Finding Help
      Back to home
      1. Knowledge Base
      2. Support & Resources
      3. Finding Help

      Troubleshooting Student Work Submissions

      Your helpful guide to troubleshooting student work submissions

      Navigating Student Submissions

      For the bulk of your Kira course - barring any unplugged activities - students will be submitting their work through the platform to respond to a variety of different problems: code based, multiple choice, parsons, and written responses, to name a few.

      While we hope this submission process is always seamless, we know sometimes things do not run as expected, and when you are learning a new platform and a new content it can be difficult to know what you can troubleshoot and what requires extra assistance from our team.

      Submission Content: Checking Your Code

      When working on code-based tasks, we have a few things to look for that may prevent a correct submission.

      • The Autograder is specific!: Remember that many code tasks are autograded upon submission, and for that to work, the autograder is looking for very specific output. If it asks you to write “Hello, world!” for example, and you write “Hello world.” , you’ll meet an error. In an example like this, you went about coding the right way - you still got an output!, but that output just needs to be tweaked for the answer to be accepted.
      • In Platypus Environment, orientation matters: Similarly, the Platypus problems are also typically autograded by matching the position of your platypus at the end to the goal end state in the problem. This means that if the goal end state Platypus ends up in the bottom corner facing right, your Platypus should also end in the bottom corner facing right.
      • Run the code before submitting: Before you submit your code, you need to hit ‘run’ in the code editor. That’s the purple play button! Once your code runs and gives the anticipated output, then go ahead and hit submit.
      • Is your code waiting on input?: Sometimes when running code, it may look like it's stuck or nothing is happening when in fact it’s just waiting on user input! Look for a spot in the console where it’s waiting to get a value from the user to continue.
      • Don’t get tricked by comments: In early programming, it can be easy to write code that isn’t readable to the comptuer. Make sure that you haven’t hidden your code in a comment. Writing #print("Hello, World!") will be a comment unread by the computer, where as print("Hello, World!") is a command the computer can execute.

      Did you remember to submit?

      If students have free movement through the course (such as being able to jump around within a lesson, for example), they may do all of their above, run their code, bask in the glory of it running correctly, and then forget to hit the submit button entirely. It happens to the best of us!

      If a student is convinced they did a problem but you are not seeing a submission, they likely forgot to hit submit. You can always check the Kira gradebook to see that either a point was awarded, or that the step box turned green when viewing in Progress mode. White boxes in progress mode mean that a student did not complete the step by hitting submit, even if they made an attempt.

      Still stuck? Check the tech!

      We hate to see it happen, but sometimes technology likes to throw us for a loop. To rule out what part of the technology is the bit putting a spanner in the works, we recommend the following steps:

      • Refresh your page: If you have a typed solution, you can copy/paste it somewhere safe, like a file in our stand alone editor, an email to yourself, or a computer note or sticky.
      • Clear your cache: You know how you clean out a lint trap when doing laundry? Sometimes computers need that, too. Follow the steps to clear your cache depending on the browser you are using; Chrome, Firefox, and Edge all have instructions online.
      • Make sure your browser is running the current version: sometimes devices and browsers are not updated as much as we want! You can check if your browser is up to date on WhatIsMyBrowser.com.
      • Just in case Wifi test: we know it seems obvious, but be sure to check that you’re able to access Kira and other webpages normally.

      Still not working? We got you?

      After a code check and a tech check, you’ve probably uncovered an elusive bug that we need to know about! Contact support@kira-learning.com with as many details as possible. Things that are useful for us to know:

      • When the problem took place
      • Where the issue took place, such as a specific lesson step
      • The type of device you are on (Ex: Macbook, Chromebook) browser used (Ex: Chrome, Firefox), and browser version from WhatIsMyBrowser.
      • Your network download speed, which you can find at https://fast.com/
      • Whose account experienced the problem, as well as if this was an issue experienced by one unique user or many users.
      • Bonus points for screenshots or screen recordings of the problem in action

      Our team works very hard behind the scenes to make sure teachers get support and bugs get squashed as quickly as possible. We will update you once a fix is in place so you can keep going with your lesson!