Updated Guides on Canvas Features

[rrudd]

How soon can we expect a revised guide once an update/change to a feature happens? Is there a way to be notified so we can update our classes?

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @rrudd,

For full production features, guides here in the community are usually updated on or within a couple days of the release.  For features that are in early-access/beta/preview, there may be special groups here in the community where some info/guides are available, but there usually won't be official guides (there are a few exceptions though, like assignment enhancements).

I hope this helps!

-Chris

[jbielecki]

This logic seems backward to me, like adding a new feature to a car but not putting it in the owner's manual until the next model year. Users need to know what's going to be changed before the change happens. For example, I just noticed an "Open summary" button in my courses' Discussions. I have no idea what it is or how it works, so I searched the Guides and Community and got only one relevant hit from a fellow Community member in the Forum section. From there, I saw links to other relevant media, but why did my search for "Open summary" (in quotation marks) lead to nothing else relevant? Using this Community is like searching for a needle in a haystack, which is all the more reason why the Guides need to be up-to-the-minute.

[chriscas]

Hi @jbielecki,

The "Discussion Summary" feature you're referencing is in what's called a "feature preview" state right now, meaning Instructure  is still working on the feature but let's school/institution admins enable if they choose.  Things that are in a feature preview state are more likely to change often, and usually aren't enabled by a majority of institutions (at least not right away).  Because of these reasons, and probably others too, Instructure doesn't tend to have official guides for previews.  There are sometimes special user groups or announcements in the community about the preview though (which I think you found for this in another thread).  As a Canvas admin myself, when our institution chooses to enable a feature preview, we definitely communicate it to our faculty, and we also make it an opt-in experience whenever that's possible.  The philosophy works well for us, but each school/institution really chooses their own path around this.  Maybe a message will be coming to you soon announcing the availability.

While there are sometimes bumps in the road, I would personally say that Instructure does a better job than most other vendors at 1 - having a plethora of documentation available to the general public and 2 - keeping the info up to date.  We definitely find a outdated document here and there or some change that didn't seem to be documented anywhere, and we definitely speak up in those cases.  I always try to keep the big picture in mind though, and that's why I would generally rate Instructure pretty highly overall in this area.

Just my two cents worth on the topic...

-Chris