This has been a request since August 2012: Ability to Save and Copy from Frequently Used Comments in Crocodoc : Help Center
You could have it that it is linked to either the course or the user?
The question I have would be whether you as a marker might want to share these comments with either other markers on the course or to other assignments in the course?
I can see the benefit of sharing common comments across multiple assignments
Your comments are a good expansion on this subject. I had not thought about making comments available from one assignment to another assignment. I could use something like that in my course as well.. For me having the comments linked to the course would be fine. A more interesting approach would be to create a comment bank as an individual user that I could use when grading any assignment for any course.
Great discussion Ron Bowman Robert Jones and Joshua Herron. I like how this idea is developing! We will put it up for community voting on June 3rd so be sure to "bookmark" and return to this idea so you can vote it up!
If any of you weren't aware, we have a redesign of Canvas Studio: Speedgrader 2.0 on our roadmap if you'd like to chime in over there. This might be a feature Christi Wruck is interested in discussing further as we get closer to Speedtrater 2.0 ;-)
In our Speedgrader 2.0 research we've heard the request for a comment bank quite often. It's a pretty big undertaking, but we're exploring the idea for inclusion in Speedgrader 2.0. It may, however, end up being more like Speedgrader 2.1. It really depends on how much we can get included in the scope for 2.0. Suffice it to say, we know this is a really important feature that could be very helpful when it comes to saving instructors time. And I LOVE saving instructors time!
The last idea is definitely what I had in mind. Ideally with a facility for the user to organize comments in a way that makes sense to her/him to facilitate access (eg by course, by assignment, by comment type, or any combination of these).
a comment bank as an individual user that I could use when grading any assignment for any course
A comment bank for individual users would be amazing; that would save me so much copy-and-pasting.
Right now I have a Google Doc with common comments I make for my students. Copy + Paste has been helpful, but having them built in per-course would be wonderful.
This is how I handle it as well, but I agree with Kristin Lundstrum that it would be wonderful to have the comments built in to Canvas.
I agree that having a comment bank would really speed grading of student papers. I'm told BB has such a feature and really hope to see it in Canvas.
This would be a great buy in factor for hesitant teachers. The simplier the tool the more likely we will get teachers to use it.
Sadly, that one died on the vine with only 11 votes - let's keep this one alive!
Here's another great idea to save from the chopping block - only 13 votes needed before Tuesday! This is one of the best features of Turnitin's GradeMark. Going to reach out to my co-workers to vote this one up - let's make it happen!!
Joshua:
There is a great product (free - that's what makes it great!) that you can use in the interim. It's called TypItIn, and it can be found here: Downloads | Wavget
It is the professional version that is free.
Check it out.
I think that it would be very helpful and time efficient having a text box where we could place feedback.
In Moodle there was a box called "Answer for Grader" which is a text box in which a teacher can write general or commonly used answer, not visible to student, but visible to the teacher at the time of grading, and it can be copied and pasted in the comment box for providing a feedback to a student.
Ron Bowman, Jill Dahl, Alexander McCormick, Kristin Lundstrum, Robert Jones - Only need 2 more votes to make the cut! Any bushes that can be beat to drum up some votes...?? Mixed metaphors aside, can we tap on a couple more shoulders to get those last two votes in?
Thanks Crista Calderon, I'll send something around to colleagues. Not sure any of them are registered in the community but it's worth a try.
Hi Crista Calderon ~ I've forwarded this link to a few people in my building. They should follow through before the end of the day.
Yay - we did it!
Another vote here from the University of Birmingham - this has been a major wish of our faculty
To take this one step further...
In Angel within the HTML editor there was an "enable macros" button. One of our instructors used macros to create comments, images, and motivational feedback for each assignment. She would have several options for each assignment depending on how well the student did that she could easily pop into the comments area when grading an assignment.
The content from these macros were stored in the personal files area of Angel.
I believe that to do something like this would require Canvas to add the HTML editor to the comments area of speedgrader with a linkage to personal files.
This was a great feature that helped our instructors to grade quickly, effectively and oftentimes motivationally offering the same quality of comment to the first student who was graded as well as the last student (even when she had 100 assignments to grade in one sitting!)
Thank you for your post!
We just got Canvas this term so we are new kids on the block; but I heard this comment from 2 faculty just today. Pretty much word for word:
"would require Canvas to add the HTML editor to the comments area .." they want to be able to insert images ---for math, comp. sci. feedback.
