Message students who...

Idea created by Shane P. Lauber on Oct 11, 2015

Comment • 25

Open for Voting

Score219

+211 more

The message students option is great in the speedgrader. However, it would be nice to add this feature to all of the gradebook items including assignment totals, discussion totals, other groups and final grade total, especially the final grade total. It would be nice to mass-email students (BCC) who are below a certain threshold like 70% or failing courses.

We have three very similar ideas, all of which are open for voting, associated with the Message Students Who... feature, and we're grouping them here to keep Canvas Studio tidy. These are the other two:
Message Students Who... for Grade Totals
Enhanced 'message students who' for multiple assignments

This idea was considered when developing our product plan for Q1 2019 and is not expected to influence development within Canvas at this time.
This idea will remain open for vote.
If this idea is in the top 10% by vote next cycle it will be reconsidered.
Read more about the feature idea process:
Adaptation: Feature Idea Process Changes
How does the feature idea process work in the Canvas Community?
What is the feature development process for Canvas?

25 Comments

chris@aspiredu.com Oct 12, 2015 7:48 AM
Hi, Shane! I think you may have talked to Kimberley Munzo about this in the past, but our Dropout Detective solution has this capability. We can set rules that trigger automated emails or text messages to students. The rules can include multiple variables -- for example, send a specific message to students with a grade of less than 70% in a class AND that have at least one missing assignment AND have a Dropout Detective risk index score of above 30. Perhaps a different message goes to students that haven't logged into their course in at least 3 days. If you are interested in knowing more, please contact me at chris@aspiredu.com or visit us at The specified item was not found.. Thank you!
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- Shane P. Lauber @ chris@aspiredu.com on Oct 12, 2015 8:29 AM
  Chris, thanks for letting me know. I hope you guys are doing well and I
  miss Kim!!!! Say hi to her for me! Your tool is great but for schools that
  don't use it, the other option would help us lowly non-decision maker
  faculty.
  
  Shane
  
  On Mon, Oct 12, 2015 at 9:49 AM, chris@aspiredu.com <instructure@jiveon.com>
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  - chris@aspiredu.com @ Shane P. Lauber on Oct 12, 2015 9:31 AM
    Shane - Some of our best referrals come from faculty! If you're comfortable doing so, just let your supervisor know about us. I've been in touch with Joe Dunlop in your Utah offices and he's been positive that we'll be able to get together after the first of the year. I've already let Kim know that we've corresponded. Feel free to drop her a line at kim@aspiredu.com or connect with her through this community. Thanks!
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    - Shane P. Lauber @ chris@aspiredu.com on Oct 12, 2015 11:37 AM
      Yeah...I heard they put a freeze on everything until after the first of the
      year.
      
      Shane
      
      On Mon, Oct 12, 2015 at 11:32 AM, chris@aspiredu.com <instructure@jiveon.com
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biray@instructure.com Nov 4, 2015 4:14 PM
This idea has moved to the next stage and will be open for voting among the Canvas Community, from Wed. November 4, 2015 - Wed. February 3, 2016.
Check out this doc for additional details about how the voting process works!
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Laura Orsetti Feb 4, 2016 8:25 AM
Could we add to this being able to "Message students who" within a certain section of the course? That would REALLY be helpful for our large (1500+ student) courses where I need to message certain students in a given section.
Please....please....please....
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- Mickey Gillmor @ Laura Orsetti on Feb 4, 2016 11:31 AM
  Yes! Also to message students in a specific Group, not just Section!
  
  *Mickey Gillmor, MN, CNM*
  Frontier Nursing University
  Course Faculty NM701 Women's Health Care
  Co-Chair Admissions Committee
  
  mickey.gillmor@frontier.edu
  
  404-245-1592 (Eastern Time Zone) Text messaging OK
  (Office hours M-F: 9 AM - 5 PM Eastern time zone -- an appointment is best)
  
  It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world."
  --*Mary Wollstonecraft, **British writer, philosopher and advocate of
  women's rights*
  
  The naked intellect is an extraordinarily inaccurate instrument."
  --Madeleine L'Engle
  
  "We have grown like the Banyan Tree...
  with branches yielding shade and fruit to wide neighborhoods..."
  --Mary Breckinridge
  
  © 2015 Frontier Nursing University
  
  On Thu, Feb 4, 2016 at 10:26 AM, Laura.Orsetti@frontier.edu <
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- Matt Lewis @ Laura Orsetti on Feb 11, 2016 8:28 AM
  This part can already be done through the notifications, unless you specifically need to filter by grade and section or grade and group.
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  - Laura Orsetti @ Matt Lewis on Feb 11, 2016 10:19 AM
    I want to be able to pull up one section, and within that section "Message Students Who" haven't submitted something. We have a large, continuously open orientation course that students are in, divided up by sections according to when they come to campus. Students in one section have different deadlines than students in another section, so "Message Students Who" haven't submitted something can't be used unless we can pull it up by section. I don't want it going out to students who aren't up against a deadline yet.
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  - Shane P. Lauber @ Matt Lewis on Feb 11, 2016 1:43 PM
    it would be nice to be able to message students based on the final grade
    column.
    
