[ARCHIVED] Put the mute button back, please ?

[jkay]

Why on earth would Canvas remove the mute button in the grade book.  Any action I need to take that involves searching for procedures and having two screens open, one to follow lengthy instructions, and one to implements said instruction is plain nuts.  Put the mute button back.  

Do not give in to the compulsion to complicate your user interface.  Yes this is not a question.  It is advice but I spent too long trying to figure out how to make suggestion.    

You had a good product.  DO not make it harder to use.  

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Good morning,  @jkay  Thank You for posting your comments.  I can understand when features we like go away.  That's happened to me many times (not just in Canvas, but in life, too).  I'm not sure if you have visited the New Gradebook Users Group here in the Community, and I'm not sure if you've been following the Canvas Release Notes, but the legacy/Current Gradebook will be depreciated on January 18, 2020.  Based on your comments, it sounds like you might already using the New Gradebook in your course(s).  The "mute" functionality has been replaced with grade posting policies.  Some of the resources available include (but are not limited to):

• Post Policy Updates Feedback
• New Gradebook: FAQ
• New Gradebook Resources

I did search the Community to see if I could find any existing Feature Ideas related to your comments.  I found https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/14873-bring-back-grade-muting which is currently open for voting.  If you feel that this Feature Idea aligns with something that you would like to see implemented in Canvas, I would encourage you to add your vote and maybe post a comment to the bottom of it letting Instructure know why this is important to you.

As for how to create new Feature Ideas here in the Community, you can read more about this by checking out this Guide: How do I create a new feature idea in the Canvas Community?.  Check to make sure an existing Feature Idea doesn't already exist so that there aren't duplicate Feature Ideas posted.  This page, Ideas, includes a button on the right hand side (scroll down a bit) to "SHARE NEW IDEA".

I hope these resources will be of help to you, Jane.

[jdallow]

I agree that the mute option needs to return. The hiding grades is not optimal. Many times, I have hidden grades, to think that all grades are hidden, to find that only grades have been hidden for certain students. Setting the gradebook for manual is also not ideal as I don't want to send a message to students when I post grades.

It's really a problem.

The mute button was ideal for when I am working on grades. I'm to the point right now in the last grading throes when I am tempted to simply unpublish my course, work on all my grades, and then republish it so I can review and tabulate grades in peace without having students constantly emailing me when I thought I had hidden a grade, but theirs happens to still be visible and has changed.

BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD change.

[Shar]

Hi Jessica Dallow,

You mention:

Setting the gradebook for manual is also not ideal as I don't want to send a message to students when I post grades.

With the mute feature, when you unmute the grades students did get a notification that grades were available.As an instructional designer, I would get those messages all the time in courses where I was just helping the instructor.

Here is an example from my Student account:

Subject line: Assignment Unmuted: Assignment 1-1: Create your Personal Profile on Canvas and Edit Your Notification Settings,

The body of the message:

Your instructor has released grade changes and new comments for Assignment 1-1: Create your Personal Profile on Canvas and Edit Your Notification Settings. These changes are now viewable.

The Manual posting policy works the same way as the mute/unmute in that respect with receiving emails if the student has it set up to receive notifications.

Cheers - Shar

[Shar]

And I just released the grade on a Manual assignment.

As the instructor, I got an email:

Here's what student me got:

I have my notifications set to inform me on grade changes/releases. https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-13111-4152719738 

Cheers - Shar

[Chris_Hofer]

I'm to the point right now in the last grading throes when I am tempted to simply unpublish my course, work on all my grades, and then republish it so I can review and tabulate grades in peace without having students constantly emailing me when I thought I had hidden a grade, but theirs happens to still be visible and has changed.

 @jdallow ...

You may not be able to unpublish your entire course.  According to this Guide, How do I publish a course?, under the "Unpublish Course" heading, it says, "Once your course contains a graded submission, you can no longer unpublish your course."

[Shar]

Hi Jane Kay,

In addition to the resources  @Chris_Hofer ‌ provided, I like New Gradebook and SpeedGrader Muting Behavior Changes. I have it open in a tab just for when faculty wonder what's going on with the muting grades situation. That resource shows a feature comparison both in the New Gradebook and in Speedgrader with how it used to work.

Hope this resource helps,
Cheers - Shar

[kblack]

Thanks, ishar-uw .  I was waiting for that document to be updated with the new changes done over the fall, and your reference here reminded me to check it again...and I see that it has been updated. That is indeed the best overview available for faculty wanting to check the difference between the old behavior and the new one(s).

[venitk]

 @jdallow  and  @jkay , I'm shamelessly trying to drum up support for my idea to simplify the grade posting policy (so it goes back to functioning like mute/unmute did) while keeping the granularity that Canvas wanted to add with this update. Please consider voting for it. 

https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/15561-gradebook-and-speedgrader-dropdown-visible-invisible-and... 

[kmeeusen]

I agree,  @venitk  !

Our entire state system moved to Canvas a bit more than 7 years ago, and one of the main reasons we chose Canvas was it's clean, simple un-bloated UI.  Every year Canvas becomes more complicated and more bloated, and especially from the perspective of teacher functionality.

I still find Canvas to be the best LMS on the market, but I worry about some of these new "improvements", and where they are leading us.

Kelley