News and Announcements

Canvas (Known Issue) - Hidden Grade Items 07/16/2019 [Updated]

Posted: 2019-07-16 14:36:56   Expiration: 2019-08-16 14:36:56

Disclaimer: This news item was originally posted on 2019-07-16 14:36:56. Its content may no longer be timely or accurate.

Some instructors report that Canvas gradebook columns have been “hidden” from students even through the instructors did not choose that setting.

This change is related to new grade settings released on July 15th, which changes how instructors reveal or hide assignment grades to students.


Instructors can see if this is an issue in their courses by checking the top of each column in their grade books for the orange eye icon with a line through it.


Canvas Gradebook with two columns: one with the orange eye icon to indicate that the column is hidden from students, and one column without that icon.


If that icon is present, students can’t see that column of grades until the instructor releases them.


Update 07/18/2019:

Instructure says:

The Grade Posting Policy inadvertently affected the visibility of existing grades that were posted before the release. Some assignments may need to be manually posted for grades to display to students. If a Gradebook previously included assignments that were previously muted and graded prior to the release, the grades will remain unposted until they are manually posted with the Post Grades button.


For any assignments that have not yet been graded, they will be graded according to the course-level policy set in the New Gradebook Settings at the time of grading, unless the assignment is anonymous or moderated, which always have a manual post policy. Changing the policy for a course does not affect grade or comment visibility for existing assignments.


Instructure's solution will stop this problem from popping up in new courses, but it is not retroactive. Instructors will need to manually reveal any hidden assignments or quizzes.

Revealing Hidden Gradebook Items

Instructors can fix hidden items by following the instructions in: Canvas (Grades) - Revealing Hidden Grade Items

Update 07/19/2019:

Instructure sent the following update:

Post Policies status update, 19 July 2019

Hi admins,

We wanted to send you a short update for the remaining concerns with Post Policies. Our engineering team has been working diligently to update noted behaviors that are affecting your institutions.

The largest remaining concern for post policies is quiz visibility being displayed incorrectly. Our engineers completed a fix that addressed the visibility of quiz results that had not previously been hidden to students. Practice quizzes have also been addressed so results immediately display to students. However, if results for quizzes are still not visible to students in the Gradebook, please notify Canvas support.

All other grade visibility cannot be updated retroactively. Any instructors with remaining grades being hidden from students unintentionally must be manually updated as noted in the New Gradebook release advisory.

The remaining Gradebook fixed bugs are as follows:

·         Deploying to production on Monday: 

o    Allow instructors to grade in the submission details page with manual post policy

o    Allow students to view comments and annotations immediately with automatic post policy

o    Allow students to view submission details for a submitted quiz without seeing an error of the quiz being read only

o    Allow students to view grades via rubric

·         In Progress: plagiarism tools not displaying originality reports to students before the grade is posted

We will send another update on Monday afternoon regarding the status of the pending deploy and additional progress with the plagiarism behavior.


Thank you,

Canvas Support

Update 07/22/2019

Instructure has sent another update:

On Friday we let you know that we’d send out a second update about Post Policies. Thank you for your patience as we work through these behaviors and for bringing all of these concerns to our attention. We know the last week has been challenging for you and apologize for the inconvenience these behaviors have brought to your already busy workloads.

The following Gradebook fixed bugs have been deployed to the production environment and apply to new grading only:

  • Allow instructors to grade in the submission details page with manual post policy
  • Allow students to view comments and annotations immediately with automatic post policy
  • Allow students to view submission details for a submitted quiz without seeing an error of the quiz being read only
  • Allow students to view grades via rubric

If you receive reports of additional behaviors that are still occurring, please submit a case to Canvas support for further investigation. Again, please note that none of these fixes apply retroactively to existing grades.

The following bug is still in progress:

  • Plagiarism tools not displaying originality reports to students before the grade is posted

We will send a final update when we have additional information about the plagiarism behavior.

Thank you,

Canvas Support


-- UWSA DLE: Thomas Arendalkowski