Body
When Canvas in-line annotation tools (highlight, comment, strike-through, text box, and freehand drawing) are missing from the DocViewer toolbar, the cause is almost always an anonymous peer review setting on the assignment. This article explains how to restore the tools.
The changes suggested here will impact a student that has been asked to perform a peer review on another student using a peer review assignment. The anonymous peer review setting will cause the DocViewer tools that the student will use to perform the peer review to be missing limiting the student to making comments only.
This impacts each individual peer review assignment created in a Canvas course. Once a peer-review assignment has been deployed and has received submissions, it is not recommended that any changes be made to the active assignment. If annotation tools are required, it is a best practice to start a new assignment in order to protect the integrity of already submitted assignments.
Environment
- Canvas
- SpeedGrader / DocViewer
- Assignments that have Peer Reviews Appear Anonymously enabled
Solution
Follow these steps to turn off anonymous peer reviews and restore the annotation toolbar for the affected assignment.
- In your Canvas course, go to Assignments and open the assignment where the annotation tools are missing.
- Click Edit to open the assignment settings.
- Scroll down to the Peer Reviews section.
- Uncheck Peer Reviews Appear Anonymously.
- Click Save.
Unclick the Peer Reviews Appear Anonymously.
Reopen the submission in SpeedGrader — the annotation toolbar should now appear above the DocViewer.
Note: Turning off anonymous peer reviews makes reviewer names visible on comments. If anonymity is essential to the activity, you will need to choose between anonymous peer review or DocViewer annotations — Canvas cannot provide both on the same assignment.
Root Cause
Canvas DocViewer attributes every annotation to a specific user, which is incompatible with anonymous peer review. When Peer Reviews Appear Anonymously is enabled on an assignment, Canvas hides the annotation tools entirely to prevent reviewer identities from being exposed through their markup. Disabling the anonymous setting allows DocViewer to display attributed comments again, which restores the full toolbar.
Related References