Releases Q&A: 2021-06-19 SpeedGrader Comment Library

[erinhmcmillan]

Looking to discuss this feature from the 2021-06-19 Release Notes? Post a reply and start a conversation!

POSTING GUIDELINES

• This topic is for feature discussion only—please share use cases, best practices, etc. regarding this feature
• Please thread replies as much as possible to keep posts organized
• Feedback to product managers about idea enhancements should be submitted in ideas.canvaslms.com (though linking to the idea here so others can find it is welcome)
• Bug reports for this feature should be submitted to Canvas Support—bugs will not be triaged in this thread

[A_K_Dekker]

Great to see this feature implemented in the Speedgrader! Are there any plans to make the comments available inside the docviewer anotation tools? This would allow the teachers to place the comments where they are applicable.

[jsailor]

The scope of this project is for SpeedGrader only, but this is an interesting idea that we could look into further. In full transparency, this would not be something that would be added in the near future due to other projects and enhancements on our current roadmap. 

[A_K_Dekker]

Hi @jsailor ,

thanks for explaining this further. I saw the annotation options in docviewer as an integral part of the Speedgrader, so at first I didnt understand your remark about focusing on Speedgrader. But thinking about it more it occurred to me that docviewer also has a function outside the Speedgrader so I understand why this would probably be harder to implement. 

It would never the less be a great addition and one that is sorely missed in Canvas at the moment.

[sitesk]

Is there access to the comment library inside the teacher app?

[erinhmcmillan]

Future enhancements for the teacher app will be posted in the Product Roadmap when available.

Thanks!

Erin

[AdamKempler]

Jsailor,

We need the option of building a library of comments and using them in the docugrader in order for the comments to be tied to individual sentences and words.  Please let me know when your design team can add this feature.

Thank you

Adam Kempler

College of the Canyons 

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi @AdamKempler 

Your request sounds like https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Idea-Conversations/DocViewer-Annotations-library/idi-p/488268; I'd recommend subscribing to that idea to be notified when an update is available.

Thanks,

Erin

[cheryl_colan]

@A_K_DekkerI was just playing with the Speedgrader Comment Library and the annotation tools. I found I could start an annotation, then go over to the comment field and insert one of my library's comments. Instead of submitting the comment, I cut and pasted it into the annotation's text box. It's a few extra steps, and not ideal, but that works for me for now. I suppose a more efficient order of operation would be to generate the comment in the comment field, cut it, use an annotation in the doc viewer, and then paste the comment. This will work for me for now.

[p_a_hudson]

It's a good start. Some of our staff will find it really useful. Two obvious improvements. Module (course) feedback banks so that the teaching team can provide consistent feedback and filtering options so staff can filter their personal comments by the module they are used on.  I'd also echo what @A_K_Dekker suggested. Comment banks that could be added as annotations would be brilliant

[jsailor]

Thanks for the feedback. We can absolutely see the value in having these comment banks available to all graders in the same course. We opted to move forward with scoping to user at the current time so that instructors can use their bank across courses, rather than needing to recreate/add them in each course individually. We do plan to do further discovery around how we can expand this to fit the needs for large courses with multiple graders.

[venitk]

I don't think I have a way to test this because of how our account is set up: if Instructor A saves comments, then the course is copied for Instructor B, does instructor B see A's comments saved in the library? 

[jsailor]

The comment library is currently scoped to user, so each individual user will have their own comment library that is available to them across their courses. Given this, no, instructor B would not see instructor A's comments in the library. 

[lezonl2]

Great feature, but I don't know how intuitive it is. I would think most faculty would instinctually type the comment then want to add it to the library verses creating it in the library. We also just guessed that it had to be clicked to be added as feedback. A plus sign or similar icon would be helpful. 

[jsailor]

Hi @lezonl2, both of these are actually items that we had in our initial designs, but posed accessibility challenges as originally envisioned. When adjusting designs to alleviate those concerns, we then ran into the problem of overcrowding the space at the bottom of the SpeedGrader, which would compromise the user experience for all. I will keep this on my list of future enhancements to be made when we are able to make updates in other areas to improve the overall experience.  

