Instructors often want to address students by their preferred name when providing feedback, but Canvas does not make this easy. Currently, many faculty members track nicknames or preferred names in the Notes column of the Gradebook, but this information does not appear in SpeedGrader or in other grading contexts. As a result, instructors must either interrupt their workflow to cross-reference the Gradebook, or risk misnaming a student in their written feedback. The existing options, such as the display name in student profiles, may be locked by institutional policy and are not consistently visible during grading.
The solution is to introduce a dedicated Preferred Name field in Canvas that can be managed by students or controlled by administrators, depending on institutional policy. This preferred name would be displayed as an optional column in the Gradebook, allowing instructors to quickly reference it while reviewing student progress. In SpeedGrader, the preferred name would appear directly beneath the student’s official name so instructors can confidently address students correctly when writing feedback. The feature would not override official or SIS names in compliance-sensitive areas but would give faculty a clear and accessible way to use students’ preferred names in everyday teaching and grading. Admins could set permissions for who can edit this field and, if needed, sync it with SIS data.
