Scheduled to be released March 18, Instructure is adding another much-requested feature to Canvas: Submit Assignment on Behalf of Student. This will allow a teacher in a course to submit a student upload to an assignment. The teacher can upload a document that their student has given them in some other way while retaining the ability to annotate and retain submission history in Canvas.

This new feature is part of the March 2023 Canvas release. You can read more below, or you can go to the Canvas release notes page.

Feature Video

Submit Assignment on Behalf of Student

Usage

Recommended Use

We do recommend, when possible, that the teacher use the existing standard in Canvas for student submissions. That would be to assign missing assignment to the student individually (as one would for an accommodation or extension) and then ask them to submit it through the standard process.

Additionally, a teacher can only submit on behalf of a student for a file upload assignment (not text entry, quizzes, or discussions).

Related directions: How do I assign an assignment to an individual student?

How To Use

To submit on behalf of a student:

1. Go to the grade book
2. Find the assignment and student (use the student and assignment search filters above the gradebook to find it quickly!)
3. Click in the cell and click the Grade Detail Tray icon (it looks like a door with an arrow)
   
4. Click Submit for Student around the top of the panel:
   
5. Follow the prompts to select the file and upload from your computer

Details and Limitations

• Canvas will track who submitted on behalf of a student. It will display this in the same sidecar as above, as well as in in SpeedGrader.
• If you use late policies, you can manually set (override) the late from the same part of the gradebook. Directions: How do I apply a Late Submission Policy?
• This is only for assignments in Canvas. This does not work for external tools. Some integrations have their own ability to submit on behalf of a student while others do not.
• If using Canvas assignments in conjunction with Turnitin framework plagiarism detection, you can go to SpeedGrader after the above to ask for a resubmit. Note, however, that doing so bypasses the student’s consent to accept the terms and conditions of the submission and database retention.
• This feature also works with group assignments and peer review assignments, as if the student you selected had submitted. When viewing the submission, other students will see that it was submitted by the teacher on behalf of the student.