Feature Q&A: Canvas Deploy Notes (2022-11-09)

[AlliFoote]

Looking to discuss these features from the 2022-11-09 Canvas Deploy Notes? Post a reply and start a conversation!

Interface Updates

• Rich Content Editor: External Link Icon, Download File Icon, Focus Ring Around Content Match Link Color
• Rich Content Editor: Raw and Pretty HTML Editor Links to Buttons Update
• Rich Content Editor: Retain Replaced Image Style, Height, and Width

Other Updates

• To Do List: Display Separate To Do Lists [Feature Delayed as of 2022-11-14]
• Outcomes: Outcome Service Results to Canvas Reporting

Feature Options

• Rich Content Editor: Icon Maker Cropping Tool on Touch Devices
  
  

ADD FEEDBACK FOR THESE FEATURES IN Q&A TOPIC

• This topic is for feature discussion only—Please share use cases, best practices, questions, clarifications, etc. regarding this feature.
• Please thread replies as possible to keep posts organized. This will help everyone to track discussions and to participate.

ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK—WHERE TO POST IDEA SUGGESTIONS AND SUBMIT BUG REPORTS

• Idea requests for the Product Team to consider should be submitted in ideas.canvaslms.com . This is the best way to ask for additional or alternative functionality than what is included in the release. Linking to the related idea here so others can find it is encouraged!
• Bug reports should be submitted to Canvas Support. This way, cases can be connected and uniform updates can be provided to those involved. Bugs will not be triaged in this thread

[AllisonHowell · Accepted solution]

Thank you all for your swift feedback. I wanted to provide some explanation as to why your experience changed and also how we’re going to make it better after reading through your comments.

Over the summer a customer reported that users with non-student enrollments were not seeing items for their student enrollments in their To Do lists. Our documentation states that if you are enrolled in Canvas courses as a teacher and a student, To Do List items for both roles will appear. After digging in, we found the bug and fixed it, adding the clear title distinction so that users could quickly see what needed to happen for each of their roles.

I know a lot of you would like the option to remove your student To Do List altogether; however, many teachers and administrators rely on them to complete requirements for the courses in which they are students. That being said, I understand your pain and we are going to flip the lists so that Teacher To Do appears above Student To Do. I know this isn’t the perfect solution for everyone, but I think it’s a good compromise to meet the needs of the whole Canvas community. I am working with our engineering team to address this quickly. 

[vanzandt]

I am told that for the "Outcomes: Outcome Service Results to Canvas Reporting" item, that the New Quizzes outcome will only report back for the institution level reports, and not for sub-account level outcomes.  If this is true, that will not be sufficient for our program reporting needs. Outcomes are generally program/department specific and are loaded at the sub-account level at our institution. This will further delay our move to New Quizzes. Can you confirm whether this information/rumor is true or not?

[SusanNiemeyer]

Please, please, please rethink the placement of the To-Do Lists for Instructors. A lot of us receive notifications of professional development activities as "students." However, our primary role is as "instructors." Therefore, the Instructor To-Do List should be placed ABOVE the Student To-Do List. 

[audra_agnelly]

I've started to get complaints about the To Do list from teachers. As @SusanNiemeyer mentioned, for staff with a Teacher role in a Canvas course, teaching is their primary responsibility and that list should be promoted above the Student To Do items.

[canvas_admin]

In addition to the above comments about the placement of the Teacher To-Do list, I hope Instructure will separate them as far as functionality goes so that one can be turned off. I'm not a student at all, but I am a TA (as well as canvas admin) so I will never need the Student To-Do list, yet i can't do anything to remove it. 😒

[Ron_Bowman]

@canvas_admin -

Or instead of removing it have both present, teacher to-do on top and both start compressed to just the title with the option to click on one or both to expand out the actual list.  This type of option may be easier to implement than providing the ability to not show the student to-do list.

also @AllisonHowell 

[AllisonHowell · Accepted solution]

Thank you all for your swift feedback. I wanted to provide some explanation as to why your experience changed and also how we’re going to make it better after reading through your comments.

Over the summer a customer reported that users with non-student enrollments were not seeing items for their student enrollments in their To Do lists. Our documentation states that if you are enrolled in Canvas courses as a teacher and a student, To Do List items for both roles will appear. After digging in, we found the bug and fixed it, adding the clear title distinction so that users could quickly see what needed to happen for each of their roles.

I know a lot of you would like the option to remove your student To Do List altogether; however, many teachers and administrators rely on them to complete requirements for the courses in which they are students. That being said, I understand your pain and we are going to flip the lists so that Teacher To Do appears above Student To Do. I know this isn’t the perfect solution for everyone, but I think it’s a good compromise to meet the needs of the whole Canvas community. I am working with our engineering team to address this quickly. 

[AllisonHowell · Accepted solution]

Thank you all for your understanding of my explanation above. I wanted to make you aware of a development over the weekend that caused us to turn the Student To Do List back off. On Friday, we received reports that student assignments were showing up in the Teacher To Do, which was causing more confusion on top of an already confusing experience. We decided to turn it off while we fix this issue and address some of the UX issues that you all raised last week. I don't have an estimate on when this will be fixed yet, but please keep an eye on the deploy and release notes to see what's coming up. We're going to get this right!