How can an instructor retrieve assessments that were saved but not submitted?

When a student clicks the Submit for Grading button on the last page of an assessment or the Table of Contents, they are taken to an Assessment Submission Warning screen to confirm their submission.  If they do not click the final Submit for Grading button to confirm, and the assessment is NOT timed, their responses may be saved, but the assessment will remain In Progress.

Instructors do not have access to the content of In Progress assessments.  On the Total Scores screen, students with incomplete submissions would be listed as having No Submission recorded.

However, if a student has not yet submitted a copy of an untimed assessment, an instructor can retrieve their submission using the Automatic Submission (Autosubmit) feature in Tests & Quizzes.

Note: The autosubmit option is only available if it has been enabled on your system.

How does automatic submission work?

The Autosubmit setting can be enabled on a per-assessment basis and is unchecked (not enabled) by default.  For more information on how to enable automatic submission in an assessment's settings, see Availability and Submissions options: Automatic submission, or the steps below.

Behind the scenes, there is an automated process that will check:

  1. Did the instructor select the Autosubmit setting on this assessment?
  2. Did the latest acceptance date for this assessment pass yet?
  3. Did this student press the Begin Assessment button, save their work, but fail to successfully submit the assessment via the Submit for Grading button on the Assessment Submission Warning screen?
  4. Is this the student's first submission attempt?

If all four conditions above are true, the system will automatically submit the student’s saved assessment. The submission data will be available to instructors on the Total Scores screen within 5 minutes (or however often your system is configured to run) after the latest acceptance date passes.

Instructors can review all student submissions normally.  Any assessments that were submitted via the automatic submission feature will be flagged on the Total Scores screen with the text AUTO-SUBMIT.  All answers that were saved will be included in the student's automatic submission.

Note: Timed assessments are automatically submitted when the timer expires, so you do not need to enable Autosubmit for a timed assessment.

How do I enable Autosubmit on an assessment?

Go to Tests & Quizzes.

Select the Tests & Quizzes tool from the Tool Menu of your site.

Edit the settings.

From the Tests & Quizzes tool home screen, choose the Settings option in the drop-down menu for the quiz.  Be sure that you are in the Drafts view.

Note: You can review and edit settings on a published assessment by going to the Published-All view and selecting Settings in the drop-down menu for the assessment. It is not recommended to modify the settings of an assessment while testing is in progress, as it may cause loss of student submission data.

Alternatively, you can access assessment settings from the edit assessment screen.

If you are currently editing the Draft of the assessment, click the Settings link at the top of the assessment editing screen.

Verify dates and select the Autosubmit option.

In an assessment's Settings, select the Availability and Submissions section.

  1. Make sure that the due and/or late submissions accepted date fields have dates entered in them.  If you do not want to accept late submissions, select No, not after due date.  Assessments will be automatically submitted at the latest acceptance date.
  2. Select the check box to Autosubmit saved student work after latest acceptance date.

Save Settings and publish the assessment.

When the assessment settings are ready, and the questions are in place, click Save Settings and Publish to publish the assessment so that your students can take it.  See the article How do I publish an assessment (i.e. test or quiz)?

Alternatively, if you're not ready to publish the assessment, you can click Save to save your settings selections.

Note: If you're modifying the settings of a Published assessment, you'll only see the Save and Cancel buttons.

How do I trigger Autosubmit on a completed assessment?

If you did not enable Autosubmit before students began taking an assessment, some students' submissions remain In Progress, and those students have not already submitted a copy of the assessment, you can edit the Settings on the published assessment to trigger an automatic submission and access any responses they saved.

Go to Tests & Quizzes.

Select the Tests & Quizzes tool from the Tool Menu of your site.

Select the Published-All View.

Select the Published-All option in the View drop-down to view the assessments that have been released to students in your site.

Edit the settings.

Choose the Settings option in the drop-down menu for the published quiz.

Note: It is not recommended to modify the settings of an assessment while testing is in progress, as it may cause loss of student submission data.

If the latest acceptance date is in the past, verify dates and select Autosubmit.

In an assessment's Settings, select the Availability and Submissions section.

