Ability to Save and Copy from Frequently Used Comments in Speedgrader/DocViewer

[jherron]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

For more information, please read through the  Canvas Release Notes (2021-06-19).

We're aware that there are two parts to this idea. The "Speedgrader" piece of the request is complete; the idea remains open for DocViewer annotations comments.

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It would be a great timesaver for writing instructors and anyone else making many of the same comments to students on assignments to save and store comments in SpeedGrader/Crocodoc DocViewer as one is able to do in Turnitin's Grademark feature. This feature would help SpeedGrader really live up to its name, too.

This has been a request since August 2012: Ability to Save and Copy from Frequently Used Comments in Crocodoc : Help Center

[jnissen]

Once this is implemented, it would also be nice if we could see for a course/section how often we have used a particular comment, e.g. how often am I referring students to the tutoring center or the Purdue OWL website for APA citations?

[johnpj]

Those interested in commenting functionality may also be interested in: Import Grade Comments

[jared]

I love this idea because it's motivated by a desire to increase the amount of meaningful feedback that we give to students.

In the meantime, I'll echo support for Stefanie Sanders' suggestion that you try text expander software. These tools make it easier to call up pre-written text anywhere. Many of these rely on keyboard shortcuts or abbreviations.

Stefanie Mentioned PhraseExpress; Kelly mentioned TypeItIn. I've used aText on the Mac for a while, and I've heard TypeIt4Me is good, too.

There are also some built for browsers, too: I haven't used these yet, but AutoTextExpander and ProKeys are both highly rated on the Chrome app store.

[jonathan_cowan]

Here's a little mock up I did of what the UI could maybe look like?

[amcc]

Thanks Jonathan. I assume the idea is that one would scroll through a comments box and drag the selected item into "Assignment Comments." Quick reactions:

• If the box shows only one line per banked comment, this may not provide enough information to identify the comment. If you stick with this design you may need a preview area or a popup that displays the full comment.
• Folks with a large comment bank will probably want to be able to organize their comments in some way, so what you may need is first a "comment type" or "comment topic" box that will then zero in on the relevant subset.
• For my purposes, I want the ability to attach comments to a particular section of a paper that I'm grading in Speedgrader/Crocodoc, and not as an overall comment attached to the assignment as envisioned here. But the proposed design may work OK for other users.

[jonathan_cowan]

Hey Alex,

I don't work for Canvas or anything. That was just an imaginary mock up of how I'd envision using it. I agree, if not enough of a given comment were showing, that would be less than ideal. And having custom ways to organize comments on the back end would be really helpful, I agree. As for comments within speedgrader, I look at those as one form of feedback, that can do some good things, but certainly can't replace embedded comments within a document. I rely on feedback embedded in Word Online documents in my class, for example. Thanks for the props on the idea and insightful follow up ideas!

[cbilyeu]

I would also like to see a feature in which we could use something like D2L has, where I can type in a %StudentName% and it will include their name automatically.

[jlmiller]

Yes - I would love to see this implemented!

[amcc]

Thanks Jonathan, I realized that shortly after I posted. But hopefully my comments may help if it gets to the design phase. I also rely on embedded comments, which I generally do in Speedgrader/Crocodoc (I'm not sure which is which but I think it's the latter). I assume any facility for this in Canvas will be limited to activity that goes on inside the Canvas environment. (Maybe there's a way to do this with Word Online. I'm still a rookie with Canvas.)

[ablackman]

Are there any updates on this project? I am SO anxious to have a feature like this. Thanks in advance.