[Courses] Please make your features uniform

[SandaZG]

Problem statement:

"External URL" and "Text Header" items cannot be duplicated nor copied to other courses or Commons. "Assignments" does not have "Collapse All" nor "Expand All" buttons. Features are inconsistent throughout.

Proposed solution:

Allow "External URL" and "Text Header" items be duplicated and copied to other courses or Commons just like other items can be copied. Allow all modules to collapse or expand under "Assignments" much like they do in "Modules". Please check for consistency of available features, making the tool more predictable.

User role(s):

instructor

[KristinL]

hi @SandaZG -

Thank you for sharing your ideas with the Community! To help the Product Team accurately assess requests and plan for improvements, there must be only one idea in each thread. While these are both about uniformity, they affect two separate areas of Canvas LMS.

How do I create a new idea in the Instructure Community? 

What are the guidelines for submitting a new idea? 

[SandaZG]

Why must there be only one idea in each thread? Doesn't that limit ideas to very specific ones and deprives you of system-wide feature requests? In any case, couldn't you break up submitted ideas into chunks that your product team understands?

[KristinL]

Hi -

Sometimes, ideas do have multiple places of influence (for example, a change to button formatting or how dates can be inputted throughout a course), but an update to Commons will not be facilitated by the same team that updates Assignments. When ideas are listed separately, the smaller Product Teams can add, track, and document as work is completed. It also makes it simpler for the Product Team to share updates with customers and link them to Release Notes.

Unfortunately, there is a policy where Instructure employees cannot author ideas. I assist the Product Team with labeling and reviewing each for completion. However, my involvement is secretarial only, and ideas need to remain customer-authored for authenticity and process equality.