How to track assignments that never show up on Canvas

Canvas only shows what your instructor puts in it. Homework on a publisher site, a Gradescope assignment that was never linked, and a deadline announced in lecture can all sit outside it. To track them, read each syllabus schedule and each publisher course's own calendar in the first week. Then write every deadline Canvas does not show onto the same list as your Canvas work, with its date, time and course. In Scholarwire, that list is the Calendar: choose New, pick To-do under What is it?, set the Course and Due at, and select Add it. Check the outside sites again whenever a date moves, because nothing keeps your copy up to date for you.

Why do some assignments never show up on Canvas?

Because Canvas is not the only place a course runs. Your instructor decides what goes into it, and plenty of graded work lives elsewhere:

Publisher homework. Pearson MyLab and Mastering, McGraw Hill Connect and similar platforms keep their own course, with their own due dates.
Gradescope. An instructor can link a Gradescope assignment to Canvas, or not.
Deadlines said out loud. A quiz moved in lecture, a proposal due "next Friday", a lab report date written on the board.
Dates that live only in the syllabus. A schedule table in a PDF can list readings, drafts and exams that never become Canvas assignments.

When Canvas does carry outside work, it usually arrives as an assignment that opens another tool. Instructure's guide shows instructors choosing External Tool as an assignment's submission type, then either publishing it or saving it as a draft to publish later. So whether that work is on your Canvas, and when, is up to your instructor.

Where do Pearson, McGraw Hill and Gradescope deadlines live?

Pearson and McGraw Hill set due dates on their own site, and Canvas gets a copy that can lag behind. Gradescope depends on how your school set it up.

Pearson MyLab and Mastering

Pearson recommends that instructors set and change due dates inside the Pearson course. Its help page says that for most integrations, due dates for Pearson assignments show up in the LMS calendar after the first grade sync. Until that sync runs, a Pearson assignment can be missing from your Canvas calendar even though it is due.

Pearson's own advice for students covers this case: if due dates do not reach the LMS calendar, check the course home page or the calendar in your Pearson course.

McGraw Hill Connect

With Connect, your instructor deploys assignments into a Canvas module and then publishes them. McGraw Hill's guide says deployed assignments should show up under that module and in the Assignments area in Canvas. Work that was never deployed stays in Connect.

The date in Connect matters. With McGraw Hill's LTI Advantage integration, a missed assignment sends a score of 0 to Canvas once its due date passes. Instructors can turn that setting off. Treat the Connect date as the real one.

Gradescope

Gradescope's guide for instructors strongly recommends linking an assignment to Canvas before releasing it, so students can find it there. For work instructors upload themselves, such as a scanned paper exam, it suggests linking only when grades are ready to post. So a Gradescope assignment can exist for weeks before it appears in Canvas, or never appear there at all.

Three more details from Gradescope's own guides:

The due date may come from Canvas. Depending on your school's settings, a linked assignment's due date syncs from Canvas and can only be edited there.
Extensions do not sync. Individual student extensions and late due dates do not reach Canvas. If you were given extra time, Canvas still shows the original date.
Dates can be set twice. Gradescope's older Canvas guide tells instructors to make the two due dates match if they want the assignment on students' to-do list and calendar. If the two sites disagree, ask which one counts.

How do I find every deadline that is not on Canvas?

Do one sweep in the first week, then a short check each week after that.

Read each syllabus schedule. Many syllabi carry a table of weeks, dates, topics and what is due. Old Dominion University's syllabus template asks instructors for exactly that table, and its sample disclaimer says the schedule "is tentative, and it may change during the semester".
Open every publisher course once. Pearson, Connect or any other platform named in the syllabus. Find its assignment list or calendar and note each due date.
Open Gradescope if a course uses it. Note each assignment and its due date, whether or not Canvas shows it.
Compare against Canvas. Put Canvas in the Agenda view, as in how to see all your Canvas assignments in one calendar. Anything you found in steps 1 to 3 that is not there is what you add by hand.
Read new announcements each week. When one gives a date or moves one, update your list the same day.

What else to pull out of a syllabus, such as grade weights and the heaviest weeks, is in how to plan your semester in the first week.

How do I keep outside deadlines on one list with Canvas?

Put them where your Canvas assignments already are, so one list shows everything due. There are two ways.

Add them in Scholarwire

Your Canvas assignments arrive on the Scholarwire Calendar by sync. Add the rest next to them:

Open Calendar and choose New. You can also click an empty spot on a day, or run Add to calendar from the command palette.
The form is titled Add to your calendar. Under What is it?, choose To-do for homework or Exam for a test.
Type a Title you will recognise, such as "Mastering ch. 4 homework".
Choose the Course. It is optional, but a course colours the item and lets the planner use it.
Set the Date and the Due at time. Copy the time from the publisher's site, not just the day.
For weekly homework, set Repeats weekly until to the last week of term. Leave it empty for a one-off.
Use Notes for where the work lives, such as "Connect, via the week 4 module".
Select Add it.

The item appears on the Calendar, and its panel carries an Added by you badge. Within 7 days of its due date, it shows on Today under Due this week. Mark done works on it the way it does on a Canvas assignment.

The planner counts it too. An exam you add becomes something to prepare for, and a to-do becomes a deadline with 1 hour of work assumed until you change the estimate. An exam you add also offers a Study time section in its panel, where you can book prep yourself.

Or add them as Canvas to-dos

If you would rather keep everything in Canvas, Instructure's guide shows how. In Calendar, click a date, open the My To Do tab, enter a Title and Date, and click Submit. With no time entered, Canvas sets it to 11:59 p.m.

Canvas says To Do items are not in its calendar feed, so they will not reach Google Calendar or Outlook that way. Scholarwire's Canvas sync does carry them, and a to-do you add in Canvas appears as a to-do on the Scholarwire Calendar after the next sync.

Can Claude or ChatGPT add them from my syllabus?

Yes, through the Scholarwire connector, on Pro and the 14-day trial. The connector can read a course's Canvas syllabus page and add an exam, an event, a to-do or a study block to your calendar. Ask something like: "Read my chemistry syllabus and add every quiz and homework date that is not already a Canvas assignment."

Read what it added before you rely on it. A syllabus can be out of date, and an assistant can misread a table. Setup, plans and which ChatGPT accounts can use write tools are in how to use Scholarwire in Claude and ChatGPT.

The connector reads the syllabus page Canvas synced. It cannot see a publisher's site or Gradescope, so those dates still come from you.

What does Scholarwire not do for these deadlines?

An item you add is a copy you keep, not a link to the publisher. Know these limits before you count on it:

It does not check Pearson, Connect or Gradescope. No date you add updates on its own. When an instructor moves a deadline or grants you an extension, edit your item.
Pearson dates can arrive twice. Once a grade sync puts a Pearson assignment on your Canvas calendar, it can sync into Scholarwire as well. Delete your hand-made copy then, so the planner does not book time for it twice.
It lives on one device on Free. The form says your item lives on this device. Sync across devices runs on Pro and the trial. On Free, your other devices will not show it.
Canvas sync needs the extension. Your Canvas courses arrive through Scholarwire for Canvas on a computer, not a phone. Install says what is available today. It syncs every 30 minutes on Pro and the trial, and once a day on Free, plus when you open the app.
The connector is Pro. Adding items by hand works on every plan. Asking Claude or ChatGPT to add them needs Pro or the trial.
Free puts 2 courses on the calendar link. If you share your calendar to Google, Apple or Outlook, Free publishes 2 courses you pick. An item you leave at No course goes out either way.

Common questions

Should I add work that already shows up on Canvas?

No. Canvas assignments reach Scholarwire by sync, so a copy you add by hand would show twice. Add only what Canvas does not show. If a publisher assignment appears in Canvas later, open your copy on the Calendar and select Delete.

What do I do with a deadline my instructor only said out loud?

Add it the same day as a to-do, and put where it came from in Notes, such as "said in lecture, Oct 14". Then check the course announcements over the next day or two. If the date there is different, trust the written one and edit your to-do.

Can I add a deadline that repeats every week?

Yes. Fill in Repeats weekly until with the last week of term, and the to-do appears every week up to that date. When one week is different, open that week's to-do and select Edit this week only or Skip this week. The other weeks stay as they were.

Will the deadlines I add show up on my phone's calendar?

Yes, if you turn on calendar sync in Settings, under Calendar. To-dos you add go out on the To-dos layer, and exams on Class meetings and exams. Their notes stay on your device and are left off the link.

Sources

Topics:planningCanvassemester