[Inbox] Allow students to block messages from other students

[A00364575]

Sometimes students send unwanted or even harassing messages to other students, unsolicited. It would be great if students could block messages from senders who are upsetting them. 

I realize this could pose a problem for some institutions, so I'd suggest making it an institutionally configurable option. 

[Naomi]

Hi @A00364575, 

There are a couple conversations that suggest ideas that may solve for this.

Block students from e-mailing each other through C... - Canvas Community 

Student messaging (inbox) - allow students to mess... - Canvas Community 

Could you look at both and see if it make sense for your conversation to be merged with one of them?

Naomi 

[A00364575]

Hi Naomi,

Thanks for looking into this! I looked at those feature requests, but they weren't the solution I was looking for. I'm at a higher ed institution, and we need to keep open the ability for students to message each other. Often students need that capability for group work, study groups, etc. But we do occasionally get students who abuse that capability, and we'd like to give individual students the ability to protect themselves without shutting down messaging for everyone in the class. We expect students will still want and need the capability to message others in the class even if they wish to block messages from a specific student. 

So, I actually wouldn't vote for the features above. They are too overreaching for us. This narrower approach would be better.

Thanks for checking!

Neal Legler, USU

[audra_agnelly]

We are K12 and I receive this request from schools somewhat regularly. We don't want to turn off the ability for students to message one another, especially during remote learning, but there are bullying and harrassment issues that come up and individual users don't have the ability to block incoming messages from specific peers, nor do we have any admin abilities to prevent students who abuse the inbox from sending messages to their classmates. It's really a pressing need to ensure a safe learning environment for our students.

[auserjg]

Please give students the ability to block other students from messaging them. That way students cannot harass or spam other users. Or at least give us the option to report the message as spam or harassment.

[gerasin]

I would also ask for the feature for admin to block individuals from being able to message in certain classes - not only on class level but on individual level in the class. Sometimes admin needs to block an individual from using Canvas inbox in inappropriate manner,  and it will be good to have that ability.

[audra_agnelly]

Is there any progress on development of functionality like this in the inbox? I've been begging my CSMs for this for years, and was told 6 months ago that there was work being done on this feature, but so far, nothing.

There are students who do not use the inbox appropriately at all times. Right now I have a student with a restraining order using the inbox, and neither I (admin) nor the message recipient has a way to block the sender other than turning off student-to-student messaging for the entire account, which is not something we want to do. Students need to feel safe, and without more granular permissions in the Inbox, we're not able to help support a safe learning environment.

[AmandaWolfe]

I would really love the ability for students to block individual students from messaging.