[People] Printable course roster

As an instructor, I want a print button on the People tab that will generate a PDF or other printable document containing student names and photos in grid format. It'd be nice if the list could be sorted by groups, too.

 

transferred from the old Community

Originally posted by: Steve Hallman
Thank you especially for contributions by: Glen Parker, Miles Mancini, Richard Meyer

Added to Theme

54 Comments
dhulsey
Community Champion

Hi, Tim. You can get a roster by exporting grades and deleting everything except the information you need. At that point, you can build out a spreadsheet for printing that meets your needs (attendance for the week or whatever). Depending on your needs and available devices, you might also take a look at Teacher Tools Release Notes (Android 1.0)​.

I hope that helps!

swinter
Community Champion

Actually the gradebook export isn't a roster that is useful.  We really need a printable version of the attendance sheet that doesn't require any extra customization.

canvas_admin
Community Champion

 @matthew_coser ​,

I would like to try this app out, but have no experience with Python.  Would you be willing to help me out as far as getting it running goes?

smg36
Community Novice

Hi,

I agree that having printable rosters is a nice feature. In fact, I have such a feature/button on my Canvas page. However, the photos are still too small to be usable and the roster cannot be sorted by groups. Because this request was archived and because I know of a number of faculty who are unhappy with the size of the photos in the printed rosters I've submitted an idea to have the the photo size be selectable by instructors. I also included the notion that it would be nice if it could be sorted by groups. If you liked this idea perhaps you could vote on the new idea because it builds on this one.  Here's the link:

Thank you.

Stan

smg36
Community Novice

Hi everyone,

This idea nearly garnered 100 votes to be considered for implementation. I have heard from colleagues that they are frustrated with the size of photos and I've been frustrated with the size of the pictures myself. I submitted an idea to allow users to select the photo size. I know the roster photos can be printed in a larger format because I've done so manually and I can do so through Angel. So I'm hoping Canvas will allow us to print rosters with larger photos as well. If you like the idea perhaps you can go and give a positive vote to the idea:

Also, if you like the idea perhaps you can share it with colleagues.

Thanks!

Stan

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team
  Idea is currently in Product Radar Learn more about this stage...
awilliams
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

For anyone impatient, I was able to get a proof of concept user script working based of work done by  @James ‌ and Seattle University. It adds a button in the settings area of the People page. When you click it you get a nice list of your users with just their name and avatar image that you can easily print or save to PDF.

jenn_stevens
Community Contributor

Our institution is very interested in anything that can make the Canvas profile photo sizes larger. Here's why:

Our faculty have been asking for years for a photo roster. We gave up on the idea that this was feasible in Canvas, and built a custom solution in our student information system that displays ID card pictures and the legal name of students.

However: we have a number of transgender students that are not ready or able to change their legal name. We make sure to display their updated name in as many places as possible, including in Canvas. However, it turns out that the only way to display the updated name in the photo roster is to modify the student information system in a way that is not sustainable or a terribly good solution. 

We're circling back to thinking that telling faculty to use Canvas as the source for names and photos might be the best solution, but we're still stuck on the size of the photos.

One of the things we really value about Canvas is that students can choose how they want to present themselves: they can choose their name and photo. This isn't just a transgender issue, this is also something desired by international students who want to be known in class by their "american" names instead of their birth name. It's hitting the transgender students the hardest though when faculty are unsure what names to use: "I am slightly on the verge of tears in the middle of my Intro to Lit Studies class. When my teacher took attendance it said my birth name on it. Last week during class it was correct on the roster but today it was wrong. I don’t know what to do and I don’t want this to happen again because I cannot focus or speak."

We'll keep brainstorming, but having a solution that doesn't involve user scripts would be great!

peter_mo
Community Novice

We should at least be able to export out csv from the "People" page in Canvas. I really hope we can get this soon. I have been waiting for this feature for 4 years now... Smiley Sad

peter_mo
Community Novice

Just wanted to Add that the Gradebook export also does not include the Teachers and TA's names... I think We definitely should at least have export of all People's names in csv. I don't see how that could be difficult to do. Thanks.