[Mobile - Canvas Student] Improve access to feedback annotations

[turnermz]

Problem statement:

Observations on the way that students access annotated feedback sn the Canvas Student app. In brief: There are more clicks for students to work through to access the annotations. It is not always clear where the annotation comments are accessed. Point comments require a number of clicks to access and view, with each comment appearing in an individual chat type interface. Making it hard to navigate between them, to see them in context of the section of document they relate to, and making it difficult to connect one annotated comment with another. The interface also invites a dialogue through the chat type comments when there is not likely to be a response from markers to individual annotations.

Proposed solution:

Improving the user experience for students would allow them to better access their feedback in the Student app. Improtantly, they may not even be aware that there are annotations on their work and that they are not engaging with them. They may not properly able to make sense of the anontations when presented as a chat thread seperate from the body of the essay or submission. Suggestion: Perhaps the annotated comments could be displayed as an overlaid box on top of the essay submission. Or in a similar view to the browser DocViewer where the screen can be resized and zoomed in to read the comments.

User role(s):

admin

[turnermz]

Accessing a submission with annotations (represented by blue markers)

Having located and clicked a blue marker (note the comment viewing icon now appearing in the top right hand corner) – this has to be pressed to view the annotation detail.

Once pressed the annotation appears in a separate window which appears as a chat conversation.

Test done with other annotation types – ones that interact with the document appear inline without the user having to do anything, these are more intuitive. However, if a comment is attached the same process has to be followed as above.