Assignment Progress/Submission Bar: Option to NOT Use?

[john_giglio]

I am wondering what other people's thoughts, opinions, and experiences are regarding the assignment progress/submission bar that began being included at the top of each Canvas assignment template recently. My own feeling is that it is (quite literally) getting in the way of good assignment-page design.

I give a lot of attention to the overall design of my assignment pages, in terms of images, font, and arrangement of text; that Canvas allows me to do so is one of the things that I love about it. However, the new progress bar takes up nearly half the page of every one of my assignment, and it chops my assignment directions layout down to just a small window that students have to scroll through piece-by-piece. I don't really feel the progress bar adds anything the students don't already know, and I would love it if I had the option to use it or not.

I have been told that this progress bar is for accessibility purposes, but I feel that making my student view my assignment directions through a narrow window, rather than a page, could be actually hindering clarity and accessibility.

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

For more information, please read through the blog post  What's New with Assignment Enhancements for Studen....

[Stef_retired]

@john_giglio 

Thanks for sharing this idea. As it moves forward for broader discussion, we also encourage you to add your feedback to the product manager's blog post at  Update assignments navigation for students.

[jsailor]

Hi @john_giglio,

Thank you for submitting this idea. We continue to make improvements to the assignment enhancements for students. There is not an option to not use the assignment progress tracker, however, one of the recent improvements made includes an update to the tracker as we also felt that it took too much space on the page and have heard this from other users as well. The update has changed the workflow tracker to a much smaller version that still conveys the important information to students regarding the status of their assignment, but does not take the critical space needed for assignment directions. I’ve included a screenshot below that shows the new, smaller tracker now included in the assignment heading. 

[john_giglio]

Thank you so much for the information!

[Stef_retired]

Comments from Instructure

The submission tracker now takes up much less space, allowing students to have a larger landscape for completing their assignment. With the newly updated tracker, the information is included next to the attempt and assignment information and remains available in the same format so students know where they are in the submission process and what step is up next. 

For more information, please read through the blog post  What's New with Assignment Enhancements for Studen... .