So, I am anxious to see where this feature request goes...
I would also like to see a feature in which we could use something like D2L has, where I can type in a %StudentName% and it will include their name automatically.
We have been asking for this for 3 years!!
In theory, the Turnitin LTI allows you to use the GradeMark comment banks, but the LTI doesn't work correctly in our account so it isn't helping us yet. .
This idea is now Under Consideration. Find out more about the idea stages at What is the feature development process for Canvas?
Hey Folks!
I hope you noticed our new status. "Under Consideration". It means, we think this is a good idea and despite the fact that we can't get this done in the next 6 months, we're looking for ways to squeeze it in sometime in the future. We'll be working on some designs, will probably have questions for you at some point, and will be hoping some of you on this chain will want to participate in some user testing to make sure we're on the right track to solving this problem. Stay tuned!
I hope this will become implemented, as it will be a true time saver, eliminating a lot of repetitive tasks. While we're in the wait-and-see mode, I'll share a few ways I address this need:
Stephanie:
I also use a free tool called TypeItIn. But how cool would it be to have that feature built in. Big thanks to Christi Wruck for cluing us in!
klm
I love this idea because it's motivated by a desire to increase the amount of meaningful feedback that we give to students.
In the meantime, I'll echo support for Stefanie Sanders' suggestion that you try text expander software. These tools make it easier to call up pre-written text anywhere. Many of these rely on keyboard shortcuts or abbreviations.
Stefanie Mentioned PhraseExpress; Kelly mentioned TypeItIn. I've used aText on the Mac for a while, and I've heard TypeIt4Me is good, too.
There are also some built for browsers, too: I haven't used these yet, but AutoTextExpander and ProKeys are both highly rated on the Chrome app store.
Jared Stein Thank you for suggesting ProKeys (free Chrome Extension.) I've started using it in Speedgrader, and it works like a charm for Assignment Comments as well as comments and annotations in the DocViewer.
Stefanie Sanders I like your idea of "sticky notes" and text expander software. I will have to suggest these alternatives to faculty. Thank you!
I agree that this sounds like a wonderful feature! I love having places to store comments! I also suggested an idea for another place to store feedback. A Place to Store Sample Feedback for Essay Questions Please check it out! Thank you Jordan Dayton for sharing this idea! So innovative!
We need to replace Crocodoc. Someone from Canvas wrote to me saying that Canvas has no power or influence over Crocodoc. At the moment, Crocodoc is useless to me, causing me to do an elaborate workaround with Turnitin. I explain the problem below:
I never use Crocodoc for a simple reason: I can't pre-make and store comments that I can drag onto a student paper. This seems an obvious measure, and one that Turnitin has supplied for years. I can provide vastly more feedback, with links to help, using the TII drag and drop.
I have tried using Turnitin within Canvas but invariably, some papers will not load properly, even though I have carefully restricted file types to those doc, docx, pdf. And, in fact, the ones TII cannot process in Canvas are usually Word documents, and they run fine if I download them and upload them into standalone TII. In student papers for which TII in Canvas won't work, I have to open the paper in Crocodoc (and I have several times contacted our Canvas staff with no resolution). I also cannot see who has viewed comments on a paper in TII running within Canvas (as opposed to standalone TII, where I can). And inside Canvas, I have to import all my Quickmarks and rubrics for each course. End result: because of these problems, chiefly the inability to drag and drop comments in Crocodoc, I have students sign up for Turnitin in standalone mode, so students have to do two log-ins, and I have to enter grades twice, once in TII and once in Canvas. More complexity, more problems.
So, if Crocodoc would at least let me drag and drop comments, it would become more useful, perhaps enough so that I would be able to drop standalone Turnitin. At the moment, Crocodoc is really not even what I would call functional for me.
Since Canvas says it has no power or influence over Crocodoc, Canvas needs to build its own system to replace Crocodoc, adding what seems like a self-evident feature of dragging and dropping stored comments.
Once this is implemented, it would also be nice if we could see for a course/section how often we have used a particular comment, e.g. how often am I referring students to the tutoring center or the Purdue OWL website for APA citations?
This would also be great data for academic advisors and for retention staff, so they can help emphasize those resources earlier in the semester.
Here's a little mock up I did of what the UI could maybe look like?
