Display Default Email in People

(1)
I am fleshing out a an earlier feature request that evidently didn't go anywhere (*Display Student Email Address in Roster ).

 

At our university, the SIS_ID displayed in the People list and the Secondary ID displayed in the Gradebook are number-strings that are useful for big databases to match identities.  We also have a username that is much more human-friendly and that also forms the first part of our institutional email addresses.  That username is not displayed in any list or tool in such a way that an instructor can use it to ensure that the person whose record she is looking at is, indeed, the person she thinks it is.

 

A solution for us -- and we think others might find it useful -- is to allow the default email address to display in the People list.  The address should also show up in Groups tabs and similar locations.

 

Ideally, which course roles can see the address would be controlled by the institutional admins.

15 Comments
scottdennis
Instructure
Instructure

Thank you for submitting this feature idea! Learn more about the feature idea process and how to champion your idea.

Your feature idea will be open for vote from Wed. November 2, 2016 - Wed. February 1, 2017. Smiley Wink

jordan
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

This idea has moved to the next stage and will be open for voting among the Canvas Community, from Wed. November 2, 2016 - Wed. February 1, 2017.

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

vanzandt
Community Champion

We have this very similar scenario with a campus ID# for SIS ID.  We have a number of faculty requests for making the email addresses more accessible in Gradebook, People, and Speedgrader. It's especially important to them when they have multiple students with the same name in a course.

jbuchner
Community Contributor

Would the students be able to see each other's default addresses in your idea?

vanzandt
Community Champion

By default, I would say no, but it could be a permission decided upon by an admin. Similar to how the Read SIS data permission works.

jbuchner
Community Contributor

I'm going to vote don, and I'm going to do the thing I never do, which is state why I'm voting down (Though I'm going to make some assumptions about this idea, and student behavior as I do, please call me out on each one that is wrong.)

  1. The students should have an expectation that their contact info should be protected, and the student's hold be able to opt-in to a system that is going to display such info to everyone, and not leave it up to admins (who work very hard at their jobs, and think hard about these problems too,) to turn it on/off or make them opt out.
  2. Though their "default email" should be the one provided by the institution, there's no guarantee that students are checking those accounts with any regularity, or that they set up forwarding services properly, that they don't see canvas notifications as junk. (Not that they shouldn't be using and checking that default email address, they just might not.)
  3. If you are sending them Notifications, they should either be alerted to those when they log in, or, if they opted in to it, get notifications in their "default" emails. Now that Canvas allows Inbox messages to be replied to in email, if they are getting notifications that way, you already are sending them to their default address.
  4. I can think of three ways to get my student's default email addresses right now, one being using the Gradebook, downloading the file, and adding @umd.edu to the secondary ID column that I see in my Gradebook, though I understand that your would vary.
laurakgibbs
Community Champion

I voted up because there are all kinds of circumstances in which I find myself needing access to student emails (for example, emailing them BEFORE a class begins to alert them about not needing to buy books for the class, etc.). Right now, I have a separate roster spreadsheet where I keep all my students, their emails, and additional information I need (their blog address, etc.), but it sure would be nice to have access to the email address inside Canvas. Our faculty are used to that from D2L, and I think they are going to be pretty unhappy about this shift to Canvas (we're going campus-wide next year). Giving us access to the email information in Canvas, instead of making us go look for it in the SIS (as I do right now), sounds like a good idea to me.

chriscas
Community Coach
Community Coach

I voted this idea down because Instructure allows users to change their default email to personal addresses.  The only way I'd support this idea is if it applied to institution/school email addresses only.  Giving faculty and TAs (and possibly even other students) easy access to a list of potentially personal email addresses should be avoided.

I actually think that the option that doesn't let users delete their institution assigned email should also lock that email as the default, but that's a whole other discussion.  I did come up with some javascript that seems to disable the changing of default email addresses, but I hate relying on custom scripting for things like this that should be part of Canvas code by default.

rake_9
Community Champion

I completely agree that I would like the institutional email to be the default and for this to be unchangeable. 

cward
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

Hi there,

 

Thank you for such a great discussion on this topic. We appreciate the insight shared here. At this time we will not develop this idea or make changes to Canvas in order to facilitate this idea. We will, however, take your insights under consideration for possible future projects.

 

-Chris

rake_9
Community Champion

Chris, could you share a brief statement as to why this is declined?  I know the people who I represent in creating this request will be curious.  Thanks.

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team

 @rake_9  

This idea was not declined.  Sorry if you interpreted the comment in that way.  When Chris was providing the update we had a different process for managing ideas and product members were adding comments to ideas that reached over 100 votes - even and especially if we knew they would not be developed in the near future.  We do not update ideas in that systematic matter anymore, but instead provide updates when there is research or development underway.  So he was just trying to let readers know that this was not in the scope of any current priorities, or priorities he was aware of in the future.  https://community.canvaslms.com/community/ideas?sr=search&searchId=d2a3599e-c108-4da0-820f-83302bc76...‌ houses some of the priorities that we're working on and need feedback on.

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team

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.

may027
Community Participant

Canvas pulls data from the University course roster for the People section, including (at our institution) things like the login ID and University ID. Why not also include the student's official (institutional) email address? I have to pull this information separately from the University's class list. Furthermore, this should be a clickable, mailto:, link so that a pre-addressed email in the email client of our choice opens.

I know that the default here is to use the Canvas messaging system. I do not like the Canvas messaging system. It is clunky for hundreds of students. It is not a full featured email client with sorting and rules. I want to use my email client. In fact, I am making another "idea" to allow the Canvas messaging system to be disabled at the course level. For now, I instruct students to not contact me using this system.

ProductPanda
Instructure
Instructure
Status changed to: Archived
Comments from Instructure

As part of the new Ideas & Themes process, all ideas in Idea Conversations were reviewed by the Product Team. Any Idea that was associated with an identified theme was moved to the new Idea & Themes space. Any Idea that was not part of the move is being marked as Archived. This will preserve the history of the conversations while also letting Community members know that Instructure will not explore the request at this time.