Weekly Quercus Updates

In this Weekly Update:

1. Canvas Known Issue with New Quizzes [updated June 3rd]
2. This Week's Faculty Question

Canvas Known Issue with New Quizzes

If you are using New Quizzes in your course, please note that there is a current issue identified with this quiz tool where New Quizzes don't respect Canvas availability dates on older quizzes. 

Summary of problem 

On New Quizzes assessments that were created before approximately Feb-Mar 2021, students are still able to take the assessment after the Until Date via the quiz submission details page, when the following conditions are met:

1. multiple attempts are enabled on the quiz, and
2. the student previously had an attempt on the quiz 

Students accessing the quiz submission details page will see a Take Now button (shown in the screenshot below), even though the Until Date for the quiz has passed and the quiz should be closed for new submission attempts.

Workaround and recommendations

There is currently no workaround for this issue. At this time, we continue to recommend the use of Classic Quizzes and not New Quizzes. [UPDATE: this issue was resolved in the May 26 Canvas deploy]

This Week's Faculty Question

Q: I created a group set for an assignment and set it up so that students could self sign-up for their groups. I followed all the steps outlined on the Canvas Community Guide How do I create self sign-up groups in a group set?. However, my students can’t see the +Group button that would allow them to add/join groups on Quercus as described on the student guide How do I join a group as a student?. Do I need to create the groups myself?

A: Yes, because this group set is linked to an assignment, you need to add the groups to the group set yourself. You can do this automatically at the time you create the group set, or manually at a later time. Since you have checked the “allow self sign-up” checkbox in the settings for the group set, students will then be able to select the group they join. However, they will still not be able to add their own groups. Students will only see a +Group button if you have enabled the setting to allow students to create their own student groups (by default, this setting is disabled in Quercus courses). These student-generated groups can be useful for allowing students to form their own study groups, but they cannot be used for grading purposes.

In summary, there are two types of group types possible in Quercus:

1. Group sets and groups that are created and managed by instructors. This is the group type that can be associated with group assignments and used for grading purposes.

2. Student-generated groups that are created and organized by students. Because students can belong to multiple Student Groups, these groups cannot be associated with assignments and used for grading.

Tips for working with groups

• Students join self sign-up groups and student-generated groups via the People page. If you are using either of these types of groups in your course, remember to enable People in your course navigation, using the instructions on our guide How do I modify the menu items on my course navigation menu?

• If you would like to check your self sign-up groups from the student perspective, Student View will not work. Unfortunately, the Test Student can't be added to groups so you won't be able to see exactly what a student sees in this case. What may help is to request a student account (known as a QQ account) that you can use for a more real student experience while testing within your course.

Have a Quercus (or EdTech) question? Please contact FASE's EdTech Office.