which assignment submission type is not accepted by canvas

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Assignment submission types in canvas.

Canvas lets you decide the way you want students to submit their assignments. You specify the submission type in the Submission Type box when you create the assignment. Assignment settings always remember and display the settings created or edited in the previous assignment in the course.

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No Submission

External tool.

Choose No Submission when you do not want students to submit an assignment in Canvas. You can use this assignment type to create extra columns in the Gradebook, or when you want to create an assignment that involves multiple scores.

Choose Online when you want students to submit their assignments in Canvas. When you use the online submission type, you can specify online entry options.

Text Entry : Students can submit their assignment directly in the Rich Content Editor .

Website URLs : Students can submit a URL that fulfills the assignment.

Media Recordings : Students can submit an audio or video recording that fulfills the assignment. They can either record new media or upload existing media.

File Uploads : Students can upload a file to fulfill the assignment. Note that if your institution has enbled Google Docs as a submission type, students can connect to Google Docs as a web service to submit an assignment as a Google Doc, Google Sheet, or Google Slide. However, these files will convert to their Microsoft counterpart file type—Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, respectively.

If you want to only allow certain types of files for assignment submissions, click the Restrict Upload File Types check box and manually enter a list of accepted extensions in the Allowed File Extensions box. In the case of an odd or unusual file type, try adding it to your course to confirm the file is accepted before requesting students to submit the file type.

Select On Paper when you want students to submit an assignment to you but not through Canvas. When you choose this assignment type, Canvas creates a column in the Gradebook for grading purposes. However, you must enter the grades manually.

Choose External Tool when you want students to submit their assignments using an external app (LTI) enabled for your course. You must enter a URL for the external tool.

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Restricting File Types in Canvas Assignments

Do you want to restrict the types of files that students submit for an assignment? You can do this through the Restrict Upload File Types option in the assignment's settings.

These instructions are for an existing assignment in Canvas. If you need help creating an assignment, here's a helpful guide to creating Canvas assignments .

Make sure that the Submission Type for your Assignment is set to Online. Choosing Online from the drop-down menu will give you a series of options including File Uploads .

Check off File Uploads . A Restrict Upload File Types option appears.

Check off Restrict Upload File Types . A text entry field will appear where you can type in Allowed File Extensions :

Type in whatever file types you wish to ALLOW. Separate multiple extensions with a comma. Spaces, caps, and periods in between each extension are allowed. (So if you want only .doc and .pdf—you could type in: doc, pdf .)

If a student attempts to upload an incorrect file type, Canvas gives a warning that the specific file type they are attempting to upload is not allowed and will specify which file types are allowed.

Worried you don't know which file types to allow?

Here's a basic rundown of the most common word editor file types:

• .pdf - Portable Document Format . PDF's are great because they can be read across different operating systems, and the format will stay the same. PDF's are always a safe bet if you are sending a document to someone and you have no idea what kind of word processor they use!
• .doc - Microsoft Word Document. Doc's are another safe bet for sharing a document across different platforms. The older more universal standard of Microsoft Word, it has fallen a bit by the wayside with the release of .docx
• .docx - Office Open XML document. The recent default when saving a Word document, .docx is Microsoft looking to make their product more standard with the rest of the world—that is to say, you can read it across different software platforms.
• .pages - Apple iWork Pages document. Apple's answer to Word, Pages is word editing software that is restricted to Mac operating systems only. Whereas you can use Word on both a Windows and an Apple computer, you cannot use Pages on Windows. Anyone using Pages in college should probably learn how to export to .docx or .pdf to ensure that others can open it.
• .txt - Plaintext file . Exactly what it sounds like. There is little to no formatting with .txt files. And they can be read almost universally by any software or operating system.
• .rtf - Rich Text Format. Think a step up from .txt, .rtf is also a file type that is widely accessible.
• .odt (.odf) - OpenDocument. You've probably heard rumblings about Web Standardization and Open Source. This is more or less a child of that effort. If you or your students are savvy enough to get a product like OpenOffice (think a free, slightly more basic Word), they will probably know not to try to upload .odt files—but just in case they don't know, OpenOffice does allow one to export files as doc, docx, pdf, etc 
• .html - HyperText Markup Language . The language of the Internet! (Basically the backend of any website.) Students probably won't be ever submitting this kind of file unless you are having them create websites and want to make sure they are closing their tags.

If you want to use SpeedGrader in Canvas to preview student submissions and make inline comments, you should stick with doc, docx, and pdf documents.

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• How to Submit an Assignment in Canvas

Updated on Apr 29, 2023

This article is for Students needing to submit Assignments in Canvas Courses. Instructors may have you access assignments in two different ways, this article will cover both.

Article Overview

• Accessing Assignments in Canvas Courses
• Viewing Canvas Assignment Features
• Submitting Assignments in Canvas

1. Accessing Assignments in Canvas Courses

Instructors may have you access assignments in Canvas by selecting the Assignments tab or Modules Tab from the Course Navigation links on the left in your courses. We will cover both ways.

1.1. Navigate to the Course's Assignments Tab

The Assignments tab can be found in Course Navigation to the left in Canvas.

Assignments will be available in four possible categories; Overdue , Upcoming, Undated, and Past . Assignments are categorized by the pencil and paper icon ( see red arrows) . Select an assignment by clicking on the text of the name of it to read submission instructions.

1.2. Navigate to the Course's Modules Tab

The Modules tab can be found in the Course Navigation to the left in Canvas. Selecting the Module tab will show you course content organized by week, unit, chapter etc. depending on the way your instructor sets up their course. Scroll through the module to find the Assignment to access. In this example I will select " Assignment 1 " pointed to with the red arrow .

2. Viewing Canvas Assignment Features

2.1. select the name of the assignment to open it..

