How to work with downloaded student submissions

When you download student submissions from Canvas, to grade them locally on your computer, the files download as a file called "submissions.zip".

in Windows, the submission files are read only because they are in the .zip file. By default, Windows will let you work on files within the zip archive without actually unzipping (unarchiving) the file. However, saving any comments you make on the file won't work, because the file is read only.

The easiest thing is to explicitly unzip the zip file. Find the "submissions.zip" file, which by default is in your Downloads directory.

Right-click on the file, and select "Extract All". By default, Windows will extract the files to a folder with the same name as the zip file, so a folder called "submissions" will be created in the same location as the original zip file.

Now you can enter the "submissions" folder, and open the Word files. The first time you open one of the submitted files, it will open in "protected view". Click on "enable editing". Now you can edit the file, enable track changes, and make comments on the file. When you are ready, Save the file. After you have finished with all the files, right click on the Submissions folder and zip it back up by selecting "Send to" -> Compressed (zip) folder.

Then upload that "submissions.zip" file (with the changed files) back to Canvas. Be sure not to rename any of the individual files, or Canvas won't know what to do with them.

This guide may be helpful:

http://guides.instructure.com/s/2204/m/4152/l/75096-how-do-i-bulk-upload-assignment-submissions-in-canvas