Canvas Error Report - Send Broken Link errors to instructor

[anthonem]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

When students run into a broken link (e.g. link to file that has been deleted) they fill out the "oops!" error report, which is sent to me as a Canvas Administrator at our institution. I will then forward the error report to the course instructor. Wouldn't it be more helpful if there is a way for this type of error report to be sent immediately to the instructor?

I'm guessing there is metadata originated on the "oops!" page that would differentiate missing file errors from other types of error screens, so Canvas would know which type of error messages to send to instructors and admins vs. errors to send to admins only.

-or-

Perhaps there could be a prompt on the error screen asking the student if they ran into a broken link, and give them an option to message the instructor directly (an of course send this error message to the Canvas admin as well).

Bottom line - broken links to deleted files is not a system error. It's a user error, and thus it's more important for the instructor to know about it than a Canvas admin.

Comments from Instructure

For more information, please read through the https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-16250-canvas-release-notes-2019-03-30 .

[kmeeusen]

Oh, I am with you there, Mark! Oh Yah!

But, being the eternal optimist, every teacher I can convince to use that tool takes away a number of student support calls!

KLM

[gschultz]

 @kmeeusen ​, I do use this and have included it in my faculty's training.  The report does help to find the items that need fixed.

On another note, after I used this I found their were several content pages with broken links that I no longer used in a course that were left overs from the past.  I found a great easy three step fix for those. 

1. view all pages and unpublish all of them
2. go back to my modules an publish all pages
3. return to view all pages and review the unpublished items and determine whether to keep or delete

This help clean up an old course and removed many of the invalid link errors that would appear in the canvas tool.

[kmeeusen]

Hi  @gschultz ​

Great minds think alike! Oh yes they do! I actually presented on this very topic a couple years ago at InstCon - the power of Draft State for course clean up, and other things related to Draft State.

This is another tool I share with my more fluid course-building instructors who wind up with mass amounts of garbage in their courses.

KLM

[gschultz]

Thanks  @kmeeusen ​

With your kind words from above, I decided to create a document on this clean-up process. Canvas Pages Clean-Up ​.  I hope others will benefit.

[kmeeusen]

I just read it this morning Greg, and greatly appreciate your posting it. Of course I also saw all the comments about one-step publish and unpublish. This is something I would like as well, but it doesn't change the usefulness of this process in our current UI.

Thanks for posting the how to.

KLM

[cfelton]

This should be an option for Admins to set. Our instructors don't insert their own links, so if there is a problem with a link, I as the admin need to know, not the instructor.

[mcsmith]

Thanks everyone for your input. As many of you mentioned there are measures in place to prevent instructors from adding broken links. There has been great recommendations on how others in the community have handled this problem.  Having broken links in the course is the problem here. We will focus our attention there rather than focusing on who gets the error message.

[Renee_Carney]

  Idea is currently in Product Radar Learn more about this stage...

[kevin_andreyo]

This feature doesn't work if you are linked to a Youtube video, but now the youtube video is marked as private.  The link works but the instructor doesn't know that it won't show the video.  Further, links can go bad after the instructor runs the dead link report.  BTW, I love the dead link report as it is one of the best features of Canvas.

[Renee_Carney]

The Radar idea stage has been removed from the Feature Idea Process.  You can read more about why in the blog post Adaptation: Feature Idea Process Changes.

This change will only impact the stage sort of this idea and will not change how it is voted on or how it is considered during prioritization activities.  This change will streamline the list of ideas 'open for voting', making it easier for you to see the true top voted ideas in one sort, here.