Thanks Jonathan. I assume the idea is that one would scroll through a comments box and drag the selected item into "Assignment Comments." Quick reactions:
Hey Alex,
I don't work for Canvas or anything. That was just an imaginary mock up of how I'd envision using it. I agree, if not enough of a given comment were showing, that would be less than ideal. And having custom ways to organize comments on the back end would be really helpful, I agree. As for comments within speedgrader, I look at those as one form of feedback, that can do some good things, but certainly can't replace embedded comments within a document. I rely on feedback embedded in Word Online documents in my class, for example. Thanks for the props on the idea and insightful follow up ideas!
Thanks Jonathan, I realized that shortly after I posted. But hopefully my comments may help if it gets to the design phase. I also rely on embedded comments, which I generally do in Speedgrader/Crocodoc (I'm not sure which is which but I think it's the latter). I assume any facility for this in Canvas will be limited to activity that goes on inside the Canvas environment. (Maybe there's a way to do this with Word Online. I'm still a rookie with Canvas.)
Yes - I would love to see this implemented!
Are there any updates on this project? I am SO anxious to have a feature like this. Thanks in advance.
I would love a frequent comment section.
Currently, I've created a section at the bottom of the rubric (no points) where I can click on the comment I want.
This idea was moved from Under Consideration stage (no longer in use) to the Product Radar stage.
This change was made as part of a feature idea process evolution. Find more information, and contribute insights, by joining Focus Group: DRAFT Feature Idea Space.
I could see this feature getting lots of use at our college. Faculty use SpeedGrader all the time and often reuse the same comments over and over. Faculty love SpeedGrader but this feature would make them use it and love it even more.
There's a January 2016 comment informing us to "stay tuned." Is there an update regarding this feature?
Great idea. I used to use "auto Text Expander" for this but it quit working on Chrome. To have this functionality in Canvas would be nice.
My colleagues and I would really welcome this - many of us used to use the quick marks function in Turnitin really productively but have no equivalent functionality on Canvas.
Is there an update on this? Really keen to have this feature.
It's hard to believe this idea was first suggested in 2012 and has not been actioned yet. Using Turnitin's Grademark feature over the past ten years I developed a set of reusable comments (Quickmarks) which allowed me to give rich feedback (including hyperlinks to helpful resources) with a single click. I shared these with colleagues in my department and as an OER for the wider community of EAP (English for Academic Purposes) lecturers. In Speedgrader (which I used for the first time last month) I have to type these comments manually or copy-paste from Word. ***SNAILGRADER!!!***
Hello! I just suggested the idea of a comment bank on another thread and was told that this idea had already been suggested here (Thank you, Ira Strauss!).
A comment bank would change my grading life! I currently use Turnitin to give students feedback on their writing because I can easily create a comment bank for each essay and then drag comments into each student's paper. However, my school is considering no longer using Turnitin - and, even if we do keep using Turnitin, it'd be nice for students to not have to leave Canvas (and go to Turnitin) to see their feedback. I think staying within Canvas would create a more cohesive and streamlined experience for them.
Thank you for considering this idea!
It appears that this is something a lot of Canvas users would appreciate. Let's hope it can be a reality very soon.
This has been commented on by several academic staff as a big issue for speed of grading, and would significantly reduce the time taken to grade, so would be very welcome here
Soooo...any updates on this, Canvas? I see people requesting this as far back as 2015.
Get it done, Canvas! This would save so much time. Either a dropdown menu with the most recent or most popular comments I've written on that particular assignment.
It's been more than 2 years since Christi Wruck posted, "we think this is a good idea and despite the fact that we can't get this done in the next 6 months, we're looking for ways to squeeze it in sometime in the future." Can we have a status update please?
I recently learned about a 3rd party comment bank solution called Annotate PRO that integrates with Canvas in Chrome. It's a Chrome extension and has some nice features for managing libraries, sharing, etc. (Apparently it can also be used with Word, Google Docs, and other platforms.) Worth a look while we're waiting for Canvas to take action on this! speedgrader comment speedgrader
It would be great to choose from a list of comments to add. In the rubric I can add one comment, but I need to be able to click on a couple and add them to compose the appropriate comment.
