Feature Q&A: Canvas Release Notes (2025-02-15)

[InstContentTeam]

Looking to discuss these features from the 2025-02-15 Release Notes? Post a reply and start a conversation!

New Features

• Copy Content: Copy Course Page Enhancements [Delayed as of 2025-01-29]
• Grading: Account Level Default Grading Scheme
• Import Content: Import Content Page Enhancements [Delayed as of 2025-01-29]

Feature Options

• Login: Login and Registration Enhancements [Delayed as of 2025-02-05]
• New Quizzes: Question Bank Migration on Course Copy

Feature Preview Change Log updates

• Enhanced Rubrics

Other Updates

• Accessibility Updates: Enhanced Structural Clarity
• Accessibility Updates: Improved Error Feedback
• Authentication: Enforcement of Implement Token Validation in OpenID Connect

Platform/Integration

• Assignment Custom Parameter Data with Leading Zeros Stripped During Course Copy
• Updated Deployment ID Naming for LTI Compliance
• Validation_context and error do not launch in LTI Launch claim objects

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

[dbrace · Accepted solution]

Two things related to "Copy Content > Copy Course Page Enhancements".

1. Is this the "Copy Course" feature that is found within the "Settings" area of the course or the "Copy a Canvas Course" option when using the "Import Course Content" feature?  I am asking because both areas have changed and in the pictures in the release notes imply that this is only for the "Copy Course" feature.
2. When using "Settings > Import Course Content > Copy a Canvas Course", would it be possible to include the SIS ID a line below the name of the course (or nickname if one is being used) and above the name of the term?

-Doug

P.S. When using "Settings > Import Course Content > Copy a Canvas Course" as a teacher, I really like how nicknames appear when searching.

[paulamiranda]

Hello, we've been keeping an eye on the New Quizzes: Question Bank Migration on Course Copy update since it was added to the January 18 release. Can someone please clarify whether this is meant to work when using the Import Content >> Copy a Canvas Course setting, or from the Copy this Course function (which is disabled for instructors at our school). If it helps, we opened Case #11515065 to report the issues we experienced when trying to test and validate this feature. 

[dbrace · Accepted solution]

Two things related to "Copy Content > Copy Course Page Enhancements".

1. Is this the "Copy Course" feature that is found within the "Settings" area of the course or the "Copy a Canvas Course" option when using the "Import Course Content" feature?  I am asking because both areas have changed and in the pictures in the release notes imply that this is only for the "Copy Course" feature.
2. When using "Settings > Import Course Content > Copy a Canvas Course", would it be possible to include the SIS ID a line below the name of the course (or nickname if one is being used) and above the name of the term?

-Doug

P.S. When using "Settings > Import Course Content > Copy a Canvas Course" as a teacher, I really like how nicknames appear when searching.

[dbrace]

After reading further down, I see that both features ("Copy Course" and "Import Course Content") are being updated. Sorry for bringing up #1.

-Doug

[dbrace]

For "Login > Login and Registration Enhancements", has anyone been able to find it in the root account's settings under "Feature Options"?

-Doug

[dbrace]

FYI for others: If you are using JS and CSS, make sure to read this.  I am not sure if this was the case before this update.

Additional Details

The updated Login User Interface and URLs do not support running custom javascript/css overrides for security reasons.

-Doug

[jperkins]

@dbrace This has been updated and should be visible now. A newly identified bug in our deployment management tool caused this feature to not be toggled correctly on the intended release date.

[dbrace]

Thank you for the update, @jperkins. I am able to see it but I am not able to make any changes and it says "Disabled" if I hover my mouse over the area to make adjustments.

Is that related to the bug?

-Doug

[jperkins]

@dbrace Thanks for letting us know. It is modifiable now. 

This issue wasn't related to the bug, but the engineer who manually enabled it making it visible but not unlocking it.

We have gone ahead and enabled the new login UI on Free-for-Teacher beta as well for interested folks. https://canvas.beta.instructure.com/login/canvas

[dbrace]

Thank you!

-Doug

[ellen_peters]

Regarding the Import Content Page Enhancements: I noticed that the sorting in the content selection menu is also changed (see images). 'Copy a Canvas course' and 'Canvas course export package' are no longer the first two options. Instead the sorting is now alphabetical, except for 'Unzip .zip file into folder' which is the first option (why?).
In our situation 99.99% of the imports is the 'Copy a Canvas course' import. I am afraid teachers will accidentily select a wrong option in this new menu. So can the order of the Content type options please be changed to the old order?

[dbrace]

Hi @ellen_peters,

I am not sure why it is different for me or you but I see the following order (there is more below the D2L option) below when in beta.

I tried as both an admin and as a teacher and the order was the same.