[lezonl2]

Out of my own curiosity, how is the click of an object without any change in hover state better for accessibility than offering a tool that is more obvious and consistent with what we see in other tools (like the three vertical dot menus, +, etc.),  I don't ask to criticize, I ask to understand. 

[r_v_jones]

I feel this is a step in the right direction.
I wonder if there could be an easy way of grouping such comments, as if you mark on several assignments / courses you might want to organise your responses.

[lezonl2]

I foresee a request for a search box in the library in the future.

[r_v_jones]

I agree, I think there will be a need as it expands in use

[michelledennis]

At Haileybury, we have some specific requirements for how teachers should deliver feedback.  We feel that feedback should be tailored and high impact - we specifically require teachers not to use comment banks for this reason.

We would like to, on an institution or sub-account level, have the ability to turn this feedback off.  We feel that it will pull away from the high expectations in terms of kind of feedback we have been expecting teachers to deliver.

[p_a_hudson]

Related to this. While you do not provide the granularity of configuration we would like to see. The custom CSS and JavaScript options have allowed us to hide functionality that wasn't suitable for our institution. (For example, you idea of moderation, isn't the UK's idea of moderation). Up until recently, the CSS was usually marked up in a fashion that was easily identifiable. With recent releases, I've started to see unintelligible CSS. For example the class for the the new comment library is

fOyUs_bGBk fOyUs_desw bDzpk_bGBk bDzpk_busO bDzpk_fZWR bDzpk_sGoV

With no ID, there's pretty much no way of knowing if I can target any of these classes to hide that block without potentially causing issues elsewhere (and I'm assuming these classes are dynamic?). Yes, there are other ways to target that block. But it's better if it is easy so all can do it.

Can we please go back to targetable classes and IDs? Otherwise as @michelledennis highlights, we need fine grained configuration facilities to switch off features that are inappropriate for our institution.

[r_v_jones]

So following some more testing I'd like to offer these thoughts.

So, whilst this initially looks like a great step forward, it is somewhat limited.

• Firstly, you can’t type a comment and then add it to the library, instead you have to enter it in library initially.
• It’s not possible to edit the text of a comment in the library.
• There appears to be now way to share these comments across markers. please correct if I am wrong.
• Is there a way of ordering the comments in the library, as they simply appear in creation order and not alphabetic?
• On the topic of ordering, since these are shared across all courses / assignments a teacher is enrolled on it would be good to have some form of filter so markers can group comments together.

It would be good to be able to offer formatting in the comments or ability to paste hyperlinks etc

@lezonl2 said I think a search facility would be useful.

Positive is any comment you use from the library can be edited when pasted into the comments for the student.

[kirsten_ryall]

I know that some of our educators keep comments handy on a document outside of Canvas and copy/paste them across as required so I can see this addition being well received. I agree with nearly all of the comments posted above. It is a good start and I look forward to seeing the 'refinements' as they are released or deployed. I quite like that the comments are linked to a user and not a course but can also see use-cases for sharing comments between educators for consistency and potentially institutional compliance as well. I noted that the icon is very small and potentially easy to miss so we'll probably have to find a way to make our educators notice it (perhaps that new release notes interface will do that job for us though). I also understand that over-crowding may be an issue. Potential silly question to follow: how does it work on the mobile apps?

[lnorth1]

SpeedGrader Comment Library is an excellent feature, fabulous to see it coming through next release!  I also love that the comment is then editable once inserted, so it can be personalised. 

I agree with the comments above... Being able to add comments direct in-text (Docviewer) from the comment library would be the ideal - we often have 15-20 short comments per document, and an overall comment in the main comment pane. Would love the flyout to be static while marking in-text, and able to insert into active comment, adding a student's name and additional detail for personalisation.  

And perhaps one day in the future, folders to enable filing and filtering abilities to show relevant groups of comments only (e.g. relevant to a course or assignment only).  #WishList!

[marthazumack]

I'll echo what others have said - first, that this is a very exciting feature to see!

But also that there are a few things that our staff would really need to make this actually usable:

• a way to organise comments
• rich text so that links can be clickable once pasted in
• the ability to edit comments

Having this tool available for docview is definitely a #wishlist item too, but this is a great start!

[eddie_bonetdiaz]

I  want to add to this!

