Feature Q&A: Canvas Deploy Notes (2024-03-27)

[InstContentTeam]

Looking to discuss these features from the 2024-03-27 Deploy Notes? Post a reply and start a conversation!

Interface Updates

• Gradebook: Grading Period Filter Update

Other Updates

• Reports: Provisioning Report Update [Added 2024-03-29]

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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

[audra_agnelly]

Does the closing date need to be in there? I find the 3 dates messy and confusing, when there's nothing in the interface that informs the instructor as to what that third date is. Even in your documentation for this Deploy, you only state start and end dates with no mention of closing date, I had to look at the example in our instance before I realized what that third date was. Because we set our closing date to end of the school year to avoid issues entering make-up work, etc, out teachers don't even think about this date and aren't impacted by it, they won't understand why a July date is listed in each grading period. 

[emilyk23]

Hi Audra! From the teacher perspective, the close date of a grading period is important as it is the last day that teachers can grade/provide feedback/edit assignments that had a due date in that grading period. Many K12s I've worked with have set close dates a week or so out from the end date, to provide extra time for grading and to have consistency with when official grades for that GP were due into their SIS.  Let me see if we can get the documentation updated so that it references the close date (third date listed) as well. 

[emilyk23]

Hi Audra! From the teacher perspective, the close date of a grading period is important as it is the last day that teachers can grade/provide feedback/edit assignments that had a due date in that grading period. Many K12s I've worked with have set close dates a week or so out from the end date, to provide extra time for grading and to have consistency with when official grades for that GP were due into their SIS.  Let me see if we can get the documentation updated so that it references the close date (third date listed) as well. 

[audra_agnelly]

I see this has been added to the documentation, but I still foresee questions from my staff. We actively communicate quarter start/end dates to our staff, so this isn't a feature we've seen a need for but I understand that some districts may have use for this. My primary issue is close date which isn't a date or terminology that we use with our staff. My second issue is the truncation of the dates in the drop-down; the characters are truncated in the middle of the string making it impossible to make sense of the dates without hovering over them, I don't think that's good design. 

Below is what my staff will see in drop down. They are going to ask why quarters 1, 2, 3 etc all end on July 4, and for the Midterm Exam they can't see any the start date due to the truncation, Quarter 3 looks like it started 1/2 when it really started 1/26, Quarter 4 starts 4/10 not 4/1, etc.