Not impressed with Instructure right now

[SusanNiemeyer]

As someone who has provided substantial support to novice Canvas users at my institution, in this forum, and on Facebook, I can attest that one of major design flaws of Canvas is hiding very important Announcement, Discussion, and Grading settings in more options. I have explained how to access these settings hundreds of times to fellow instructors. I'm not the only one who has submitted Idea Conversations to fix this flaw.

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Idea-Conversations/Redesign-of-quot-more-options-quot-element-in-...

But, now @ProductPanda is archiving all of these suggestions. I guess that fixing a design flaw is not glitzy enough to become an "Idea and Theme." Last year, I was one of the top five members on this forum in terms of providing free support, but clearly my expertise and my generosity are not being valued. 

[Ron_Bowman]

@SusanNiemeyer -

I believe what is happening with the old ideas are as they are archived, they are being incorporated into the current themes.  I don't think they are going away.  I could be wrong, but maybe @ProductPanda will explain what is happening when the old ideas are archived.

Ron

[SusanNiemeyer]

@Ron_Bowman I wish that were the case, but here's what @ProductPanda is posting as these threads are being archived:

As part of the new Ideas & Themes process, all ideas in Idea Conversations were reviewed by the Product Team. Any Idea that was associated with an identified theme was moved to the new Idea & Themes space. Any Idea that was not part of the move is being marked as Archived. This will preserve the history of the conversations while also letting Community members know that Instructure will not explore the request at this time.

(The boldface is mine.)

[Ron_Bowman]

@SusanNiemeyer -

Okay.  I was not aware of that information.  Well that is frustrating and would just result in you having to try again by posting it to the themes area with the hope that it does not get shot down because they already archived it.

I completely understand your frustration with what is happening.

Ron 

[SusanNiemeyer]

So why does this matter?

Back in March 2020, I knew nothing about Canvas, and I suddenly found myself creating four courses from scratch without any assistance. Like countless instructors across the United States and the world, I faced a very steep learning curve. Through a lot of effort, I not only taught myself how to create content with the LMS, but I very quickly began to mentor my colleagues. 

By August 2020, I was spending a great deal of time in a Facebook group called "Teachers Using Canvas," which attracted many K-12 instructors. I saw how they struggled to figure out the basics of Canvas. Canvas has a steep learning curve. Many of those teachers expressed a great deal of frustration.

I strongly believe that for Canvas, as an LMS, to be successful, it must be intuitive. Important functions must be easy to find. Basic settings should be easy to access.

"Archiving" some very good recommendations is not a fix for anything. 

[Ron_Bowman]

@SusanNiemeyer -

In the archiving - if those ideas are incorporated into the new Themes area(replacing the old ideas area) where they are available for anyone to look at and eventually vote on and eventually get incorporated.  The only possible issue with the archiving of the ideas are all of the comments made with ideas of workarounds or whatever associated with that topic.
ron