Emails appearing in the faculty journal

[SkylerKent]

We have noticed recently emails sent in canvas have been appearing in the faculty journal. This is not normal behavior and we would like to know how to disable this function if possible.

[maria_canales]

I've been trying to get more information on faculty journals- where do I find them to turn them on for our account/course? 

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi @maria_canales ...

I *think* you may need to reach out to your Customer Success Manager (CSM) at Instructure.  If you are not the Canvas Administrator at your school, you'll need to talk to the person who has that role at your school to see if they can have a conversation with the CSM to inquire more about the faculty journal.

[ewilkes]

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@Chris_Hofer wrote:

Hi @maria_canales ...

I *think* you may need to reach out to your Customer Success Manager (CSM) at Instructure.  If you are not the Canvas Administrator at your school, you'll need to talk to the person who has that role at your school to see if they can have a conversation with the CSM to inquire more about the faculty journal.

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I reached out months ago. There is still no change. We are certainly talking about potential FERPA violations here. It would be nice if someone at Canvas took it seriously. Now, I am very cautious about what I put into my emails to students. I should think Canvas could "fix" this issue. I recall a similar problem in D2L and the company fixed it once I pointed it out. 

[maria_canales]

@Chris_Hofer thank you, I've sent an email and I'll see what they share!

[xanderknoll]

After reading Canvas Deploy Notes (2021-07-21) - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com), I agree with @SkylerKent that this is not expected behavior and there's definitely something wrong with the code; specifically, the way it reads where the message and replies originate.

The solution @Chris_Hofer gives of contacting the CSM would have no result since CSMs are most likely not able to change the code. It just seems like a catch-all answer to mark this issue as solved.

After doing some troubleshooting, this is what I can see:

1. If the instructor creates a message using the Canvas Inbox from the web, the "Add as a Faculty Journal entry" checkbox appears. This is expected. The checkbox will continue to appear as long as both the instructor and the student always use the Canvas Inbox from the web...
   
   
2. If the instructor creates a message from the People page inside a course, the "Add as a Faculty Journal entry" checkbox does not appear. All the messages sent from the instructor to the student in that chain will be automatically added to the Faculty Journal, no matter if the instructor, later on, uses the Canvas Inbox from the web. This is not expected behavior.
   
   
3. If the instructor creates a message using the Canvas mobile app, the "Add as a Faculty Journal entry" option does not appear. All the messages sent from the instructor to the student in that chain will be automatically added to the Faculty Journal, no matter if the instructor, later on, uses the Canvas Inbox from the web. This is not expected behavior.
   
   
4. If a student creates a message using the Canvas mobile app, whenever the instructor replies to that message and all future messages in that chain, the "Add as a Faculty Journal entry" option does not appear and all messages sent from the instructor to the student in that chain will be automatically added to the Faculty Journal, no matter if the instructor, later on, uses the Canvas Inbox from the web. This is not expected behavior.
   
   
5. If a student replies to a message directly from his/her email or using the Canvas mobile app, and does not use the Canvas Inbox from the web, the instructor loses the "Add as a Faculty Journal entry" checkbox in all future messages in that chain, no matter if the instructor, later on, uses the Canvas Inbox from the web, and no matter if the message was created by the instructor using the Canvas Inbox from the web. This is not expected behavior.

It seems to me that when the code was written, the many different uses and variables were not considered... now we have a feature that breaks pretty easily... what happened to quality assurance?