Feature Q&A: Canvas Deploy Notes (2024-04-24)

[InstContentTeam]

Looking to discuss these features from the 2024-04-24 Deploy Notes? Post a reply and start a conversation!

Interface Updates

• Gradebook: Message Students Who Total Columns [Added 2024-04-29]

Other Updates

• Custom Javascript- Update jQuery to v.3.7.1

Feature Previews

• Change Log updates: Discussion/Announcements Redesign

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• 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

[rmartini]

I've taken a look at the Discussion Redesign in beta to see how the SpeedGrader view changes for the instructor. The Change Log for the Discussion/Announcements Redesign states:

"In SpeedGrader, the discussion view is updated to open directly in the iframe. Instructors view the entire discussion and the selected student’s earliest response is highlighted briefly."

I'm not sure why this specific view is changing. In the legacy/original view, when an instructor opens SpeedGrader, they can quickly see how many times the student has commented in the discussion board (both initial posts and replies to others). When I'm viewing the same discussion in Beta, I am brought to the initial post (sometimes; when I toggle to the next student I don't always see their intitial post if it falls "lower" in the discussion) and I have no idea how many times a student has replied. The only way I can see that information is to expand all replies in the entire discussion...this is not quick nor easy to assess in graded discussions. When in SpeedGrader, an instructor/grader is trying to assess a single student. There are times where they need to view the comment in context with the rest of the discussion...but that's not the case the majority of the time. Opening the entire discussion appears really distracting when trying to grade, when the original view nicely displayed all responses from the single student with a link to view that comment with full context.

[mskoch]

Echoing @rmartini's concern because this change will affect the grading process (making it more time consuming) for the majority of our faculty.  I am actually hoping the delay in deployment is a sign that Canvas is reconsidering this change because it won't be received well by our faculty.

[rmartini]

@mskoch - It sounds like it was delayed because of these concerns. Someone else raised the issue in this SpeedGrader in New Discussion Redesign Issue post and there was a reply from @SamGarza1 saying that this wasn't intended.

[mskoch]

@rmartini  Thank you for the update and the link to the related post - I have subscribed to that forum and will read more about the other issues brought up by community members.