Releases Q&A: 2022-04-13 Grades Late Label Color Update

[HeatherAhern]

Looking to discuss this feature from the 2022-04-13 Deploy 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

WHERE SHOULD I POST...?

• Idea enhancement feedback to product managers should be submitted in ideas.canvaslms.com (though linking to the idea here so others can find it is welcome)
• Bug reports should be submitted to Canvas Support—bugs will not be triaged in this thread

[mathlete]

I cannot see the Beta version but from another thread, they said it was in ORANGE which is so similar to RED that people that struggle with colors, this is of no help... this is very frustrating as a teacher to see students just see this "sea of red" on the screen and parents and students alike cannot easily differentiate late vs missing... I also am not seeing the "beta" version either... this should be a SIMPLE fix especially since teacher's side late is in BLUE already... so please change student view to "LATE" in BLUE as well in the beta format and then push out Canvas-wide

[SusanNiemeyer]

We are kind of heading in the right direction, but ORANGE is still a fairly aggressive color. What about BLUE instead? And, what about adding a marker for assignments submitted ON TIME?

Seeing a sea of GREEN would give positive reinforcement to students. Right now, the only markers are punitive: LATE and MISSING.

Let's give our students this experience:

ON TIME

ON TIME

ON TIME

LATE

ON TIME

MISSING

LATE

ON TIME

Rather than this one:

nothing

nothing

nothing

LATE

nothing

MISSING

LATE

nothing

[SusanNiemeyer]

Blue is much better than orange. When I receive a "late" assignment, I want to send my student this message: "You did it! You're catching up!"

Orange is still punitive. It's like: "You're late! What's wrong with you?"

@HeatherAhern  - If the Canvas developers can change "Late" to orange, they can change it to blue. Someone is making an arbitrary decision with the color scheme without listening to teacher voices. 

[breklis]

Thank you so much for pushing this through to beta!  So exciting!  I'd like to propose an enhancement... I just looked at a grades summary page from a student's perspective in beta and the orange color for late is very similar to the red color for missing.  Like other posters have said on the original idea thread, the orange (like the red) appears punitive, rather than encouraging.  Can we change the color for late to something else?  Blue would be great... and it would align with what instructors see by default in their own gradebooks.  I LOVE @SusanNiemeyer's idea of green for on time, blue for late, and keeping red for missing.

Thanks again!

[breklis]

Thank you so much for pushing this through to beta!  So exciting!  I'd like to propose an enhancement... I just looked at a grades summary page from a student's perspective in beta and the orange color for late is very similar to the red color for missing.  Like other posters have said on the original idea thread, the orange (like the red) appears punitive, rather than encouraging.  Can we change the color for late to something else?  Blue would be great... and it would align with what instructors see by default in their own gradebooks.  I LOVE @SusanNiemeyer's idea of green for on time, blue for late, and keeping red for missing.

Thanks again!

[SusanNiemeyer]

If Canvas eventually adopts a green "On Time" tag, I might suggest a lighter blue for more contrast. 

ON TIME

LATE

MISSING

[jsailor]

Thank you for posting your comments about this change. I first want to assure you that these changes are not just arbitrary changes. There is actually quite a lot of thinking and discovery work that is done before any changes are made in Canvas, even small changes such as this. As an educator myself, I hear the concern about the messages that colors send our students. In fact, in some classes, I have gone so far as to let my students know what colors of pens I have available - physical and virtual depending on where the grading is done - and allowed them to designate in which color they would prefer to see my comments added. 🙂 

Blue is used as guideposts in many of our physical surroundings, such as signs on the highway. Also, in other areas of Canvas to indicate that information is being provided to the student. Given this, and the requests that we've heard, coupled with the opportunity to encourage students who are getting caught up in their work, we agree that blue is a great color for this adjustment. We actually made this change in the code last week and are just working through the process of getting this deployed. We anticipate this going to production tomorrow as blue and will update the deploy notes to reflect this as well. 

As for the request to add a tag for on time, we do not plan to add this at the current time as many other users have shared that they are concerned this will result in information overload for students. 

[mathlete]

Thank you so much for pushing this through, I know educators, students, and parents will ALL appreciate the blue. I also agree that "on time" is information overload, and just to focus on changing "late" to not be the same color as "missing".

Thank you so so sooo much!

[jsailor]

Just to follow up - this change has now been deployed to beta and the deploy notes are updated. It is still scheduled to roll to production with our production deploy tomorrow. 

[SusanNiemeyer]

@jsailor 

Thank you so very much for making the "late" codes blue. I absolutely love how these new "late" tags look. So do my students. 

And, yes, I agree that "on time" tags are unnecessary. As I allow my students to make up late work, the angry red sea of "missing" tags is being replaced by a calming sea of "late" tags.  

Thank you so very much.

Susan 

[breklis]

This is wonderful news.  Thank you so much!