Organize Assignment Page into Grading Periods

[keyaiko]

  This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

  Idea open for vote Wed. November 4, 2015 - Wed. February 3, 2016  Learn more about voting...

Have a drop-down menu in the assignments page where teachers can filter the assignments shown by grading period.

For teachers with many assignments, the assignment page can get cluttered very quickly. I understand this is a very specific request, but for those schools that use grading periods, the gradebook is already organized by grading period. I think it would make sense to have the assignment page organized in the same way, with each grading period listed in a drop-down menu as well as an "All grading periods" option for those who want to see all assignments in one page.

  Comments from Instructure

For more information, please read through the Canvas Production Release Notes (2016-01-09)

Assignments

Filter by Grading Period

[joseph_allen]

Jason, are you saying that this won't be developed right now?

[scottdennis]

That is correct, Joe.  Jason is saying this won't be developed and released in the near future.

[joseph_allen]

To be clear, the whole concept of a grading period filter on the assignment page won't be developed?

[jsparks]

Hello  @joseph_allen  : I am not saying it won't ever be developed, but this idea will not be delivered in the short-term. We will consider this for future development.

[joseph_allen]

Jason, can you please contact me:  410-313-6832 or Joseph_allen@hcpss.org.  I'd like to speak about this idea.

[scottdennis]

Joe,

Just based on what Jason posted, the product and UI folks are researching the issue and haven't made a decision yet as to what specifically will be developed but it is true that nothing will be developed in the short term. To quote Jason, "There are a variety of ways to do this and we want to do it well."

[joseph_allen]

Jason apparently doesn't answer to 8,000 teachers, 55,000 students, and 136,000 parents.  We need help now.  I did the vote thing.  I very disappointed that it is so casually dismissed.  Instructure clearly doesn't understand the K12 market.  I'd like to speak to someone about this.

[jjordan1]

I second Joe's question.  We are looking forward to this feature in the future, as we have the bulk of our yearlong courses containing 4 grading periods, then our half-year courses with 2 grading periods.  For schools like ours that use multiple grading periods, it would make the visibility & usage profoundly better for teachers.  Not all of them expose Assignments on the sidebar, but for those who choose to, it is also very good for students (and their parent observers).  If a school doesn't use MGP, then they are unaffected (assuming similar gradebook code logic).  We thought the votes have been high enough to warrant the development, I hope that is still the case.  Jason, how can we get on your 'user experience team for this feature request?

[jjordan1]

I hope the research includes K12s, as this is where it will predominately get used.  I work within a 6 high school network who use Canvas, so we are not as large as others, but just the same it is a very sound feature request that Kevin proposed.  I know you are not discounting that, however just wanted to reiterate the instructional support impact it provides to Teachers (our shared customers).  It would be good for a customer call on this, I would join the session with Joe and others.

[joseph_allen]

Thank you Jason Jordan for the support.  I have 12 high schools and 30 Middle Schools in my district.  We are in our first year of using Canvas.  The grading period concept really saved the day as we also are on a traditional school year with 4 quarters and 2 semester schedules.  However as teachers are settling in with Canvas, they, and students and parents are noticing that the assignments page is growing longer and longer.  Teachers that give daily assignments will have hundreds of items on this page by the end of the year.  Adding a simple filter would make it much more user friendly and most of my teachers are expecting to see that in the next month or two.  When I was researching the ideas, I found that Kevin Yaiko has already articulated it perfectly.  So I got many of my teachers to 'vote' for this and we pushed it up to nearly 200.  I'm not exactly sure how many votes it takes to get something implemented or who Canvas is consulting when they accept or decline an idea like this, but I'd like to serve on that advisory board for K12. This is really fundamental functionality that will make many many of their customers happy.