[ARCHIVED] Allow Liking in Announcements

[harrisj]

Have a faculty member who has clicked Allow Liking for an Announcement - that's it, no allow graders, no sorting.

But, no like icon appears for the students.  We've verified that it works for discussions, but does not for Announcements.

What are we missing?  A setting in the course, in global settings for the system admin?

Can't seem to find any reference to liking in announcements in the literature/guides/discussions...

Thanks!

[kona · Accepted solution]

As an update liking in announcements should be working. My Canvas Support ticket for this shows that the problem was solved as of 2-22-16.

[kona]

harrisj​, I just checked and "liking" in announcements is not working for me either. Yet, I didn't even know this was a possibility and checked the guides as well - How do I make an Announcement in my course? - and don't see where this is listed.

So, I'm thinking it's a bug, I'm just not sure if the bug is that it's showing up and it shouldn't or if the bug is that is should be there and isn't working. Right now I'm leaning towards the first option, but to check I'd escalate this to Canvas Support.

[dcummings]

Jeremy, I have been researching this question for several weeks now... nothing... I want to use the Like Button to see how many students are actually reading my announcements... i will send an escalation to CANVAS and see if I get any insights from that direction.

Dana

[abunag]

Dana - if you get a response can you post it?  We have a few instructors that were excited about this feature, and it's saddening that it seems to not be functional.

[dcummings]

I was told that I or a student would have to post an initial response to the announcement and then the like thumb will appear... but that still has not worked for me either...

I am still emailing and trying to figure it out. If it works for others, please let me know

Dana

[kona]

I tried it as well and it is not working.

[kona]

harrisj​, do you have an update on this? Did you submit it to Canvas Support?

[dcummings]

Kona, see my response above to Anthony.

Dana

[kona]

I went ahead and submitted a ticket about this and got the following reply from Canvas Help:

"I am sorry that you have encountered this.  While the liking feature is working as intended for discussions, I am seeing that we have been experiencing a behavior where it does not work appropriately for announcements.  We do not have an ETA currently on when a fix will be in place, but I am happy to assign this ticket to the tracker related to this behavior so that you can receive an update as we work towards a resolution."

Based on this my recommendation is to reply to Canvas support with my case #01113398. This way you'll be notified of all future updates on this bug.

[dcummings]

Kona, I am glad that you received a response. I submitted a ticket and received nothing... Thanks for posting your answer!

Dana

[kona]

No problem! It's definitely a frustrating problem!

[smorgan21]

Had a faculty ask about this issue today. Still no resolution?

[kona]

 @smorgan21 ​, I just checked again and my Canvas Support ticket for this is still listed as "on hold."

[nicholasl]

We have the same exact issue. Was this ever resolved? If not, I'll submit a ticket about it as well.

[kona]

 @nicholasl , I haven't heard anything about this ticket, so I assume that it still isn't functioning as intended.

[kona]

For anyone following this question (harrisj​,  @nicholasl ​,  @smorgan21 ​,  @dcummings ​,  @abunag ​) I just got an update from Canvas support that a fix for this has passed initial QA testing and should hopefully be deployed to the Beta environment soon!

[smorgan21]

Great! Thank you for the update!

[smorgan21]

Okay, one more question. Is there a way to 'like' the Announcement, itself? Right now, students can 'like' a reply to an Announcement.

[kroeninm]

That would be awesome  @smorgan21 ​, I was looking for this as well when it rolled out but no, when I read the description, it says replies only can be liked, this is what my testing shows too.  It's similar to a discussion, the topic itself cannot be liked...great feature request though (I'd vote for it!).  I can see using it to see whether students have read an announcement!

- Melanie

[smorgan21]

Well, what do you all think? Would being able to 'like' an Annoucement be of value? As Melanie mentioned above, it would be a quick and easy way to see if students had read an announcement.

[nhein]

Still not functional. From the looks of date of the thread the fix isn't going to occur?  I just sent out an announcement asking for confirmation of reading by liking the announcement.  Makes me look like I really know what's going on with my students. The option needs to be pulled until it can be fixed. 

[kona]

 @nhein , I just checked and the liking feature seems to be working fine for me in Announcements. Have you checked with your test student to see if it's working or not? If not, and you checked the box to allow liking, then you need to report this to Canvas Support because it should be working.

[nhein]

I have checked the test student and it was not functional. Thanks for the comment. N

Sent from my iPad

[kona · Accepted solution]

And just to double-check, you have clicked the box to allow liking? Also, this feature doesn't allow students to like your original announcement, it only allows them to like any comments to the announcement. This is by design - https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-6095 

[kgb]

Not a great design. I came to the forum with the same question kimberly_smith1 had in 2017--how can I set Canvas to allow liking of the announcement itself. I want students to weigh in on a proposed course change via liking the announcement describing the change. This would be a useful feature.

[kona · Accepted solution]

As an update liking in announcements should be working. My Canvas Support ticket for this shows that the problem was solved as of 2-22-16.

[kimberly_smith1]

After reading this thread, I would just like to confirm that I am understanding this 'allow liking' thing...

The 'allow liking' option in announcements will not be of use if the instructor's goal is to see if students are reading their announcments, but can be used to see if students read/like the replies made to the instructor;s inital announcement by other students, yes? And, if instructors wanted to, they could 'reply' to their own announcement, and then students could 'like' the instructor's reply, yes? If so, then...

As a work-around... if a instructor wanted to use this function to assess whether or not students are reading their announcements, could they post the annoucement twice - once as the original and once as a 'reply' (or maybe the original = "read the info below" and the 'reply' = the actual announcement) - and then students would go in and 'like' the instructor's reply? If so...

Would it also be possible to set announcements as 'locked for comments' (so that students can't actually post their own comments), but they could still 'like' the instructor's reply? Or, is it that the 'locked for comments' needs to be turned off for students to "like" a reply? 

I see that Seth Buttner has submitted the idea https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/8878-allow-liking-of-initial-announcements  I voted yes, though I agree with Sarah Phinney that a better button for this goal might be 'I have read this announcement'.

[kona]

One issue with this is that you don’t get to see “who” liked something. So even if you had 20 liked you wouldn’t be sure which students saw it. 

[kimberly_smith1]

Ahhh, I see. Thank you for clarifying. I hadn't ever actually thought before about tracking students' announcement reading. Of course, the way we often discover students haven't been reading announcements is after they miss an extra credit opportunity or forget to take an exam (I post reminders), and get an email that is answered in announcements. So, I could see some value in tracking announcement reading. Conversely, for those who don't read announcements now, having a box to check may not make them any more inclined to do so (e.g. check the box but not actually read the content), while those who read them now don't need a box to check.

[CocoB]

In 2022, I'm continuing to have this issue. I can comment on the announcement, and students can like that. But students can't like the original announcement I created.

I'd like to use this feature to verify that students have read a given announcement.