I currently use "Feedback Studio," which is an option within Turnitin. Using Feedback Studio, I can create, edit, and download my own "set" of comments that I then can upload into Canvas courses. I can also toggle between sets. Feedback Studio also now comes pre-loaded with sets, such as "9-12 Grade Argument." If, for example, one notes a "comma splice," one can highlight the offending text and select "comma splice" from the set. A student will see that highlighted text and a comment called "Comma Splice," which that student can click on and then learn from (i.e., more info about comma splices and how to fix them). An instructor can add/save a new comment to any set, but FS doesn't allow you then to Save-As or Download that augmented set so that he/she can use it within another course. This is an obvious weakness. If something like FS could be made native within Canvas, this would make the need to upload/download sets unnecessary. Once logging in to Canvas, one should be able to see one's sets (i.e., sets should be tied to user log-in). One should be able to add-to, edit, rename, etc. Feedback Studio works just fine (I've been using it likely for about a decade, during which time it used to be named GradeMark), but its interface reminds me a little of BlackBoard in the old days. It def. could benefit from an upgrade and some of the drag+drop / user-friendly intuitiveness of Canvas. I am eager to transition away from Turnitin and Feedback Studio and am hoping that Canvas can add some haste to their development of this feature. Thanks!
Just wondering how this issue is tracking, from what I can see it has been a long time on the "Radar".
I have teachers at my institution who are very keen to use a comment bank to assist with the marking of assessments.
Is there any update on when this feature might be available?
I agree! Where is this at in the queue? Since you replaced crocodoc, this seems like something more doable. I also wanted to mention that I would really love the ability to store comments for rubrics. I have a text document for each rubric so I can cut and paste into the rubric comment boxes, but it would be so much better to be able to create a bank of answers I could drag into the rubric. That may be a different idea altogether, so let me know
It would be good to have an update from Instructure on this feature request? Looks like the last official Instructure update on this was Jan 2016!? #Stay tuned!
You mean there could be a better way to save often used comments besides having to copy and paste them from a TextEdit applet?
This will save instructors so much time! I find myself writing the same things on papers such as "Make sure your running header is in all caps" and I have to type it out everytime, or cut and paste it from a word document. It would be great if the annotated comment place had a drop down menu where I can just select the comment I want to add on the students paper. Please! Seriously, this would save me (and other instructors) probably 3-5 hours per week!
Julian to leverage the impact of the Canvas community and keep them engaged in discussions, I feel that official Canvas responses need to be more regular in threads such as these.
I think people understand that Instructure can't develop every feature for different reasons, but Instructure needs to come back to these threads and give clear indication and updates such as "We hear you, and see that this feature is great, but we can't implement it right now because...XYZ ".
What frustrates the community is 2 years of silence on a feature with half a thousand votes, (as can be seen at the top of this conversation the last official update on this was in 2016). Ultimately people will just give up because they feel like they are talking into a void.
Just my 5c...
Hey Grant,
Thanks for tagging me on this one. First, I do want to be an example that yes we do respond. But certainly, no argument that we can always do better.
Please know that many of my colleagues here do read. What many like to do most is watch (I won't use the word lurk) and see how these discussions unfold without our direct input. The best thing about the community is seeing how ideas are formed and iterated by those at the coalface rather than us in our offices way away from the classroom.
That being said, if you are looking for a response, always feel free to tag us (if you know who) or ask directly in the post and we will share what we can.
Now, to this particular post. This was an idea flagged in 2015 and is obviously still resonating today. I myself have no inside scoop to share, but I will contact the Scott and the EVA AWESOME Community team to see if this may be worth having voted again or to understand other processes that can be used to highlight the request.
Regards, your occasionally participating and ever watching (not lurking...or big brother..or anything creepy) friend,
Julian
Hey Grant Harbor and Julian Ridden,
As a general rule we don't tend to comment in a thread unless we have something to share by way of an update. That being said, part of the regular release schedule process is that as soon as we know what the commits are for a given release, we do go in and update any related feature suggestions. THAT being said, ideas like this one that is in the top ten most voted ideas get a lot of eyeball time by our community and product folks. Often times it is frustrating for us (not as frustrating as it is to be a user who wants to see progress most likely) when we know that something cannot be done until we finish something else first or even though something has a lot of votes there are just too many things that are even more pressing that need doing. What you can depend on is that we are reading and watching, as Julian says. The nature of the community is that you see feature ideas as single requests but a lot of the time when we get to refactoring a given area of the product, the first thing we do is reread all the related popular idea - looking for use cases and specific details of what people want to see. So even though the process may take years to complete start to finish, you aren't talking into the void and we hope you will continue to participate.
