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Canvas Tool

Using python to make Canvas better!

manage rubrics

view, edit, create, and attach rubrics from the terminal. rubric editing in the canvas web ui is one small text box per rating, saved one click at a time; a rubric with five criteria is easier to write in a text file.

everything here uses the one rubrics command. what it does depends on whether you name a rubric:

command	does
`canvas-sak rubrics "CS 146"`	list every rubric and the assignments it’s attached to
`canvas-sak rubrics "CS 146" "Project Rubric"`	print that rubric’s criteria and ratings
`canvas-sak rubrics "CS 146" --update-with file`	attach rubrics to assignments
`canvas-sak rubrics "CS 146" "Project Rubric" --update-with file`	update (or create) that rubric’s criteria

the rubric name is a partial match, like course names: "project" finds Project Rubric as long as nothing else matches too.

edit a rubric’s criteria

the same round trip as due dates: the command prints exactly the format it reads back.

# 1. dump the rubric
canvas-sak rubrics "CS 146" "Project Rubric" > rubric.txt

# 2. edit rubric.txt in any text editor

# 3. see what would change — nothing is written
canvas-sak rubrics "CS 146" "Project Rubric" --update-with rubric.txt

# 4. apply it
canvas-sak rubrics "CS 146" "Project Rubric" --update-with rubric.txt --no-dryrun

the update replaces the rubric’s criteria with what’s in the file, so the file needs to be the whole rubric, not just the rows you changed.

the rubric definition format

Project Rubric (20 pts)
* Correctness (10 pts): does the program do what the assignment asks
  - Full marks (10 pts): everything works, including edge cases
  - Partial credit (5 pts): some tests fail
  - No marks (0 pts)
* Style (10 pts)
  - Good (10 pts)
  - Needs work (0 pts)

the first line is the rubric’s title. the points on it are informational — canvas recomputes the total from the criteria.
* starts a criterion, - starts a rating under it. indentation is optional but makes the file easier to read.
after the points, an optional : long description. descriptions are kept to one line so the file stays editable.

to rename a rubric, edit the title line: the name on the command line finds the rubric in canvas, the title in the file is what it ends up called.

create a rubric, or copy one to another course

if the named rubric doesn’t exist in the course, --update-with creates it. that’s also how a rubric moves between semesters:

canvas-sak rubrics "CS 146" "Project Rubric" > rubric.txt
canvas-sak rubrics "CS 146 Spring" "Project Rubric" --update-with rubric.txt --inactive --no-dryrun

--inactive because the next semester’s course hasn’t started yet — see how courses are found. writing the file from scratch works too; there’s nothing in it the round trip has to generate.

attach rubrics to assignments

without a rubric name, the round trip works on rubric-to-assignment associations instead:

# 1. dump every rubric and what it's attached to
canvas-sak rubrics "CS 146" > rubrics.txt

# 2. edit: add or move "- assignment name" lines under a rubric

# 3. preview, then apply
canvas-sak rubrics "CS 146" --update-with rubrics.txt
canvas-sak rubrics "CS 146" --update-with rubrics.txt --no-dryrun

the association format is the rubric title line with one assignment per - line:

Project Rubric (20 pts)
  - Homework 1
  - Homework 2
Essay Rubric (15 pts)
  - Final Essay

assignment names match exactly first, then partially; an ambiguous name is skipped with a warning listing the candidates. attached rubrics are set to be used for grading.

which format does –update-with expect?

the rubric name on the command line decides: with a name, the file is a rubric definition; without one, it’s associations. if you forget the name and hand it a definition file, the command errors out rather than misreading ratings as assignment names.