What Submission Types are in Canvas, and when you’d want to use each one.
Setting the submission type allows you to choose how you want students to submit their assessments. One of the options in the Details part of every assignment is Submission Type. The options you have are:
No Submission is when you do not want students to submit an assignment in Canvas. This assignment type can be used to create extra columns in the Gradebook, or when you want to create an assignment that involves multiple scores.
On Paper is when you want students to submit an assignment to you but not through Canvas. This assignment type applies to traditional face-to-face courses or courses when you want the assignment turned in during class, but you still want to create a column in the Canvas Gradebook for grading purposes.
Online is when you want students to submit work to you through Canvas. If you choose this option, you must choose what method of online submission you want. You can select multiple methods of submission, by ticking multiple boxes.
- Text Entry – Student may type their answers into a text box. This textbox has the usual Canvas editing options. Students can also embed images and media into their submission.
- Website URL – Students may submit a website by typing/copying and pasting a URL into the box. The student can also add a comment if they wish.
- Media Recordings – Students can upload media, e.g. video/audio recordings. They can record media on the spot, or they can upload a pre-recorded media recording.
- File Uploads – Students can upload one/multiple files. You can restrict file types.
External Tool – Students should submit all work where possible through Canvas, but it can be submitted via an external tool that is enabled for your course.
The tools available to you are:
- Canvas Data Portal
- Chat Tool
- Copyright
- Course Evaluations
- Disability Support
- Google Docs Cloud Assignment
- Library Website Content
- Library & Learning
- New Analytics
- Office 365 Cloud Assignment
- Quizzes 2
- Survey Response Rate
- Turnitin
- Vimeo
- YouTube
Select External Tool, then click on the Find button to read more about these tools. However, some of the more popular ones are:
Office 365 Cloud Assignment – You can create an online assignment that embeds a document directly from your Microsoft Office 365 (OneDrive) folder. Accepted assignment types are Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.
When students open the assignment, Office 365 will create a copy of the file as the student’s submission. Students can open the document and make changes per the assignment instructions. When they are ready to submit the assignment, they can return to the Canvas assignment page and submit the assignment. The copied document is also added to the student’s OneDrive folder for the course. You can also view each student’s document copy in SpeedGrader for grading. This is good for when you want students to complete a template, or scaffolded document as their assignment.
Hints and Tips
- Where possible, all assessments should be submitted through Canvas (Online or External Tool)
- If you choose Online, you can select multiple methods, e.g. both File Upload and Text Entry.