How to Reject a Work Sample and Pull a New One from Canvas

How to invalidate a submitted work sample and select a replacement from Canvas.

Overview

Sometimes a work sample submission doesn't meet requirements — the wrong file was submitted, the document is unreadable, or it doesn't match the subject area. When this happens, you can reject (invalidate) the work sample and pull a new one directly from the student's submitted Canvas assignments.

This guide covers:

• Rejecting (invalidating) a submitted work sample

• Selecting a new work sample from Canvas

• Understanding what happens after rejection

Who can do this

Staff members (teachers and administrators) can reject work samples. District administrators also have the ability to approve or reject work samples that require admin approval.

Rejecting a work sample

Step 1: Open the blue/unapproved work sample

1. Navigate to the student's Learning Period view

2. Find the course with the work sample you want to reject

3. Click the View button next to the submitted work sample

This opens the work sample preview drawer, where you can see the submitted file along with its validation details.

Step 2: Reject the work sample

1. In the preview drawer, click Reject

What happens after rejection

Once you reject a work sample:

• The work sample status resets to pending (or missing if the learning period is overdue)

• Any pending admin approvals for that submission are removed

• The Upload and Select from submitted assignments buttons reappear, allowing a new submission

Pulling a new work sample from Canvas

After rejecting a work sample (or if no work sample has been submitted yet), you can pull one directly from the student's submitted Canvas assignments.

Step 1: Open the assignment selector

1. On the work sample row for the course, click Select from submitted assignments

2. A dialog opens showing all submitted assignments for that course during the learning period

Step 2: Select an assignment

1. Browse the list of submitted assignments

2. Click the work sample icon or button next to the assignment you want to use

3. Scout will pull the submission file from Canvas and create a new work sample submission

What happens next

After selecting an assignment from Canvas:

• Scout fetches the submitted file from Canvas (this may take a moment)

• A new work sample submission is created with the file

• The work sample enters the needs review state for teacher validation

• If your school requires admin approval for work samples, the submission will go through that approval step after the teacher validates it

Supported Canvas assignment types

Scout can pull work samples from the following Canvas submission types:

• File uploads — PDF, images, and other uploaded documents

• Text entries — Online text submissions (converted to a file)

• Quizzes — Canvas quiz submissions

Some external tool submissions (like LTI integrations) are also supported, though not all tools are compatible.

Troubleshooting