Canvas offers a variety of ways to provide both graders and students with anonymous feedback. Assignments can be configured to anonymize student names. Graders can enter anonymous comments to assignment submissions. Students can give anonymous feedback in surveys, and discussions can be set to allow students to post anonymously.

Separately, the FeedBackFruits peer-review activity allows anonymity in both submissions and reviews.

Anonymous assignment grading

To hide student names from graders in assignments, quizzes, and surveys, you first have to go to the course Settings, then to the Feature Options tab to enable Anonymous Grading:

Note: Changes to feature options save automatically.

Click on the 'X' beside Anonymous Grading and select Enable:

When the 'X' turns into a checkmark, you can set anonymous grading for an assignment.

This setting is optional for each assignment and has to be activated in each assignment's settings: 

Remember to Save the assignment settings.

To reveal student names to graders, uncheck the Anonymous Grading and Save the assignment settings.

Anonymous assignment grader annotations

To hide grader annotations from students in assignments, you first have to go to the course Settings, then to the Feature Options tab to enable Anonymous Grading:

When the 'X' turns into a checkmark, you can hide the identity of graders' annotations on an assignment.

Note: Changes to feature options save automatically.

This setting is optional for each assignment and has to be activated in each assignment's settings: 

Remember to Save the assignment settings.

To reveal grader annotations to students in assignments, uncheck the Anonymous Instructor Annotations and Save the assignment settings.

Note: In quizzes and surveys, grader annotations can be hidden from students only by hiding grades in the gradebook.

Anonymous surveys and quizzes

Both New and Classic quizzes can be used to survey students' opinions in a course.

Note: We recommend creating New Quizzes only, as New Quizzes offer greater functionality. The ability to create Classic Quizzes will eventually be removed from Canvas. Classic quizzes can be converted easily into New quizzes.

In a New Quiz, you can create a Graded Quiz, a Graded Survey, or an Ungraded Survey. A Graded Survey or Quiz has a field where you can enter points, and an Ungraded Survey does not.

When setting up a quiz or survey, set the quiz type in the quiz setup dropdown menu:

This setting is optional for each New Quiz or Survey and has to be activated in each quiz or survey's settings: 

In Classic quizzes setup dropdown menu, you have the options to create a Practice Quiz, a Graded Quiz, a Graded Survey, or an Ungraded Survey:

Note: In Classic Graded and Practice quizzes and Graded Surveys, the point value is determined by the total points in the quiz. Practice Quiz grades are not included in the final grades, and no points are calculated for an Ungraded Survey.

Check the box to Keep Submissions Anonymous and Save the settings:

This setting is optional for each quiz or survey and has to be activated in each quiz or survey's assignment's settings.

Note: In quizzes and surveys, grader annotations can be hidden from students only by hiding grades in the gradebook.

Anonymous discussions

Discussions have three options for the visibility of student names and profile pictures: