Quick View for Announcement Read Receipts

[skalkwarf]

It would be nice if, as instructors, we could quickly see who had opened an announcement, as an indication that they read it (or at least pretended to). 

I realize that this information is available in the Access Report, however, opening this for each student is time consuming when all I want to know is if they saw the announcement in a timely fashion.  

I propose that a feature be added to the "three-dot" menu on announcements that would allow an instructor to see a roster of all students with an indicator (green check for opened, red circle for unread) next to the students name.  This would allow instructors to have a "quick glance" check to determine who may need another contact.

[kyoung]

Instructors need to be able to see who has seen what, without going student by student in their slightly buried Access Reports.

While it would also be nice to have a Mark as Read option for students to confirm announcement access, we still wouldn't know who has accessed what unless we specifically search.

Content pages could be used as announcements for triggers to get people's attention--i.e. they can't move on until they read the page--but this is still individual by individual by individual.

A tally would be helpful in some instances, but basically we need to know the number of student accesses AND who those people were.  This would allow tracking the effectiveness of announcements and would speed up our ability to contact student by other means.

[tdw]

Hi kyoung , this is an interesting idea- and I like your workaround of making it a page with a module prerequisite.  I guess the only "gotcha" I see here that perhaps you didn't consider is that adding an announcement fires a notification event, so while users might not access the actual announcement page they still might be accessing it via email or whatever their preferred communication channel is.  I sure can't think of a way to track that, but it would definitely need to be something to consider.

[ewander]

I like the idea of this, but also agree with Deactivated user​. I think I would add that there needs to be a notification to the instructor when someone comments on an announcement. A few of our USU instructors have complained about that.

[kyoung]

Yeah, I thought of that.  I don't know if the notifications can be tracked.  Since announcements are essentially discussion questions, this could be something more universal and connected.  Like students getting notified that someone has specifically replied to them.

I've just sent an Announcement to one of my classes to test their reading.  I asked them to click like so I can track numbers, but I can't test this as test student.

Kristina Young, Interim Honors Program Coordinator and Professor

Written Communications/Humanities

[sgriffith]

Thanks for creating this feature request, kyoung​! I just had a faculty ask if they could see a tally of how many times an announcement was viewed. It would be even better if we could track who viewed the announcement.  Our faculty would love this!

[jordan]

I smell a good new feature idea submission in the oven! "notification to the instructor when someone comments on an announcement"

[jordan]

Thank you for submitting this feature idea. I love the sentiment that you are sharing here... quick and easy access to the data that can be found in the access reports!  Learn more about the feature idea process and how to champion your idea!

As I read through this idea it made me think about this community platform/Jive. Our team of Community Managers have the ability to see "Impact Metrics" on almost ALL content items in the community. It's really awesome. I made the impact metrics public on an old blog post I wrote so you can see what I'm talking about - Connecting With Students: Consider Their Point Of View  (Click on the gray box in the top-right corner) I was just imagining how helpful something like that would be if we had that on a side panel for instructors to see, for all content items (announcements, syllabus, pages, assignments, discussions, quizzes, files, etc.) In-line reporting on content! Awesome!  That said, you've done the right thing, here kyoung, by requesting for this type of reporting just for one particular feature idea.  I'm excited to see where this goes!

Your feature idea will be open for vote from Wed. March 2, 2016 - Wed. June 1, 2016!

[kroeninm]

I love the "Mark as Done" idea to keep consistency in a feature that is already in Canvas.  Like mentioned, it wouldn't make sense to add just the tracking feature if it couldn't be tracked across all methods that students use to read the Announcements. 

- Melanie

[biray]

This idea has moved to the next stage and will be open for voting among the Canvas Community, from Wed. March 2, 2016 - Wed. June 1, 2016.

Check out this doc for additional details about how the voting process works!

[RobDitto]

Those interested in this idea might wish to vote for a similar idea closing next week:

[Renee_Carney]

This idea has resurfaced at

[james_sanzin]

We need something like this. I feel that I get significantly less interaction from Announcements in Canvas when compared to my prior LMS.  I would like to know if my students are checking them, or if the process for responding is unclear. 

[scottdennis]

Hi James,

Just a note to concur with you about announcements not having as much prominence in Canvas than in some of the LMSs that I used in the past.  One reason is probably that unlike previous systems, students often don't need to login in order to see notifications if they have them sent to their mobile devices, etc.  That also makes it more difficult to track who has done what.  Did a student read what you posted in your course as a text message on their phone?  Harder to say than if they are required to authenticate into the LMS every time they check in.  I'm not saying this isn't a valid idea or request.  I'm just trying to put some background in place as to why it would be difficult and possibly not as important to some people.

[tdw]

Hi kyoung‌,

I'm curious what your results were of tracking students clicking on the link in your announcement.

I'd love to see this set up as an experiment.  One where an announcement is sent w/ a link (maybe bit.ly so you can track?) and one where maybe an "announcement" of text is added to a course home page with the link included.  I'd bet that the former gets a higher conversion rate.

[kyoung]

Danny,

It was inconclusive. This is in great part because I have not done follow ups. Thanks for reminding me.

Kristina Young, Interim Honors Program Coordinator

and

Professor

Written Communications/Humanities

F1-20

6501 South 19th Street

Tacoma, WA 98466

Phone: 253.566.5330

Email: kyoung@tacomacc.edu<mailto:kyoung@tacomacc.edu>

[james_sanzin]

I usually use my announcements / social feed for test review. I throw out questions  and generally students will reply with answers. I am getting less interaction on Canvas. I have even tried posting statements like "Reply to this for extra credit." I rarely get more than 2 responses. 

[scottdennis]

Hi James,

Out of curiosity, have you tried using a graded discussion rather than announcements?  That might make it easier for you to assign points as well.

[james_sanzin]

I use graded discussions for more formal assignments. These review announcements are on the fly and are usually published as 1 question here and there and generally less complex than what a discussion post assignment is.  I might post one question, or I might post 20, depending on my workload at my second job.  I want them to see the question in the title and I post grades from Canvas, so questions are too long for titles. I also want them to appear separately from mandatory assignments.  I appreciate the idea, I would really just like the ability to make my announcements screen appear more like a social feed such as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.  The students have reported they miss this look from my old LMS platform.

[kmeeusen]

Hi James!

You could create an assignment placeholder in the gradebook for each announcement, with a set point value, then require that students reply to the announcement to get the points. This will place a handy reminder in the To-Do lists, the Syllabus page, and the course Calendar. This helps to a degree.

Disclaimer - this still will not ensure that students read the announcements! Nothing will ensure that! I post my announcements right on the Home page of my course, and students will ask a question that is answered in the announcement that same day. You can create an environment that encourages engagement and supports learning, but you cannot make them drink the water. Humorous fact - my worst students are my faculty, they never read anything, then vilify their own students for the same behavior.

I hope this helps,

KLM

[kyoung]

Kelley,

This is both an intriguing idea and an apt observation.

Parallel point--you can tape a large check to your early college-age son's iPhone to take to his accompanist but this does not ensure that said check will get delivered.

Kristina Young, Interim Honors Program Coordinator

and

Professor

Written Communications/Humanities

F1-20

6501 South 19th Street

Tacoma, WA 98466

Phone: 253.566.5330

Email: kyoung@tacomacc.edu<mailto:kyoung@tacomacc.edu>