    Shane
    
    On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 10:29 AM, mlewis23@ewu.edu <instructure@jiveon.com>
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Matt Lewis Feb 4, 2016 11:43 AM
I'm am very glad to see you've got some momentum for this. I've pushed this idea twice now and both times it just died on the vine. I think this could be such an important tool for early alerts and retention.

Enhanced 'message students who' for multiple assignments
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Sarah Kelling Feb 16, 2016 7:52 AM
This feature would be very helpful for me. As an example, students take several quizzes in my class that help them prepare for a “high-stakes” exam later in the semester. If a student does not pass the exam, they cannot pass the course (regardless of their overall performance in the course). After several quizzes, I can gauge whether a student is likely to pass the exam using current study methods. I would like to be able to message all students whose cumulative performance after several quizzes is low to encourage them to meet with me to discuss study strategies.
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Grant Harbor May 9, 2016 4:15 PM
I LOVE the "Message Students Who" feature, but it would be A LOT more useful if the list of students being messaged was filtered by section as is selected in the Markbook. Currently even if you have a particular section filtered on and try and "Message Students Who Have Not Submitted Yet" it will put all students enrolled into the message instead of just the students from that section into the message.
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jgrenier@lgsuhsd.org Sep 26, 2016 9:58 AM
To add to this feature, can we also "Message Parents of Students Who..." We would like to notify parents if a student is missing assignments, get a poor grade on a test etc.
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- chris@aspiredu.com @ jgrenier@lgsuhsd.org on Sep 26, 2016 11:51 AM
  According to Jared Stein's keynote speech from InstCon 2016, the parent messaging is built into the new Canvas Parent app. If you advance to about the 6-minute mark of his speech, he discusses it and gives an overview. The app allows parents to set their own alerts / messages -- it's not about schools pushing messages to parents.
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- Kristin Lundstrum @ jgrenier@lgsuhsd.org on Oct 11, 2016 7:20 AM
  jgrenier@lgsuhsd.org - There's a great workaround for this. See Stephen Rice's Messaging Observers of Students in Canvas. It's pretty amazing. We installed it into our production space earlier this week.
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  - jgrenier@lgsuhsd.org @ Kristin Lundstrum on Oct 11, 2016 10:39 AM
    Thank you for the tip! I will try installing this workaround.
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- Kristin Lundstrum @ jgrenier@lgsuhsd.org on Oct 11, 2016 7:24 AM
  My colleagues and I really like the Message Students Who... feature a lot. However, we'd like to be able to message specific students based on their performance in an assignment category or based on overall course performance (grade thresholds in both situations) would be very helpful! It would save some time, but it would positively affect our abilities to communicate with students routinely. I hope that this feature is still under honest consideration as the changes to the gradebook are being planned.
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Glen Parker Oct 28, 2016 12:05 PM
Being able to message students who from Assignment Group Totals and the Final Total is important to my goal of student engagement. I run too many little quizzes to message students from any individual quiz, but messaging based on an assignment group total would be very helpful.
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Renee Carney Feb 10, 2017 2:52 PM
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.
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Kona Jones Feb 27, 2017 12:58 PM
Frank, I'm confused. I use this feature quite a bit and the Subject line that shows up when you go to "message students who" does auto-populate with the assignment name and it does show up to students. I'm an admin (who also teaches) and I just verified that the subject line that auto-populates does show up for students in their Inbox.

Example: This is the view from one of my student's Inbox. You can see the subject line in the Inbox contains the subject line from the "Message Students Who" tool (so either the default, which is the name of the assignment or what you change it to be).
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- Frank Cohen @ Kona Jones on Mar 12, 2017 6:55 AM
  Kona Jones, it appears we were talking about two different ways in which "Message students who" works. I am correct that "message students who" contains absolutely NO subject line for either the sender, i.e., the instructor, or the recipient, i.e., the student when the function is used directly from the QUIZ. You are correct about how it works from a GRADES COLUMN, but this is not how it works from a QUIZ. Here are screenshots of the dialog box for the function from a QUIZ and the student's view of the message. You'll see that they look fundamentally different from yours in that they contain NO subject line for either either sender or recipient. This is why must students kept asking me what I'm referring to. Eventually I learned that I had to put my own subject line inside the text. Also, I now insert a link to the quiz inside the text as well, which makes it much easier for the student to know precisely the quiz to which I refer.
  
  Click to enlarge this one:
  
  Thank you for your attention.
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Kona Jones Feb 28, 2017 6:45 PM
How strange! Hope you get this figured out!
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Renee Carney Sep 5, 2018 1:50 PM
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.
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Renee Carney Oct 16, 2018 8:40 AM
Greetings Shane P. Lauber
Will you check out the Message Students Who section of Canvas Release: Analytics Beta (Course Grade) and let me know if this matches what you were seeking! I know it's not out of the gradebook directly, but it sounds like it accomplishes your same goal?
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