Notifications by Course

[19045]

It would be great to be able to set notifications for each individual course.  There have been many times that I needed really detailed notifications and other times I needed nearly zero notifications.  Under the current system it is all or none.

Note from the Community Team:https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/1179-users-need-to-be-able-to-customize-notifications-at-the-c... also requests this capability. We consider combined support for both ideas as part of our regular prioritization process.

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

For details, please read through the Canvas Release Notes (2020-04-18). 

[caitlin_charnle]

As an Admin at one school, and an online student at another school, this feature would be tremendously appreciated. The faculty, staff, and students who use Canvas everywhere would LOVE to see this feature implemented. Thank you!

[arovner]

YAY!  Bring it on!  This would be so helpful for so many students!

Pretty please?!

Amy

[viw]

We have been hearing this request from our faculty, staff, and students for years now, and it is one of the most common critiques of the system.

[creativityengag]

I'm working as the teacher of record with a number of TAs, but under the current notification structure, I get the notifications first, and communication with students, and I need to be able to set things up course-by-course, with TAs participating.

[LEASUSAN]

Yes, we hear this A LOT from people in dual roles (e.g. graduate students who are also instructors).

Then there are professors who use the announcements feature for two different purposes: one for pressing announcements (class meeting changes) and the other for everything they read that is tangentially related to the course. I completely understand students wanting two different sets of settings in these cases.

[vkg]

I'm still seeing a need for this at the University of Michigan, especially when instructors are simultaneously teaching two courses:  a small course as the sole instructor, and a large course with a team of TAs.  In this case, faculty want to receive ASAP notifications for the small course, but not the large one (where their TAs handle more of the student contact). 

This is a big issue once you have classes taught by a team of instructors with different expectations for who will do what.  We'd love to see this in the next few months, since many of our largest courses have held off on switching to Canvas.

[pbogart]

At the University of Michigan, students have also expressed the desire to set different notification settings for two different courses, and for pressing versus FYI information within each course. Students get so much Canvas-generated email that they've been turning notifications off entirely for all courses, which has posed a new and problematic communication barrier. Thanks for moving this important request forward!

[hvaughn]

I think instructors would like to be able to control when notifications are sent from their courses as well.  Too often, when something is changed in a course, a notification is sent out without the instructor realizing it, and results in mild panic for some students.  For example an instructor recently moved an assignment from one weighted group into another.  Doing so sent out an email to all students that the grading policy for the course had changed.  When too many notifications are sent, after a while, the response is to ignore them.

[hvaughn]

Another reason INSTRUCTORS need to control when notifications are being sent from their course(s) to students.  Just today we received the following from an instructor.

"Yesterday, I unmuted a final exam essay assignment from last semester because a student needed to see a copy of his grades with the overall average. I had left the assignment muted because I graded the finals after December 11 and knew the students wouldn't have access to the course anyway. Unfortunately, a notification e-mail was still sent to the entire class, and I had one student who contacted me because she thought her assignment grade had been changed. Should students still receive notifications even after a course has ended?"

This is problematic for us.  Both the section and course end dates were set to Dec 11th at 4pm.  The check box to not allow students to participate after these dates is also checked. We do not conclude all enrollments as we have students with incompletes and at times need to let other students back in temporarily to access something, as in this case.  It would be really helpful to allow instructors to choose whether a notification is sent or not.

[SethBattis]

Just adding a shout out that notification preferences should be configurable by all user roles. (Currently observers look like they're going to get notifications, but basically don't, as I exhaustively documented.)