Feature Q&A: Canvas Release Notes (2024-03-16)

[InstContentTeam]

Looking to discuss these features from the 2024-03-16 Release Notes? Post a reply and start a conversation!

New Features

• Developer Keys: Search and Sorting

Updated Features

• Gradebook: Multi-Select Gradebook Filters
• SpeedGrader: Media Comment Screen Capture and Auto Captioning [Delayed as of 2024-02-27]

Feature Options

• New Quizzes: Quiz and Item Analysis Report Fill In the Blank Data

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

[mjennings]

I was excited to see the multi-select filters for the Gradebook. However in my testing it looks like the only option you cannot multi-select is for student groups. This is something my faculty have been asking for. In many of our courses, particularly clinical courses, our adjuncts are responsible for 3-5 clinical groups of students. It would be great if they could set the filter to include all of the groups they are responsible for.  I hope that multi-select of the student groups can make it in before this is deployed. 

[rmartini]

Selecting multiple groups would be important for my institution as well! We use sections or groups (depending on the course) to create filters for TAs. Thanks for catching that issue!

[IanGoh]

Thankyou thankyou thankyou for 

• Developer Keys: Search and Sorting

One slight caveat.  The search only seems to search the keys that are displayed.  When you initially load the Dev Keys page, it'll show only ten keys.  And search only seems to search those.  You would need to scroll to the bottom, click on the Show All Keys, THEN search.

[rmartini]

I am also really excited to see multi-select grade filters on this list! I just tested this in Beta. I first tried selecting multiple sections and this worked mostly as expected but found a few issues. It would be great to create saved filters with the multi-select grade filters (for example, sections 1 & 2). When in the Saved Filter Preset tray, I'm not able to select multiple selections of the same type (multiple sections, etc.). I then went back to just select multiple sections (under Apply Filters) to see if I could create a saved filter from those "temporary" selections. To my surprise, it did save the multiple selections even though it doesn't quite display both sections. I'm attaching some screenshots as an example. You can see that I have a saved filter selected, but when I go to edit the saved filter, there's only one section selected (but does at least state there are 2 filters). Additionally, when trying to modify the selected sections in that saved filter, I couldn't edit the section setting at all on the already-saved filter.

[ellen_peters]

I see exactly the same behaviour.

[dbrace]

When will SpeedGrader be receiving the media comment release (in Beta)? It was supposed to be 2024-02-21).

 

[audra_agnelly]

Do we need to enable a feature to turn on the screen recorder in Beta or has this been delayed? I don't see screen recorder as an option when I open the media comment tool.

[dbrace]

An FYI to everyone about the SpeedGrader and its updated media (with screen capability) recorder.

From @AkosFarago over atStudio Capture is released: Try Our New Lightweight Screen Recorder!.

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/The-Product-Blog/Studio-Capture-is-released-Try-Our-New-Lightweig...

 

[Ash_Y]

Hi team,

Just looking to see when SpeedGrader: Media Comment Screen Capture and Auto Captioning will be made available. On testing, we are unable to access the feature in Beta or Prod.

Thanks!

[dbrace]

According toCanvas Release Notes (2024-03-16), as of 2024-02-27 it has been delayed.

On 2024-02-27, @AkosFarago did say in the comments of Studio Capture is released: Try Our New Lightweight Screen Recorder!:

The Speedgrader integration was somewhat mistakenly mentioned in the 03-16 release notes, it will hit beta in the following release. We apologize for the confusion.

---

I believe this means that it will be available in beta on 2024-04-20.  I believe that those release notes should be available this week.

@AkosFarago, are you able to provide any additional updates?

[Ash_Y]

@dbrace Oh right, I see. Based on the delay notes, I figured it would be deployed 16.03 instead but that makes sense. Thank you!

[RaviKoll]

Hello @dbrace , we encountered technical challenges on beta, leading us to remove it temporarily. However, we have successfully resolved the issue and merged the fix into the beta environment, which is now available. We apologize for any confusion and inconvenience caused. The complexity of this deployment process made it more challenging to resolve the bug quickly. We appreciate your patience and support throughout this process. Thank you!

[dbrace]

Thank you @RaviKoll!

I was able to:

1. go into "SpeedGrader"
2. on the right-side under the "Add a comment" box, click on the "Media Comment" icon
3. under "Screen Capture", I could either "Enable" or "Disable" the functionality

Are you able to tell us when this will appear in either "Canvas Release Notes" or "Canvas Deploy Notes"?  I do not see it in either release notes for 2024-04-20 or the deploy notes for 2024-03-27?

[mbmacdonald]

I was able to go into beta (today, 3/22/2024) and try it out, as @dbrace describes above. However, I noticed that I could not really share the screen that I was currently on: the browser where Speedgrader was open, as shown in the screenshot below:

In addition to the infinitely nested "Record" windows (which cannot be hidden), I cannot interact with speedgrader while capturing the screen. So I can't narrate a comment while marking up a student submission, which is precisely the use case I had in mind for this. Am I missing something? Thanks!

[Ash_Y]

Encountering the same issue here as well. This does seem to defeat the purpose of the feature in the first place. In our tests, we also cannot seem to get auto captioning to work for both recorded and uploaded audio. 

Other potentially noteworthy findings:

• Screen Capture needs to be switched from "Disabled" to "Enabled" each time users wish to capture the contents of their screen. The purpose of this appears to have it aligned with the Video and Audio toggles, but a button may be more effective for workflow.
• If users select a window/screen to capture by mistake or change their mind, there is no option to switch window/screen. At the moment, users need to disable and re-enable screen capture in order to make a selection change.