Canvas Commons Preview

[kbeimfohr]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

It would be great if you could preview the actual content you find in Commons before you download it.  This is especially true in regards to modules.  I want to be able to see the quiz questions instead of just knowing there is a quiz in it.

Comments from Instructure

For more information, please read through the Canvas Release Notes (2019-01-05).

Discover more in the https://community.canvaslms.com/community/answers/commons/projects/user-group-commons-preview https://community.canvaslms.com/community/answers/commons/projects/user-group-commons-preview/pages/...

[kmeeusen]

Hi  @mhegg1 ‌

I am sitting here racking my brain trying to understand what testing security issues there could possibly be with Commons.

• It is not student accessible,
• If students could access it they would need teacher level or equivalent permissions to download content,
• Content can only be accurately reviewed when placed in a Canvas classroom, which students do not typically have edit permission.

So I am curious, and hope someone can provide examples.

[mhegg1]

It's probably not that big a concern and it's definitely not that big a deal to me. I'm sure someone more qualified than me can answer this but, depending on the way that the preview is generated and how the information is stored, the preview might make answers more easily hackable. But maybe not. 

The example that came to mind was a K-12 teacher taking a Master's level class and finding stuff from their instructor on Commons, but I suppose that could happen anyway on Commons once the person in question downloads the items. 

[mark_anderson]

Hi all,

Still wanting to see this implemented with Canvas. At our staff training yesterday for Commons the resounding piece of feedback was the lack of a preview feature. Many of the staff were turned away from using Commons because of the time consuming nature of downloading, checking, then removing (if needed) the resource.

Is there any update from Canvas? Hearing more would be nice, considering this has been a request for the last two years. Cheers!

[rgibson1]

Preach.

[9937702]

Being able to preview a quiz before importing would be very helpful. It is cumbersome to import it/download it to preview it, discover it is not what we want, and then delete. Thank you for considering this.

[penny_christens]

It is hard to realize this request is still not solved. Form the instructor point-of-view Commons is not worth as much until you can preview whatever aspects of a shared item you would like to preview. Being asked to pick one, or a top, item-type to preview is not encouraging as this thread is a couple of years old now.
For wide adoption in the K12 environment especially, Commons needs to preview all item types. I would welcome progress on this and in turn I would realize more adopters of Canvas in my district.

Canvas LMS is great, this product is not a great complement to the core product yet.

[blangston]

I agree there are a lot of things Canvas needs to improve on to make it more user friendly for teachers and students alike, especially for math. I can't seem to understand why there are new things being added that we have no use for, like the To-Do option on the calendar. 

[awilliams]

Hey blangston, I can sympathize and as a former Canvas admin eagerly awaiting all the functionality my faculty desired, I can also empathize. It can be difficult to understand why things happen in the order they do and that is largely because there is so much going on when it comes to product development. We have a document that explains the overall process in more detail, What is the feature development process for Canvas? It is a lot of information, but I hope it helps shed some light on why it can seem like things you and I aren't as interested in make it to production before others. It is a huge help having folks like yourself getting engaged and leaving your thoughts. Thank you for taking the time to share.

[blangston]

I have been using Canvas for 3 years now and can't seem to understand why we don't have the following added to the program:

1. math editor for teachers on multiple choice quiz answers and for students in fill in the blank. I use a separate program that does allow math editor and it isn't integrated into Canvas but I got the information on the separate program from a community board in Canvas.
2. Preview option on commons, so you can see if you want to use the resource before importing into your course. 

One of the things that is so difficult for teachers is we don't have time to search this community boards to see if an feature idea has been submitted and it open for a vote. 

With so many posts on the community boards, you would think a company the size of Instructure could hire someone to see how many requests have been posted for the same idea and then develop the feature and tag those users for Beta testing. Sometimes by the time I find a feature that may sound similar to what I am requesting voting is already closed. That doesn't help teachers at all. 

Who has time to vote? Get with the users (teachers) in large districts from all subjects and ask them what they would like to see. Ask them how Canvas can improve to serve teachers and students, instead of us submitting a feature for voting. 

Hold live community forums and invite teachers to participate for real time feedback. 

[cordelial]

Can we have an update on the progress of this idea?