  1. Verify that the due and/or late submissions accepted date fields have dates entered in them.  Assessments will be automatically submitted at the latest acceptance date.  If the latest acceptance date is in the past, assessments will be automatically submitted the next time the Automatic Submission process runs; this occurs once every 5 minutes or however often your system has been configured to run.
  2. Select the check box to Autosubmit saved student work after latest acceptance date.

Click Save.

At the bottom of the screen, click Save to save changes.

OR select the Autosubmit option, then Stop Accepting Now.

If the assessment's latest acceptance date is in the future, but you'd like to prevent more students from submitting and automatically submit In Progress assessments, you can use the option Stop Accepting Now.

In an assessment's Settings, select the Availability and Submissions section.

  1. Select the check box to Autosubmit saved student work after latest acceptance date.
  2. Click Stop Accepting Now.

Confirm to Stop Accepting.

You'll be shown a warning indicating that the assessment will no longer be available for students to take.  If you're sure you don't want to accept any more student submissions, click Stop Accepting to confirm.

Wait for submissions to become available.

The Automatic Submission process runs once every 5 minutes or however often your system is configured to run.  If you have enabled Autosubmit and your assessment's latest acceptance date is in the past OR if you've chosen to Stop Accepting Now, In Progress assessments will be automatically submitted the next time Automatic Submission process runs.

After the In Progress assessments are automatically submitted, the students' saved responses will be available along with other students' submissions.

I enabled Autosubmit; why are some assessments still listed In Progress?

You might still see In Progress assessments after you enabled Autosubmit AND waited for about 5-10 minutes (or however often your system is configured to run) after the latest acceptance date if:

  1. The assessment allowed multiple submissions, or a student was allowed to retake the assessment.  A student who already submitted the assessment started a new submission but did not complete it.  The Automatic Submission process will only submit a student's assessment if they do not have any previous submissions already recorded for that exam. This prevents previous, already successful, submissions from being overwritten by an automatic submission.
  2. Very rarely, there have been instances where the Automatic Submission feature has not completed submitting an assessment.  If your assessment should have been automatically submitted, but it has not, follow the steps above to trigger Autosubmit again on the completed assessment.

How do automatic submissions display?

Instructors access automatic submissions from the Total Scores screen just as they would any other assessment submission.  However, automatic submissions display differently from manual or timer submissions as follows:

  1. When an automatic submission occurs, the email notification sent to students and/or instructors will contain Notification for assessment auto submission. The Submitted Date in the email notification indicates when the student last saved content in the assessment.  The time stamp on the email that was sent will indicate when the actual submission occurred.
  2. On the Total Scores screen, automatic submissions are flagged with the text AUTO-SUBMIT.  The time stamp that appears in the Submit Date column for automatic submissions indicates when the student last saved content in the assessment, NOT when it was actually submitted by the Automatic Submission feature.
  3. In the Tests & Quizzes Event Log, the Errors column will indicate No Errors (Auto submit).  The Date Submitted column will indicate when the actual submission occurred.  The Duration column will indicate how much time elapsed between when the student began taking the assessment and when it was actually submitted; it does NOT indicate how much time the student actually spent taking the assessment.

Below are examples displaying automatic submissions.

Example of email notification for Automatic Submission

In the event of an automatic submission, the time stamp on the notification email sent to a student and/or instructor is when the actual submission occurred, while the Submitted Date in the email is the last time the student accessed the assessment.

The subject of the email for an automatic submission will say: Notification for assessment auto submission: [the title of the site where the assessment was taken] - [the assessment title]

The first line of the email notification will include the text: The following assessment auto submission was recorded.

For more information on Tests & Quizzes email notifications, see What information is in a Tests & Quizzes email notification?

Examples of automatic submissions on the Total Scores screen

  1. When an instructor accesses the Total Scores screen to grade the assessment, automatic submissions are flagged with the text AUTO-SUBMIT.
  2. The time stamp that appears in the Submit Date column for automatic submissions indicates when the student last saved content in the assessment, NOT when it was actually submitted by the Automatic Submission feature.

For more information on accessing student submissions and grading, see How do I grade Tests & Quizzes?

Examples of automatic submissions in the Event Log

  1. In the Tests & Quizzes Event Log, the Errors column will indicate No Errors (Auto submit).
  2. The Date Submitted column will indicate when the actual submission occurred.

For more information on the Event Log, see What is the Tests & Quizzes Event Log?