[Speedgrader] Rich Text Editor in Speedgrader Comments

[CommunityTeam]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas LMS

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Add the Rich Text Editor to the Comments section of Speedgrader.

"I want to recommend books, etc., or to properly format foreign words, and so on, and want to set the example, of course, of doing so properly.  Thank you"

"Instructors have told me they'd like formatting (bold, italic, colors) in the comment boxes in order to emphasize a statement without typing all caps (which seems like they're yelling at the students)."

"As an instructor in a virtual classroom I need to be able to make my communication with students richer to better get my points across.  Add rich text capabilities and allow me to make the Comment boxes larger while you are at it."

Transferred from the old Community

Originally Posted By: Joshua Shannon
Special thanks for contributions by: Teri Portman, Albert Turner

[mfulton1]

As a math instructor being able to type math in the comments section when correcting papers would be beneficial. Being able to annotate a textbox entry in the same way you can annotate a submitted document would be outstanding.

[thomasellis]

Would love the ability to be able to utilize third party LTI tools in the text editor for rich feedback on assignments.  Blackboard and D2L have had this available for years.

[christopher_ca1]

Yes adding in "Rich Text Editor" - in Conversations, in Speedgrader Comments - throughout Canvas - seems so obviously important for any communications with Students - I've upvoted this for several years: Canvas, we are calling out to you to help make this better for everyone.

[KeithP]

Hello all!

We've been trying to add a Live Link icon to Speedgrader for a while now, so that faculty can send live links to students such as external resources, additional materials, etc. Currently we have no other recourse but to ask students to copy/paste the links, which is a poor and outdated way to share links.

In the example below, a student needed help with Turnitin. So I sent the student a link to an important page in our Writing Center where Turnitin is discussed in detail. This aligns with our Faculty Expectations to “provide additional resources” to “help move students to a deeper understanding…”  So it’s crucial that this student see this content.
 

However, because we don’t currently offer a way to provide live, clickable links on grading pages, students need to copy and paste characters very carefully to make sure they’ve copied all the characters *but nothing more*. It's hit or miss. If a student triple-clicks on the link above to highlight the whole URL, which is what I did, and then pastes that URL into their browser, there's a problem: Because the "copy" functionality added the period at the end of the sentence, the student's requested page wasn't found. Dead link. (And honestly, who likes dead links??)

So in the end, we had one opportunity to get this information in front of a student, and we missed that chance. 

Hopefully, by adding a rich text editor, that will give us the ability to offer live links on this page for easy clickability and hence immediate access to specific internet content students need to see.

Thanks for reading.
 

[patrick_lynch]

We've landed people on the moon quicker than we have had action from Canvas administrators about adding a Rich Text Editor to the interface. Clearly we have reached the limit of human ingenuity and innovation with this request.

[thomasellis]

Could I cash in some extra votes here that I haven't used to vote on other items? 

[thompsli]

I have this problem so often! If a student turns in an assignment incorrectly, I want to link them to the page or video I've made with the correct instructions on how to turn things in. (In my case, it's usually that they've turned in a URL that leads to a document that they haven't actually shared with me, or let their browser autofill a URL to something other than the assignment they need to turn in because they don't understand the difference between form autofills and pastes.) These are usually my least tech-savvy and direction-following students, so they're also the ones that are going to have the most trouble copy and pasting a non-clickable URL.

[dkemp]

I really want to be able to do properly formatted hyperlinks for accessibility. We stress it in our course design, but then have to put the URL in grading comments. Sigh!

[adebord]

Please...is there anybody out there? I need this feature to be able to sell the amazingness of Canvas. I love it and I want the teachers I train to love it too.  This feature is so very necessary. Clickable links are best practice and best for accessibility. 

[goconnell1]

We have been using Canvas for nigh on 2 years now and the shortcomings are becoming more evident by the day with the ever-growing trend towards online learning thanks to You-Know-What.  The lack of a Rich Text Editor in the SpeedGrader Assignment Comments defies belief.  I teach chemistry and having no superscript or subscript option means that 95% of chemical formulae cannot be provided correctly in feedback to the students.  What's the use of teaching them that Na2CO3 must not be written Na2CO3 when that's the only option available?  I have to compile my feedback to each student in a separate Word doc, then attach it to the feedback.  SpeedGrader?  That's a complete misnomer.

PS. The irony that the Comments box here DOES have RTF capabilities won't be lost on anyone either! 🙄