Edited a delayed announcement, wrong date shows on posting

[retannenbaum]

I often draft announcements in advance. Most of the time, this works fine, and the date I set is the date students see as the posting date. However, I have found that if I edit the draft, then this no longer works.

Example: I drafted an announcement on June 10 to say "great job on your midterm, here's some feedback on common errors." I delayed it until December 31 to ensure it wouldn't go out before I was done grading. Today, June 19, I edited it based on which errors students actually made, and posted it. Students now see that the announcement was posted on June 10, before they even took the exam. Not cool!

As of right now the only workaround I can see is to copy what's in the draft, paste it into a brand new announcement, and delete the draft. But that defeats the purpose of delaying posts in the first place.

Is there a fix for this that I am not aware of?

[NoahBoswell · Accepted solution]

Hi @retannenbaum ,

This is the intended Canvas announcement behavior. Canvas allows all users, including students, observers, and other teachers, to see when an announcement was originally posted, and then when it was edited, if it was edited. Setting a delay until date doesn't mean it's going to display that date as when it was created, because technically, Canvas takes the date and time of when you clicked on the Announcement button and sets that as the created date, and then any edits you create will be posted as a separate date. which is the behavior that you're seeing.

That behavior is intended to allow students to see when you update your announcement, in case they notice you changed something and need to know that information in case you didn't send out a message saying you updated your announcement.

I know this isn't the news you were hoping for, but yeah, this is how Canvas announcements are typically supposed to work.

All the best to you,
Noah