Making feedback more visible to students

[dfdimatt]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

For more information, please read through the  Canvas Release Notes (2021-11-20).

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I'm teaching a course using Canvas. This is the second semester I've used it. I like Canvas overall, but I've discovered that my students have a difficult time reading the feedback that I provide on their online assignment submissions because the feedback is split into three different locations, and when student view an assignment that I've graded, there is no visual indication of whether feedback is present, and no unified display of that feedback. I'd like the feedback to be visible by default, or else some kind of visually loud indicator present to show them there is feedback. Let me explain:

1. Say I grade an assignment that a student submitted. They go to the assignment, and can see straight-away a general comment on the lower right-hand side. That's visible by default. Fine and good.
2. But what about all the comments embedded in the document view? Those are not automatically displayed, and there is no marker to show that such comments have been embedded in the document. There should be at minimum a big icon saying feedback is embedded, for sure, so go look at it. Currently, "View Feedback" link is always present, regardless of whether feedback has been embedded or not.
3. Furthermore, the rubric grade is displayed in the upper-right corner, but the detailed rubric view is hidden until students think to click "Show Rubric"... yet even then, the written feedback that I have provided on each rubric criteria remains hidden from view! Students have to hunt for that feedback by clicking the easily-overlooked speech-bubble icon one-at-a-time for each criterion. But I don't necessarily write a comment for each criterion, and there is no visual sign or indication that a comment has been written or not.

How are students supposed to know and remember to check all of these various locations to receive the complete set of feedback provided by their instructors? It is utterly inefficient and defeatist because students don't seem to realize that all this feedback is sitting there waiting for them--and they don't know to look for it.

Now, from a student point of view, I don't want to have to click in so many different places to hunt (perhaps fruitlessly) for feedback that my instructor might or might not have left for me (since there is no indicator signalling the existence of written comments).

The fact that written feedback has been given within the submitted file and within the rubric should be foregrounded--it should be made highly visible to the students checking their grades. That feedback is part of the learning process. It is essential for students to read that feedback in order to improve their work. If they don't know it is there, what is the point?

Don't force users to guess and hunt for feedback. They won't do it. Make it obvious that the feedback has been given by putting some kind of big symbol or message next to the assignment doc (or by displaying the assignment by default so students can see that margin comments etc have been embedded in the file) and also by automatically displaying the rubric WITH the written feedback already visible. Don't make the students click in three hundred different places to get all their feedback for a single assignment. Please.

[kona]

 @dpell , if you look at the top of this feature idea you'll see that it's current in the "Product Radar" stage. For more information about what this means see the following page - https://community.canvaslms.com/community/ideas/feature-ideas/blog/2016/10/27/new-ideation-stage-pro... 

[lmihut]

I'm shocked too of how unresponsive Canvas has been about this issue. Why is there even a need to vote for issues that clearly need intervention? Excellent ideas are basically provided here for free, and they still disregard them. 

[dpell]

Hi  @kona ,

It's nice to see that the problem has been acknowledged.  Until it is fixed, however, I've recommended to the instructors I work with to not use Crocodoc comments for any major writing assignments.  The teachers' view is great, but the students' view, as it stands, is a hinderance to their ability to read and learn from feedback.

When this issue has been resolved I hope a comment will be posted to this discussion, because I otherwise won't notice any changes as I now no longer use the feature.

[jhurley]

I am also ceasing my use of Crocodoc until the Student View is improved. I’m not sure why this is taking so long? I know developers who said they could make this fix in an afternoon. It seems to me that Canvas is burdened with hugely bureaucratic systems that prevent actual improvements from being made.

Jennifer Hurley

Associate Professor of English

Ohlone College, Newark Campus

[dejonghed07]

Does anyone use Turnitin and Canvas? If so, what is the faculty opinion of providing feedback through Turnitin instead of SpeedGrader? What is the student opinion of viewing the feedback through Turnitin?

[Renee_Carney]

 @dejonghed07 ‌

I think you'll find that there is a large group of Turnitin and Canvas users in this community.  One of the primary documents that group uses is Canvas and Turnitin.  It is a great resource!

[dejonghed07]

Thank you!

[scottdennis]

Hi All,

I know from the outside that it doesn't appear that we are doing anything to alleviate the issues discussed in this thread relating to crocodoc and making feedback more visible to students.  Regardless of what you may have been told by developer friends, there isn't a simple fix in this case that we could implement quickly, not a good one anyway.   Sometimes everyone agrees that something in Canvas needs to change and specifically how it would make student's lives easier and then nothing is done about it, simply because there are other improvements that take higher precedent or because the fix for the issue can't happen until after we get another change made.  I can tell you, though, that is not the case this time.  We really are working on fixing this.  We have heard your concerns and we definitely care.  I can tell you that for me personally it can be very frustrating sometimes, knowing what we are working on and at the same time reading about the struggles people in the field are having and not being able to share more about what is happening internally.  All I can say is that work continues on this one and will be a change in the future.

  @jhurley   @dpell   @lmihut  

[dpell]

Thank you for the update and explanation.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who is greatly relieved to hear that your designers are at work on this.  Please keep us informed as things move ahead, and if there is anything I can personally do to help you to understand this issue from an instructor or student's perspective, don't hesitate to contact me.

[stevec]

Scott, you can see how this problem looks to instructors who use Canvas, right? This thread is two years old, and I've been participating in similar threads for much longer than that. I've stopped using Crocodoc, which means I can't comment directly on student essays and must use running commentary in the comments box. This is inefficient and ineffective. I see other things being worked on (autosave on student comments was a lifesaver!!) but there doesn't seem to be much progress with this problem. It's detracting significantly from my students' learning.