Anonymous Discussion Forums

[scottdennis]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

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Idea:

Instructors can create discussions that allow for posts to be made anonymously

Use Cases:

As an instructor, I want to create discussions in which participation is anonymous. This would free my students to share their thoughts without worrying about judgement / criticism by their peers or me. They'd take risks they might not otherwise.

transferred from the old Community

Originally posted by: Lynn McCarty
Thank you especially for contributions by: Rob Ditto, Allison Pyle, Renee Carney, Robert Jones

[ebwstitt]

Any update on getting this feature? It's been 3 months. Not that we are anxious about going hybrid (ok maybe we are), but this would help.

It would be nice if it was anonymous for the class but not the teacher could tell who was posting.

[mdthomas]

@Katrina-Hess To give additional context, the year 2020 has brought up so many topics that require deep dives and expressions - such as racial injustice; COVID policies, effect on economy, healthcare; environmental issues; diversity and inclusion; etc. We have interest similar to @vnieders from faculty in Psychology, Environmental Science, Health and Human Performance to name just a few.

The ability to have anonymous discussions or even the ability to allow students assign a pen name or pseudonym when participating in discussion (which was another request from an English faculty member) would be wonderful and if there is another opportunity to vote up this request - I'm sure you were receive several "up" votes from our institution alone.

[Katrina-Hess]

Hi everyone! Thanks so much for your patience. We've completed our Discovery phase and are now in the Design phase for Anonymous Posting and Moderation. I'll be posting a blog about the Discussion updates in May. In the meantime, please let us know if there are any use cases missing below. Alternatively, if there are use cases on this list that are low priority let us know that as well. We can't promise we'll have all of these ready by launch but we will do our best to deliver a robust v1 offering. 🙂 

AUTHOR

• Author can create a graded or non-graded Discussion Topic anonymously (avatar and display name are hidden)
• Author can enable moderation to their Discussion Topic
  • Author can assign/remove moderators (roles or individual names)
  • Author can set moderation settings:
    • All replies must be approved by a moderator
    • Moderators can add/remove other moderators
• Author can allow anonymous replies to their Discussion Topic
• If the Discussion Topic is a graded discussion, author can enable anonymous grading:
  • Graders cannot view student names
  • Graders cannot view each other's names

MODERATOR

• Moderator can approve or reject replies
• Moderator can undo approved or rejected replies
• If enabled, moderator can add/remove other moderators

VIEWER

• If enabled, viewers of the Discussion Topic can reply anonymously (avatar and display name are hidden)
• Viewers can report replies (Teachers and Admins will be able to see avatars and display names of reported replies)

After Anonymous Posting and Moderation, we will tackle Q&A style discussions which includes features like voting and the ability for Teachers and TAs to mark an answer correct.

Best, Katrina

[vnieders]

Thanks, I am so happy to see that Anonymous Posting and Moderation is moving forward!

[callishelton]

I use Canvas for faculty professional development courses. Many are hesitant to discuss issues or problems they have when teaching. Allowing them to post anonymously would allow us to have richer, more meaningful discussions.

[Katrina-Hess]

Hi everyone, please join the Discussions/Announcements Redesign User Group if you haven't already. We will be validating designs for Anonymity + Moderation in the next few days. 

Thank you for your patience and perseverance in requesting this feature! We wholeheartedly agree that it's vital to our Discussions tool.

Best, Katrina

[wayne_grimm]

I am an instructor and building Canvas facilitator at a US high school.  Teachers here trying to engage students in tough conversations using Canvas Discussions are asking for a way to hide discussion contributor names from other students. 

Ideally contributor names would still be visible to the course instructor, for accountability, but if students could know that their names would not be seen by other students, we could get much more honest and open participation.

[ktraynor]

Hi Canvas @scottdennis - any updates on this? Anonymous student contributions are surely Discussion Board 101, this is an important option for all students, particularly when discussing sensitive topics. This was requested since pre-2015, you said in early 2020 you were "actively exploring" it... any plans to introduce this feature or do we need to look for an alternative platform for this part of our courses?

[scottdennis]

Hi @ktraynor,

Yes, the discussions team as been working away on updating the tool this year.  The first step was basically rebuilding the code from the ground up so that there was not changes for users but that underlying code was modern - it being more than ten years since its inception that it had become basically untouchable.  The best way to keep apprised of what progress they have made since then would be to follow the Discussions/Announcements Redesign Group.

Cheers,

SD

[SandraSal1]

A few of my students have reported that they do not want to contribute to the discussions because they are not anonymous. Whatever their reasons are, I think it would be a good idea for a student or member of staff to be able to anonymise the contributions. 

Thank you,