I would like to point out an inaccuracy with your description of the document icon in the gradebook. Here is what you state in your post:
"Needs grading (document icon): This icon appears when the student has submitted work, and it is ready for the teacher to grade."
This is not how the document icon works. When a student opens a practice activity and loads the questions the document icon appears in their gradebook. The student doesn't need to submit single question for this icon to appear. Consequently, when parents look at the gradebook they think the student has submitted their work and it is waiting for the teacher to grade. This is a common discussion I have with parents. Students tell their parents that all their work has been submitted, when in fact, it is incomplete.
Comments (5)
Hello Bruce! Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
We have now updated the article to help clarify this behavior. (Here is the updated article: Activity score icons).
Thanks, Trevor. It would be great if you could maybe make a new icon to differentiate an assignment that is incomplete vs one that is truly waiting for the teacher to grade. That would be tremendously helpful with parent communications.
Hey Trevor, I just saw this post in you update notes for this week.
Automatically mark past-due activities as missing
Currently, teachers can mark an activity as missing in the Grade editor for their own record-keeping and to notify students that the activity hasn't been submitted. With the new Automatically mark past-due activities as missing option enabled, activities that haven't been submitted by the due date are automatically marked as missing for teachers and students.
Location: Course settings > Advanced options
Is this the solution for my request for a new icon? It sounds like it, but I'd rather not muck about in my course settings to find out. I'd hate to mess something up in the middle of a semester.
Hello again, Bruce!
To answer your question, no, this is a new feature that was prescheduled. It is not related to the icons topic of this thread.
Would it effectively solve the problem though? If a student opened a practice activity (and had the needs grading icon) would it switch to this other icon after the due date? If a parent or student were to hover their cursor over it would it say missing instead of needs grading?