Areas to improve:

• Ability to add more than one comment
  • if you click on an item in comment library, then click on another one, instead of adding it to what you have written it replaces everything.
• a way to organize messages will be needed

I'm not sure if I missed an update but I AM able to edit the comments I have in my library. Overall good enough. Those two things though would be enough to not care about not having it in docview for me 

[nicki_alori]

Hi, I love this. Will it work on the Teacher App too? ie will comments be available there for the teachers?

[slubisich]

This is a qustion coming up on our campus as well. Many faculty like to use the Mobile App for grading. Will there be an opportunity to use this tool there?

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi @slubisich 

Future enhancements will be posted in the Product Roadmap when available.

Thanks!

Erin

[jddevlin]

This is a great addition for us, but we'd also like to be able to add comments from the comment library directly as in-text annotations via Docviewer.

I also see many of our teachers wanting to share (say via an export/import tool) or the 'Copy to' feature a particular comment library. To that end, a way to categorise a series of comments either for one course or another would be useful.

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi, all,

Just a reminder: official feedback to product managers about idea enhancements should be submitted in ideas.canvaslms.com (though linking to the idea here so others can find it is welcome).

Thanks,

Erin

[anagui81]

Hello! This is a great feature, will be very appreciated by faculty. 

It would be amazing if you can add text to speech button to leave comments on library and use files and media comments too as you do it in Speedgrader. 

[cheryl_colan]

@anagui81 The speech recognition button in the Manage Comment Library panel is a fantastic idea. For now, you could use the speech recognition in the Speedgrader comment field and then cut/paste the comment from there into the Comment Library as a workaround.

[cheryl_colan]

I just want to add that I'm very happy to see this feature in Canvas LMS. I think you will see big demand for these future improvements:

• the ability to organize or group the comments (as several others have mentioned)
• a way to import a comment bank - so many people have already put together their own documents full of reusable comments. It's a shame the only way to bring them into Canvas is one at a time.
• sharable comment banks - having every user need to make their own seems really inefficient when we could share with one another
• adding individual comments or a user's whole comment library to the Send to feature to enable sharing

[alward]

I have faculty ready to buy Annotate Pro, but they are really interested in where Canvas hopes to go with this.  Their biggest issues would be in this order:

1. Ability to share comments and also have other instructors/TAs in the course USE their comments for consistency.
2. Use in doc viewer/Rubrics.
3. Better Organization.
4. Ability to Export.

I put these in order of interest because if they were to see progress coming they would forgo their Annotate Pro purchases.

[meena_kahlon]

Hi all!

This comments library is great but it would be more helpful if it could be shared across all graders in the course. Here is a link to my suggestion for this feature: 

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Idea-Conversations/Share-Speedgrader-Comment-Library-Across-Grade... 

[alward]

Thank you - that is what I was trying to figure out!

[EricCentauri]

How do I get rid of it?

When I grade I paste comments in the comment box, delete as needed, then 'shift-tab' up to the grade box and type in a grade.  This new feature is now an extra 'shift-tab' keypress for every student, for every assignment, and I don't want it.

If it doesn't exist already, please add a way to disable this if users won't take advantage of it.  Thanks!

[tam_nguyenmaith]

Thanks for a great feature!

In addition to the above recommendations, I wonder if the speed to text function can be turned on inside the comment library so teachers can quickly update the comments.

[willmoin]

Yeah, like the others have said a good start, but a bit lacklustre.

1. Maybe we are spoilt by Turnitin's Quickmark feature but we'd want to place a comment linked to a specific section of a paper to show them where we are commenting on
2. Only one comment from the library per feedback submission? Again maybe "we're using it the wrong way" but we would probably use just one feedback submission per submission for the overall comments (see point 1), but if we were shoehorned to use it this way then we'd want to place multiple suggestions from the library, at the moment it seems that you can only place one and when you do this that it overwrites anything else you may have placed in this field. If your intention is that multiple feedback submissions are made then I can see why you reinforced the message about turning off automatic posting of grades, but it's a poor implementation
3. Related to three, a tutor can't place a comment from the library anywhere in the box and when they do it overwrites anything they already wrote, so I can see a lot of unhappy users here