New Canvas Changes

[rachelssm]

Hi, I've been teaching with Canvas for about 10 years and the recent changes to the interface are a huge downgrade in functionality. I don't like them, my students are complaining, formatting is routinely getting messed up, and my colleagues are also bemoaning the difficulties these changes are introducing. Is there any way to give feedback to the Canvas people or to revert back (permanently!) to the old version?

[Chris_Hofer]

@rachelssm ...

Which changes, exactly, are you referring to?  There were many updates in the July 20, 2024 Canvas Release.  See Canvas Release Notes (2024-07-20) - Instructure Community - 606797 (canvaslms.com) for more details.  If you are concerned about the new fly-out for setting the "Assign To" and "Due Date" fields, that is being addressed.  In fact, a new blog was just posted this afternoon.  Updates to the Assign To Interface - Instructure Community - 610506 (canvaslms.com)

To answer your question...yes, if you have concerns about updates, that are either coming to Canvas or have already been recently applied to Canvas, at the top of each Release Notes document, there's usually a link to a "Features Q&A" forum where you can add your feedback.  For example, if you click the first link I provided, you'll find the "Features Q&A" link which points to: Solved: Features Q&A: Canvas Release Notes (2024-07-20) - Instructure Community - 606870 (canvaslms.....

I hope this will be of some help to you.  Sing out if you have any questions...thanks!

[rachelssm]

Thanks, @Chris_Hofer. I'm referring to the changes to discussions, mostly, that rolled out with the change in design. It's no longer possible to fully compress discussions (so that no text is shown; just the name and heading), and newest discussions are now shown at the top of the page rather than at the bottom, so that an ongoing discussion can't be read chronologically from top to bottom. It's also not possible to sort by all "unread" discussions the way we were able to with the previous version.

The other main issue is that with Firefox, there are huge spacing gaps when text is copied and pasted, and I'm not sure if this is browser-specific, but today I got a random large text letter showing up in one of my announcements.

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

@rachelssm Thanks for the clarification.  Since I do not work for Instructure, I would suggest you use the link I provided to the Q&A board to post your feedback.

Here is a link to all Canvas Release Notes and Canvas Deploy Notes.

Canvas Releases - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com)

And, prior to a Canvas Release, you can always test the new features and provide feedback by logging in to your school's "beta" environment.  Just be sure to log out of "beta" before returning to your school's normal "production" environment (this is the environment you typically log into from day to day).

• What is the Canvas beta environment?
• What is the Canvas release schedule for beta, production, and test environments?
• How do I access the Canvas beta environment as an instructor?
• How do I log out of Canvas as an instructor?

[rachelssm]

Thank you, @Chris_Hofer. I clicked the link to Canvas release notes but can't see where the Q&A board for posting is. Can you give further instructions, please?

Regarding testing new features in beta, how would I know that those are in the pipeline, and what would be the advantage of doing so in connection with my concern?

[Chris_Hofer]

@rachelssm ...

When you look at any of the Canvas Release Notes or Deploy Notes documents, right above the "Table of Contents" section is a box.  In that box is a link for "Features Q&A" followed by the name of the document and the date of the release.  It also has wording right before that link similar to: "Looking to discuss the features..."

Regarding the "beta" environment...generally when Canvas Release Notes are published to the Canvas Community, the features are available to try out in your "beta" environment almost immediately or soon after.  So, for example, the Release Notes for August have already been published to the Community.  You can find those here: Canvas Release Notes (2024-08-17) - Instructure Community - 609012 (canvaslms.com).  As you can see, there aren't as many updates in this release compared to the July release.  But, you should be able to try out the updates (in this case, New Quizzes) in "beta".  Testing things out in "beta" first allows you to post your comments to the Q&A board for that month so that Instructure employees can read your comments, and, if necessary, respond.  The August release won't happen until August 17th, so you'd have some time to test things out beforehand and provide feedback...if you wanted.

Does this help?

[Chris_Hofer]

@rachelssm ...

I know you didn't really ask about the location of the due dates for assignments, but I wanted to let you know that Instructure will be reverting back to the original (or close to it) layout for assignments and due dates this Wednesday, August 28, 2024.  You can read more about this here: Canvas Deploy Notes (2024-08-28) - Instructure Community - 612024 (canvaslms.com).