Throughout the semester, the elearning team addresses lots of great questions on various ways that one can leverage Canvas for student assessment. One question we often address is, “What is the best way to have students upload a pdf of their handwritten work they did for a quiz?”
Great Question!…in order to answer this, we need to first consider the following:
- Do you want to be able to annotate the pdfs within Canvas? Do you prefer to download the pdfs, annotate w/ an external tool and re-upload into Canvas?
- Do you use Respondus Lockdown Browser for your quiz?
- Is it a timed quiz?
If you answered yes to any or all of these questions, we recommend that you…
Offer an Assignment directly after the Quiz for file submission
Why?….
Due to some limitations with Canvas Quizzes a preview of the pdf in Speedgrader is not available nor does Canvas Quizzes offer the ability to re-upload submissions! Using Respondus LockDown Browser may limit students ability to create a pdf and a timed quiz may not allow sufficient time for a student to scan and upload the file. Frustrating…I know… but the workaround of offering an assignment directly after students complete the quiz will resolve these frustrations! To do this….
- Create the Canvas Quiz
- Create an Assignment that will allow for a file upload as a submission
- Create a module
- Place both the quiz and assignment within a module.
- Place requirements on the module so that the quiz must be completed before the assignment is made available.
Adding a ‘File Upload’ question type to the end of a Canvas Quiz
If you happened to answer No to any or all of the questions stated above, you can simply define the last question on your quiz as a ‘file upload‘ question type. This will allow students to upload their pdf as the final step in completing the exam. As a word of caution though…you will still need to download each submission from Speedgrader in order to review and grade the file.
Remember, in either case, students will need some time to scan their handwritten document, convert it into a pdf and upload it.
If you have an idea for a future blog topic that you would like us to address or just need additional support with Canvas, Zoom or Huskycast, please email elearning@mtu.edu