-Doug

[ellen_peters]

Hi @dbrace, 
Thanks for your reply. I did some further investigation and it seems to be related to the browser. In Chrome and Edge I see the same order as in your image. But in Firefox I see it in a different order (already have emptied the cache and viewed in a private window). I will create a support case.

[dbrace]

You are welcome, @ellen_peters, and thanks for doing the additional research and for creating a support case.

-Doug

[jenn_stevens]

@ellen_peters Any updates from your support case? We are seeing the same thing as you (different order in Chrome and Firefox) when testing this morning.

[ellen_peters]

Hi @jenn_stevens , last Friday I received an update that a fix was deployed on the beta environment. I have checked it today and the order in Firefox is now the same as in Chrome. But I am not entirely happy, because now the order in Firefox and Chrome is different from the current order in the production environment. The first item in beta is now 'Canvas course export package' and the second item is 'Copy a Canvas course'. I don't know if that's part of the fix, or has been changed earlier. I will ask support why it is not the same as on production.

Update 24-2: support replied: "this change was intended. Previously the order was randomly generated, while now the listing order has logic behind it. We are not planning on reverting this change."

[snugent]

I have a few concerns about the course copy. Is there a reason the drop down menu to choose a course from your ID is gone? I realize once you have a certain number of courses, you will only have to search, but I tested this with my dummy instructor, and there was no drop-down menu. This is going to be problematic, and I can already hear our faculty complaining if it goes into production like this. Also, please make a distinction between copying a course vs copying this course in the release notes. We also have disabled copy this course for faculty. It's confusing when you post a screenshot for copy this course. 

[KataKeri]

hey @snugent,
We've just tested it with the engineering team and the search based on ID are present and works for us.
If the issue is still present in you case would you please submit a support week ticket for us, with detailed steps to reproduce with your dummy instructor? A screen share is also fine. 
--Kata

[snugent]

I submitted a case, 11726556. Basically, when an instructor chooses to Copy a Canvas course, the course drop-down menu is missing. The dummy instructor I tested this with only has six courses on the ID. 

[KataKeri]

@snugent Thank you, this will be solved soon - we'll make sure that the production release won't have this issue. 

[KataKeri]

Could you further elaborate on why is copying a course and copying this course can be confusing, please? I'd like to understand. 

Clicking on 'Copying this course' will open the Copy course page. (see screenshot 1). The release note section for Copy content is related to that page. If you've disabled this for faculty, they won't see this page. But this is the name of that page. 
'Copying a course' is part of the Import page (see screenshot 2) - and we've updated that too and mentioned in the  release notes also. 

The two pages are different and can be accessed differently.

[dbrace · Accepted solution]

Hi @KataKeri,

I cannot speak for @snugent but it would be helpful if a course's SIS ID appears in the dropdown menu while searching for a course.

The name of a course may be helpful for an instructor.

The nickname of a course provided by instructor maybe helpful for an instructor.

The SIS ID will be helpful for both admins and instructors because they provide specific information for both roles.

If possible, it would also be helpful if the Canvas course ID is there too.

-Doug

[kda106]

We also had confusion about these two updates. Our staff and faculty are not able to see/use "Copy this course" as well. And since importing course content frequently includes selecting "Copy a Canvas Course", it was unclear as to which action was being affected. As you said "The two pages are different and can be accessed differently" but the similar terminology used in Canvas ("Copy this course" and "Copy a Canvas Course") along with the way the release notes refer to the "Copy Course page" is making it hard to differentiate between the two affected areas.

[crafte]

Has anyone tested the upcoming account default grading scheme in beta? A question was asked concerning the account grading scheme in the recent Instructure New & Next webinar. According to the information provided by one of the presenters, we should see the following for courses without a grading scheme selected:

If the account level default grading scheme is set,
then at that moment:
- Current courses WITHOUT ANY set grading
scheme would receive the Default Grading Scheme
upon setup.

This was not the case when we tested the account grading scheme in beta. After selecting a new default scheme, courses without a scheme selected (check box in course settings unchecked) did not receive the default scheme we set but, instead, received the Canvas default grading scheme. Our expectation was that the default grading scheme we set at the account level would be applied to courses without any existing scheme enabled. 

[abbyrosensweig]

Agree, this doesn't work the way we expected at all. We set a grading scheme for a subaccount then created a new course in that subaccount. The presence of a subaccount default grading scheme turned on "Enable grading scheme" in the newly created course, but applied the Canvas default grading scheme, not the grading scheme we'd made for that course. Is this how this feature is expected to work? It seems counter-intuitive to us to not have the subaccount's grading scheme be the one applied to a course in that subaccount.

[rmartini]

For the Login & Registration Enhancements, are we going to be able to modify the background of the left side of the screen or will it always be white? Our current logo/wordmark includes our university logo with the words in white text (and looks a bit odd at the moment). We can use a different version of the logo, of course, but I'm curious if we'd be able to use something other than the white background.