Troubleshooting: Unexpected badge award behaviors in Canvas

When a student checks their progress by accessing the Credentials or Badges menu in a course, Canvas Badges/Credentials automatically awards all the badges they have earned. Occasionally, students are not awarded badges as expected. The following problems may occur:

  • Students are not awarded a badge they were expecting
  • Students are awarded badges without having completed the requirements
  • Student names display a URL identifier in the student roster, and they are not receiving badges

Solutions to these problems are outlined in this lesson.

Problem 1

After completing a Canvas course module, a student observes that they were not awarded the badge associated with the module.

Solution for students

As a student, check the module completion status in your Modules course navigation view. If the expected module does not register as complete, you should be able to see the incomplete criteria or contact the instructor to ask for further details. If the expected module does register as complete, but no badge appears after refreshing Canvas Badges/Credentials, please contact us at [email protected].

Solution for instructors

Solution for instructors

As an instructor, you can verify that module completion rules are defined correctly for a given module. In Course Navigation, click the Canvas Modules link [1], then click the View Progress button [2].

Solution for instructors

Navigate between students who should and should not have been awarded a badge to verify that the criteria are defined correctly.

Problem 2

Badges are awarded to students in modules with incomplete assignments.

Solution for instructors

If Canvas Badges/Credentials has awarded badges to students who should not have earned that badge, it means the module completion rules are incorrectly configured in Canvas. After correcting that problem, you can either revoke badges that were awarded mistakenly or clear out the badge assigned to the module and reassign it. Before doing this, ensure you have fixed the problem with the completion rules so that incorrect badges are not re-awarded the next time Canvas Badges/Credentials checks progress when you view the progress screen.

If all the assignments in a particular module are assigned to a section, then anyone not in that section is automatically marked as having completed the module by Canvas. Often, when a single student gets all or no badges, there's a problem with the section they're assigned to. Students not getting badges when requirements are met

Occasionally, the module completion requirements might not be honored and the module needs to be "reset." To determine if this is the issue, click Modules in Course Navigation, then click the Student progress button. Browse to a student who you know has met module completion criteria. If Canvas does not show the student has completed the requirements, you can resolve the issue with the steps below.

To reset the module requirements:

  1. On the Modules page, click the Options icon for the Canvas module.
  2. Click the Edit link.
  3. Make no changes.
  4. Click the Save button.
  5. Click the Student Progress button from the Modules page to ensure that it now shows the student has completed the module.
  6. Check the Progress tab in Badges/Credentials and click the page that shows the student in the table. Confirm that the badge has been awarded.

Problem 3

Students have a URL identifier in the roster and are not awarded badges.

Solution for instructors

Badges are not awarded to students until the course enrollment has been accepted or until Canvas Badges/Credentials has been granted access to the student's email address. If a student has an URL identifier in the roster, they have not yet accepted the enrollment, or Canvas Badges/Credentials cannot access the student's email address.

As a teacher, when on the Progress page of the Badges/Credentials course navigation, you may see a student's name flagged with a URL identifier.  There are two reasons why this may occur:

  • The student has not accepted the course enrollment (as indicated by the hover text).
  • Canvas Badges/Credentials cannot access the student's email address from the Canvas instance.

If the student has not accepted enrollment, they must accept enrollment in the course.

Edit Role Permissions

If the student has accepted the course enrollment invitation and is an active participant in the course, your Canvas permission settings may need to be adjusted. You or your Canvas admin can edit your role permissions using the following steps:

  1. Navigate to the account or sub-account where the affected course is located.
  2. From Account Navigation, click the Permissions link [1].
  3. In the Course Roles permissions table, verify that the Users - view the primary email address permission is enabled for the Teacher role [2].
  4. Then, delete the Badges/Credentials Group and create a new Group to recreate the roster with the correct identifiers.

If the student has accepted enrollment and the Canvas instance allows teachers to view email addresses, but there is still a URL identifier next to a student name, there may be a different Canvas or SIS setting preventing the badge awards. Please check your Canvas settings. If you can't resolve the issue, please contact [email protected].