So after 5 years is this feature going to be provided -other LMSs provide it. At the moment have a split screen and a list of common responses in Word which I continually copy and paste in. So frustrating knowing it is a feature that can be provided. Likewise I raised, as other LMSs provide (another one that Canvas doesn't offer, my idea is waiting for votes) the need to be able to insert an electronic signature.
What is the latest with this feature? This is an absolutely essential feature for us.
I would also like an update about this important need, please.
I wanted to post a shoutout to a small company that has provided a great third-party solution to the "stored comments" issue. The company is 11Trees and the product is Annotate PRO. It is a browser add-on the allows you to create banks of comments that you can then click and add to SpeedGrader. Not only that, but it provides a way to review the comments you have provided by category and by student. The developer is a pleasure to work with and has made some major improvements just in the time we have been working together. It currently works with SpeedGrader (including adding comments to rubrics) and with DocViewer (annotaitions directly on documents) as well as Word. I will be working it out over the next four weeks but it has been a godsend so far. https://www.11trees.com/live/
Thanks for the reminder about AnnotatePRO, Nancy LaChance. I corresponded with the developer a couple of months ago and this sounds like the functionality that Canvas should provide in speedgrader / docviewer without all the apparently ineffectual nudging from the user community.
I have no doubt that Instructure has many committed staff juggling lots of competing priorities, but this request--which goes back to 2012, has nearly 550 upvotes, and has been on Product Radar for 2.5 years--languishes and users like me are getting more frustrated and disillusioned with each passing month.
I've encouraged my multicampus institution's Canvas support group to investigate ways to incorporate or support Annotate PRO, but I doubt they want to get into using 3rd-party tools.
Nancy,
Andrew here from 11trees (developers of Annotate PRO - AP as we like to call it).
Many thanks for highlighting our work! While not formally announced, we are delighted to share that AP is now free to all individual faculty - create as many libraries and groups and comments, use our toolbar for Canvas and Google Docs, or our app for Microsoft Word...Forever free.
While AP works closely with Canvas (and Google Docs), no formal integration is required. You just install our Chrome Extension and away you go...Please observe your institution's rules and regs regarding 3rd party solutions...but you could be hammering away with AP in a minute or two...
11trees is now a formal Canvas partner and we've been a signatory to the Student Privacy Pledge for quite a while now. We take this stuff seriously and are honored to be part of the Canvas community.
We offer premium individual accounts as well as institutional accounts...see our pricing for more info. Advanced features include the ability to easily share Libraries across hundreds (potentially) of faculty and aggregate the resulting data, histories of feedback at the course, assignment, and student level (great for student conferences!), fill-in-the-blank forms, and the ability to easily convert manually created comments into reusable comments.
Please don't hesitate to be in touch with questions...we've got some exciting and ground-breaking stuff coming for the school year and we'd love this community to be on the forefront of guiding AP's development.
@andrewmccann Thanks for this info; I'm going to pass this along to my instructor team as a work-around until Canvas can get their version built (or maybe just keep using it in perpetuity if they like it as much as it sounds like they'll like it).
The Radar idea stage has been removed from the Feature Idea Process. You can read more about why in the blog post Adaptation: Feature Idea Process Changes.
This change will only impact the stage sort of this idea and will not change how it is voted on or how it is considered during prioritization activities. This change will streamline the list of ideas 'open for voting', making it easier for you to see the true top voted ideas in one sort, here.
Thanks Renee. The sort (an informative overview) reveals that this is currently the 10th most-voted feature idea across all stages. I look forward to seeing the top-10% list mentioned in the blog post.
Thanks! That's next on the list after I get all of these ideas updated!
This is a fantastic idea! As a math teacher, I often have the same feedback to give students on their work since they often make similar mistakes. A recent assignment took me an hour to grade through Speedgrader, mostly because I was copying or typing the same comments. "Copy and paste" can only get me so far.
Joshua Herron -
That would be a really nice feature. In ANGEL it wasn't too much of a hassle because you had all of the comments available - you just had to find them and copy them. I have not used Turnitin's Grademark, but having a list of past comments that I could click on would greatly improve my ability to grade assignments quickly.
As an extension of this request (and to make the developer think - if it gets that far) would be for the list of comments to be available to all instructors/grading assistants for that course. I teach a course where I sit down with the TA's to perform the grading across all lab sections in an attempt to make the grading uniform. so having the bank of comments available to myself and the TA's would be a tremendous help.