[Gradebook] Message Students Who... for Grade Totals

[mlewis23]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas LMS

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I'd like to be able to use the 'message students who' function in the gradebook for more than a single assignment.  It would be useful to be able to go to the column in the gradebook for an assignment group and use the 'message students who'.  Same applies for the total grade column so teachers could after the first two weeks send out a message to all students that are under performing early enough for them to change there behavior.

We have three very similar ideas, all of which are open for voting, associated with the Message Students Who... feature, and we're grouping them here to keep Canvas Studio tidy. These are the other two:

https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/3427-message-students-who 

https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/2587-enhanced-message-students-who-for-multiple-assignments 

[thebert]

Matt,

Interesting idea . . . do you have an application in mind?

[mlewis23]

So for example, I could 'message students who' are getting xx% in the assignment group of 'Homework' or 'Participation'.  I could also use it with the total grade for the course reminding all students with xx% they can find help in the tutor lab.

[nbrown2]

I could think of it being applied to an attendance-based course like fitness where you have to get a certain amount of gym visits in before the end of the quarter. You could do a mid-quarter checkin and "message students who" are below a certain amount of visits and in jeopardy of failing the course.

[sellis]

This would be a great feature!  Simply to get the same function we have with assignments to be able to "message students who" which could/should include by grade option, for example, if using a course grading scheme to be able to message all students who have an "A" or 90% or better to provide encouragement to keep going and vise versa for students with a "D" or "F".

[rpetrina]

When it comes to retention and student success, it's important to communicate with students who are not meeting course expectations. Students whose current grade total might lead them to fail a course need a notification that they are struggling and should seek additional assistance.

Ex: "You are receiving this message because your current grade in BIO 102 is a C or lower. I want you to succeed in this course, so I am requesting that you come to my office hours next week to talk about ways we can help you master the material. Please go to the Calendar menu in Canvas and click Scheduler to sign up for a time to see me or meet with my TA for additional help."

Or students can be reminded of the upcoming withdrawal date so that they can safely get out of the class instead of getting an "F" on their transcript.

Additionally, some programs have specific grade cutoffs for continuing in the major. Nursing is one that comes to mind. A student may not get an F in a nursing course, but still may not be allowed to continue in the program due to a low grade. Faculty in these programs regularly have to notify students who are below standards or "on the bubble." This functionality would be a major timesaver.

[ccalderon]

This could work really well if there were an "Advisor" role in a class - where such a person had access to current grades and were able to message the appropriate students. Wouldn't it be great if it could also hook up to Scheduler so they could set up an advising appointment...!?!

[mlewis23]

By making the 'Message Students Who..." more robust, Canvas would bringing in some basic early alert/retention strategies as well as make some of the third party applications even better.

[scottdennis]

Panda-Cat: A mythical creature that we dreamed up to catch your attention, make you laugh, and encourage you to keep reading the explanation of our archive process for Feature Ideas

Archive: An archived Feature Idea is not dead forever, but it has been taken out of stage progression.  When Community members submit feature ideas they are reviewed by the Community Team and then put to a vote by the community at large.  If the idea does not receive 100 votes within 3 months it will be archived.  Ideas that reach the 100 vote threshold within the first three months remain open for voting. Find more information about this process at How does the voting process work for feature ideas?

Can archived ideas still become a feature?  Yes.  Some feature ideas that do not receive 100 votes are resubmitted by Community members and find more supporters as people's needs change, rising more quickly to the top.  Oftentimes archived feature ideas are evaluated in groups when we are preparing to refactor a particular tool or feature of Canvas and may still influence product direction.

[mlewis23]

I've resubmitted this for voting. The new Feature Idea page is:

[mlewis23]

The resubmitted idea for enhancing the 'Message students who..' feature from the grade book is now open for voting. 

If you supported this idea before, now is your chance to continue to support it with another vote.  Lets try to get to the magic number of 100!