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What is the difference between text submissions and file upload submissions?
Canvas offers a variety of ways for students to submit assignments, including text submissions and file uploads. But while they both allow you to collect written assignments from your students, they function quite differently in terms of workflow and what the instructor actually sees. Both assignment types can be used with SpeedGrader and Turnitin.
Text Submissions
Think of this as a "live" response. The student types the answer directly into the Canvas Rich Content Editor (RCE) within the browser, much like writing an email.
- Best For: Short reflections, discussion-style answers, or simple links.
- The Experience: Students have access to the RCE, allowing them to format and style text or embed images directly into the flow of writing.
- Risk Factor: Risk is high. If a student's internet connection drops or their Canvas login times out before they can hit "Submit,"" their work is lost. It's safer to type the work in a separate document and copy and paste the results into it.
- Instructor View: The instructor sees the student's text submission directly on their screen without needing to download or open anything.
File Upload Submissions
This is the more "traditional" way to turn in an assignment. The student creates a document (e.g., Word, PDF, Excel) on their device and "attaches" it to the assignment.
- Best For: Formal essays, complex formatting, lab reports, or creative projects.
- The Experience: The student browses their computer or cloud storage and selects a specific file to upload.
- Risk Factor: Risk is low. Since the file is saved on the student's computer or cloud storage, they have a backup. The main risk is uploading the "wrong" version (e.g., "essay_draft_v2.docx" instead of "final_draft_v3.docx").
- Instructor View: Canvas uses a tool called DocViewer, which lets the instructor interact with the document directly to give specific feedback.
Restricting File Types for Upload
You can restrict the file type for assignment submissions. For example, if you would like your students to only upload Word documents for grading and not any other file type, such as a PDF or a PowerPoint (PPT), you can specify the file extensions for Microsoft Word documents, such as doc and docx, in the Restrict Upload File Types field of the Submission Type settings.
If you are allowing multiple file types, separate each extension name with a comma. For instance, if you want to allow doc, docx, and PDF (but not cloud submissions from a URL), type doc,docx,pdf.
To allow students to type a response, you can select either the Text Entry option in the Online Entry Options selection box or type the file extension txt in the Restrict Upload File Types field.
Notes
-
Allowing file uploads (PPT, Doc, and PDF, etc.) for assignment submission
and grading provides an inline file preview in the SpeedGrader for easy
markup and adding feedback comments without downloading the document to your
device.
-
You can use the Text Entry option to allow students to type
in their submission. The text entry option can be especially useful for
short essay-type questions, open-ended quiz questions, and survey responses.
Note that the text entry option does not support inline text preview when
using the markup tools to provide feedback.
Note: For Text Entry submissions, instructors should advise students to complete their initial work in another text editor or note-taking app and then copy/paste the content into the Canvas assignment page. Canvas is subject to page refreshes and timed logouts, which may cause a student to lose their work if they complete their writing directly in Canvas.
Further Resources
- Students
- Instructors