Open the assignment by clicking on its name inside of the Modules or Assignments area in Canvas.

You will see the (1) title of the assignment at the top, beneath that, the (2) due date and time. If multiple attempts were assigned, attempts will be listed in a (3) drop box below the due date. On the far right, you can view (4) total points possible , as well as (5) an Add Comment button to select to leave your instructor feedback per each attempt submitted. See the (6) Details section with drop down arrow on the left, which outlines the instructions for the assignment. Your instructor may also place a rubric below the instructions. If this is the case, a drop down arrow with the words View Rubric will appear (7). If a rubric is present, read through it to get a better idea of what you need to do to successfully complete the assignment.

3. Submitting Assignments in Canvas

In the bottom right hand corner, there will be a faded out red "Submit Assignment" button . Canvas will not allow you to select this button until you scroll down and view the submission options your instructor enabled.

Scroll to the bottom of the assignment to view Submission type information. In this example, the red square for file uploads is enabled for submission. Select the rocket ship to open your computer's file browser, or drag an accepted file type into the perforated box to submit.

The red Upload square denotes the submission type chosen by your instructor. Clicking the red upload square will not allow you to submit. You must select the rocket ship and choose a file to upload. Do not select the the "More " square, unless directed to do so by your instructor.

Once a file has been selected, (1) the file name will be displayed above the rocket ship . The red Submit Assignment button will be bright red. At this time, you can (2) select the Submit Assignment button to submit your work.

Your submission will be (1) time stamped and your work will be visible in the (2) document viewer. You can send a comment to your instructor for your submission that they may see when grading your work. You can select the (3) Add Comment button in the upper right corner. If your instructor has enabled multiple submission attempts a red "Try Again" button (4) will be available in the bottom right corner. Selecting the Try Again button will allow you to submit another attempt.

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Canvas (Known Issue) - "Invalid submission file type" Error When Submitting to Assignment with Office 365

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Description of Issue

For Canvas Assignments with the online File Upload submission type where the instructor has enabled the option to restrict upload submission types to certain file extensions, students will get the error message "Invalid submission file type" when attempting to use the Office 365 submission option to submit a file directly from their OneDrive. The message appears after the student selects a file for submission and appears even if the file's extension matches a type allowed by the assignment's settings. This issue makes it impossible for the student to submit their file with the Office 365 option, and the student must use the workaround described in this document.

Students who encounter this issue should submit their file to the Canvas assignment by downloading the file from their OneDrive and then using the File Upload submission option in the Canvas assignment to upload the file from their computer.

Navigate to your UWGB OneDrive:

Sign in to the Microsoft 365 Portal with your UWGB email and password.

In the navigation panel on the left side of the page, select My files to view all of your files and folders.

• Download the file you wish to submit to the Canvas Assignment (For detailed instructions on this step, please see: Download files and folders from OneDrive or SharePoint - Microsoft Support ).

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Tip! Canvas Assignment Upload File Types

Canvas assignments (if they aren’t also discussions or quizzes) can act as “drop boxes” for content which originates outside of Canvas. But the field for designating which file types are allowed is an open text field. A professor has to provide the field a list of types, which list is formatted so that Canvas can interpret it.

The field has a note below it, explaining.

Enter a list of accepted extensions, for example: doc,xls,txt

Notice two critically important things about the example! First, it includes no periods. (So if you’re used to thinking of a Word document as a “dot doc”, only “doc” is the extension.) Second, it includes both “doc”  and “docx”, the extension for older and newer versions of Word documents. You have to include both to allow both (and the same is true for other Office applications).

One thing you can’t notice in the assignment settings is that Google Drive and One Drive files can automatically be submitted through the “File Uploads” option, but they don’t have to be listed, even if you check the “Restrict Upload File Types” box (and native Google Drive files don’t have proper extensions anyway).

Instead the submission form students use now has three tabs, one for uploads proper, one for Google Drive and one for One Drive (labelled “Office 360”). Students just have to give Canvas permission (once per service) to access their files; after choosing a file from one of these to submit through Canvas, what you receive as the submission is a static PDF copy of the student’s file.

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Student Guide to Using Canvas Assignments for Exams

Things you’ll need to have before the exam

• A quiet location with uninterrupted Internet connectivity. Connect to a network in advance via wifi or preferably through an ethernet port.
• A desktop or fully charged laptop with charging cord.
• A Two-Step Authentication method (e.g. phone, tablet).
• A supported web browser . We recommend Chrome.

For Canvas help, please email: [email protected]

Instructors will create an online Assignment, to allow students to submit exam files, such as Word and Google documents through Canvas. Navigate to Canvas and log in with your SUNet ID and password. Click the appropriate course on the Dashboard. 

•  Access the assignment through your Canvas course.

File Upload or Text Entry box assignments  

File upload.

• Click Choose File and select from your computer.
• Once uploaded, do not forget to Submit Assignment .

Text Entry Box 

• Please note the due date, availability time and type of submission for the exam.
• Be sure to click outside of the text box as you type occasionally to save your work.

Submission Received    

Internet outage  

Your answers are saved every time you click outside a text box. However, if your internet connection goes out, you will see this message

You can continue to work while this message shows, but your work won’t be backed up to the server. Until your computer reconnects, do not select back, forward, or refresh on your browser and do not click the Submit Assignment button . 

If your network does not reconnect with Canvas by the end of the exam, save your work in a document and email the instructor with the exam attached.  Do not modify your doc after the end of the test (your time stamp will prove you completed work on time). If your internet remains down entirely and you have a smart phone, take a photo and email it to your instructor via the cellular network.

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Anyone familiar with canvas? Why does it say “not submitted” at the top but it’s graded and all this was Feb 10th too. Thanks it’s an online class

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