@jwr0015 ...
Good morning. I understand what you are saying, and at times, I have been right there with you. In my former role as a Canvas administrator, I have submitted several Feature Ideas here in the Community ... some of which I have thought would be really beneficial for everyone. An example of this would be a Feature Idea I submitted way back in May 2015:
Editing Capabilities for Rubrics
As you can see from that link, there's lots of support for the idea from Community members. And, even though our ideas here in the Community aren't the only source of where Instructure gets feedback, my idea hasn't been implemented...as much as I'd like it to be. So, I completely understand the frustration.
At the same time, I have also submitted some Feature Ideas that I thought would never get implemented. They were very minor things (compared to my one above), but yet Instructure found some time to implement it (or at least get it fixed). This is one I submitted as a Canvas administrator that got developed (again, pretty minor...but it was important to me):
Bold Title Field of Global Announcements
I guess all of this is to say that our feedback does matter to Instructure...no matter if we are Canvas administrators or writing instructors like yourself. And, it's great that you provided feedback to this Feature Idea: Add due date for completing peer review - Page 3 - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com). (Kristin's link to the Product Roadmap will also be helpful so you can see what is coming down the road.) Stay engaged in that discussion...providing examples as necessary for Instructure so they know the various situations where that kind of feature would be helpful. Sometimes people make comments like, "this should be easy enough to implement" or the like...but this is also covered in the document I had linked to in my previous response:
An update might seem simple—however, there may be a few reasons why it's not as simple.
First, behaviors commonly overlap, and sometimes that other behavior may be more complex. Creating the right solution that resolves overlapping behaviors takes a little more time.
Second, updating a component of the core product (e.g. discussions) may cause a ripple effect to these enhancements that needs to be tested and assessed for quality assurance, documented, and communicated to all users. There are efficiencies inherent in making several changes at one time rather than constantly changing all components with equal frequency. Also, sometimes a simple change cannot be made until another, more complicated component is updated.
Not sure if any of this will be helpful to you, but I wanted to provide some of my own experiences with Feature Ideas I've submitted. Just know that I've had some of the same frustrations ... but then I've also been surprised that Instructure implemented some things that I had suggested.
Take care...
