problems. It could also be used to encourage students to double-check their submission: "you are receiving this message because it looks like at the time of writing that you have not submitted anything. If you feel this is wrong, return to the assignment and check your submission status". For more information please see this Canvas support resource: How do I send a message to students from the Gradebook

When making a submission to an assignment in Canvas, students have the opportunity to provide a comment alongside the submission. When feedback is left against a submission and this is released to students ('posted'), again students can add a comment to reply to the feedback, that appears in SpeedGrader.

This appears to be a core feature of Canvas/SpeedGrader and is not something that can be disabled. This features regardless of the submission type, for example if Turnitin is used there is still a route for feedback and comments to be left via SpeedGrader.

The approach set out so far for staff has been:

Let students know what methods they should use to communicate with their lecturers (via email etc.) . If you do not wish students to comment on feedback then let them know not to use this feature.
Let students know the degree to which there can be dialogue about grades/feedback: is there a limit to the amount of follow-up each student can have? Again is there an 'approved' route for this such as office hours?
If student comments are welcomed against an assignment, or if students are leaving comments in the absence of instruction, staff can quickly see any comments through the Inbox.
If students are communicating inappropriately, the University has policy to govern IT system usage: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/media/livacuk/computingservices/regulations/IT_Acceptable_Use_Policy.pdf#page=8

There is some good discussion here around ways to frame this with students: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Question-Forum/Turning-off-student-comments-in-Speedgrader/td-p/119469

The term 'sympathetic marking' is often used to describe the marking of assignment submissions in way that takes into account any additional difficulties the student may have had in producing a piece of work, for example for where students have a Disability Support Plan in place. Staff often ask if there are any tools available for them to use in Canvas that helps to flag to a marker where sympathetic marking is to be used, especially within anonymous marking where the identity of the student is hidden.

Currently there is no automated presentation of this information in Canvas based upon the student record elsewhere. The 'Student Date Project' has the potential to bring together data from different university sources but it has yet to be seen if it will include DSP date and if it will feed data automatically into Canvas

Approaches that we often highlight to staff include:

Adding the Notes column to Grades - PS staff can indicate which students are on a support plan and apply the sympathetic marking or score once anonymity has been lifted
Using a cover sheet in Word - student complete their work, include the coversheet with a watermark or unique code - then staff should know which students need sympathetic marking

If you do not wish your students to see their grades and feedback on assignments as soon as you leave them, then ensure that your course is set to a 'Manual Grade Posting Policy' from the outset of the course. The default in Canvas is Automatic and you need to override this. Do this as soon as you start preparing your course for the upcoming academic year. Follow the instructions here: Turn on Manual Post Grades
If you do a full course copy from a previous running of the course (following these instructions relevant to our setup) this tends to bring across course settings, so if the originating course was set to Manual Grade Posting then this setting will automatically come across.
If you import individual assessments such as quizzes or assignments from other courses, then beware that these items have a separate layer of grade posting policy, and it is possible that these may be set to Automatic, independently from the overall course setting. (For more information on this see this report from Dr Rob Treharne).
The struck-eye icon is used to signify assessment columns in the Grades area or within SpeedGrader for assignments that are set to be hidden from students, in that they have not been set to automatic release of grades and feedback. This symbol does not appear until the first piece of feedback or grade is left on an assignment, and related to the last point may not reveal the individual item's grade posting policy.

Turnitin services are available at the University to support assessment on our taught programmes, and as a development tool for students to increase their awareness of plagiarism in their academic writing. Staff are primarily supported to access Turnitin originality checking via an assignment in Canvas, delivered to students who will directly submit their submissions to the assignment.

However there are also times when Turnitin is used for applications outside of teaching & learning, and a couple of techniques are outlined below. We do not advise passing other people's work through Turnitin without their consent however - depending upon the method taken this may be against Turnitin's terms and conditions, but may also lead to false positive in the future leading back to the University. If there is a requirement within your team, then speak to your school administration team to discuss your requirements.

Method 1: Set up a Canvas assignment using the Turnitin Plagiarism Framework and submit as the Test Student

1. Create a new Canvas assignment within a course (for example a Personal Test Course) following these instructions: https://liverpool.instructure.com/courses/306/pages/turn-on-similarity-report-for-speedgrader-assignments?module_item_id=1179009

1. Use the 'Test Student' button to impersonate a student, and submit document to the assignment: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-view-a-course-as-a-test-student-using-Student-View/ta-p/1122

1. Leave Student View and enter SpeedGrader for the assignment to access the originality report: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-view-plagiarism-assignments-in-SpeedGrader/ta-p/852

Method 2: Set up a Turnitin assignment on the Turnitin server and submit a single submission as a non-enrolled student

Following these instructions from IT Services: https://liverpool.service-now.com/sp?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=undefined