Canvas Release Notes (2020-04-18)

[#1]

Upcoming Canvas Changes
Ready Releases
Beginning 2020-03-28, Canvas teams will be modifying the release process to include additional updates on a weekly basis. Features included in these additional releases are designed to provide immediate solutions to institutions and are all opt-in via feature options. Please see the Ready Release Features page for additional details.
Ready Releases are a temporary process until further notice and will be in addition to regular monthly Canvas releases. Additionally, during this unprecedented time, features introduced as part of a regular release date will be opt-in feature options until July 2020 if supported—some Canvas features do not support feature option functionality. On 18 July 2020, all previously introduced features will become default for all institutions, unless otherwise indicated.
                            

In this Canvas release (April 18), assignment menus in the Gradebook include a link to SpeedGrader. 

Additionally, TLS protocol support for TLS 1.0 and 1.1 will be removed from Canvas.

Feature Options

• The Mute Notifications by Course feature option displays a notifications button in the Course Home Page and allows users to mute all notifications for the course.
• The Limited Submission Attempts feature option limits the number of submissions that can be made for a Canvas assignment.
• The Confetti for On-Time Submissions feature option generates a virtual celebration when students submit assignments on time.
• The Rubrics in Course Navigation feature option moves the Manage Rubrics button from the Outcomes page to the Course Navigation Menu.

External Tools (LTI)

• For institutions using New Quizzes, Multiple Answer questions allow instructors to award students partial credit with penalty if a student selects an incorrect response. This grading option will be the default for new Multiple Answer questions with an option to use Exact Match instead.

Release notes describe upcoming Canvas functionality and are subject to change.

• Follow the Canvas release notes space to be notified of updates
• For all release changes to this document, view the Release Notes Change Log
• If you notice any contrary functionality compared to the outlined behavior in these notes, please file a Canvas support case according to your institution's support protocol
• Deprecations and end-of-life announcements related to Canvas Platform Services (APIs, GraphQL, Canvas Data) are located in the Canvas Platform Breaking Changes page.
• Other questions? View the Canvas Release Notes FAQ

• New Features
• Notifications
• Mute Notifications by Course
• Updated Features
• Assignments
• On-Time Submission Celebrations
• Limited Submission Attempts
• Gradebook
• Assignment Header Menu SpeedGrader Link
• New Quizzes
• Multiple Answer Partial Scoring
• Rubrics
• Course Navigation Rubrics Link
• Platform/Integration
• Browsers
• TLS Protocol Changes

Release Notes Change Log

New Features

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Notifications

Mute Notifications by Course

This feature can be enabled in Canvas through a feature option in Account Settings. Please view the content below for additional details. For more information about feature options, please see the Canvas Release Notes FAQ.
                       

Configuration Details	Mute Notifications by Course Feature Options doc
Affected Canvas Areas	Course Home Page
Beta/Test Environment Support	Yes
Affects User Interface	Yes
Affected User Roles	All Users
Feature Enhancement Ideas	View existing Notifications feature ideas
Specified Tag for Feature Ideas	Notifications
Community Idea Contributions	https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/3663-notifications-by-course  https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/1179-users-need-to-be-able-to-customize-notifications-at-the-c...
Feature Video

Summary

Users can mute all notifications for a course where the user is enrolled.

Change Benefit

This change allows users to mute all notifications for a specific course.

Affected User Roles & Behaviors

All Users

When course notifications are enabled, the Course Home Page displays a View Course Notifications button. The icon in the button displays the status of the notifications: enabled or disabled.

Course notifications are enabled by default. In the Course Notification Settings page, users can choose to disable notifications for the course.

Note: When course notifications are enabled, notification preferences must be configured in the Notification Preferences page. Granular course notification settings can be configured in a future release.

Updated Features

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Assignments

On-Time Submission Celebrations

This feature can be enabled in Canvas through a feature option in Account Settings. Please view the content below for additional details. For more information about feature options, please see the Canvas Release Notes FAQ.
               

Configuration Details	Confetti for On-Time Submissions Feature Options doc
Affected Canvas Areas	Assignments, User Settings
Beta/Test Environment Support	Yes
Affects User Interface	Yes
Affected User Roles	Students
Feature Enhancement Ideas	View existing Assignments feature ideas
Specified Tag for Feature Ideas	assignments
Community Idea Contributions	https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/11044  https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/11571
Feature Video

Summary

Canvas generates a virtual celebration when students submit assignments on time.

Change Benefit

This change helps students engage with Canvas and encourages students to submit assignments on time.

Affected User Roles & Behaviors

Students

Celebrations take place in Canvas for on-time submissions, which include both an initial submission and any resubmissions for any file type before an assignment due date.

If students prefer to not have Canvas display any celebrations, they can choose to hide all celebration animations in their User Settings page. 

Note: This feature option is included for all users and defaults to off. Students only need to adjust this feature option if the Confetti for On-Time Submissions feature option has been enabled and students want to opt-out of the animations.

Limited Submission Attempts

This feature can be enabled in Canvas through a feature option in Account Settings. Please view the content below for additional details. For more information about feature options, please see the Canvas Release Notes FAQ.
                      

Configuration Details	Allowed Assignment Attempts Feature Options doc
Affected Canvas Areas	Assignments
Beta/Test Environment Support	Yes
Affects User Interface	Yes
Affected User Roles	Instructors, Students
Feature Enhancement Ideas	View existing Assignments feature ideas
Specified Tag for Feature Ideas	assignments
Community Idea Contributions	https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/1799-restrict-assignment-submission-attempts
Feature Video

Summary

Submission attempts can be limited in Canvas assignments.

Change Benefit

This feature allows instructors to limit submission attempts for students.

Affected User Roles & Behaviors

Instructors

By default, assignments can be submitted an unlimited number of times. However, instructors can choose to limit the number of attempts a student can make for an assignment by using the Attempts menu.

Students

When an assignment is limited in attempts, they’ll see the number of attempts they’ve made as well as the number of allowed attempts.

Gradebook

Assignment Header Menu SpeedGrader Link

Affected Canvas Areas	Gradebook
Affects User Interface	Yes
Affected User Roles	Instructors
Feature Enhancement Ideas	Existing Gradebook feature ideas
Specified Tag for Feature Ideas	gradebook
Community Idea Contributions	https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/12695-add-speedgrader-back-to-the-assignment-drop-down-menu
Feature Video

Summary

Assignment menus in the Gradebook include a link to SpeedGrader.

Change Benefit

This change helps graders access SpeedGrader more easily. This change does not affect the Grade Detail Tray, which also includes a link to SpeedGrader.

Affected User Roles & Behaviors

Instructors

Each assignment menu in the Gradebook includes a link to SpeedGrader. When selected, SpeedGrader opens to the first student according to the filter set in the Gradebook.

New Quizzes

Multiple Answer Partial Scoring

This feature is used in conjunction with an external tool (LTI) in Canvas. Please view the content below for additional details. For more information about LTI tools, please see the Canvas Release Notes FAQ.
                       

Configuration Details	New Quizzes LTI
Affected Canvas Areas	Quizzes
Affects User Interface	Yes
Affected User Roles	Instructors
Feature Enhancement Ideas	Existing New Quizzes feature ideas
Specified Tag for Feature Ideas	New quizzes
Community Idea Contributions	https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/2443-multiple-answer-quiz-question-partial-points-without-pena...
Feature Video

Summary

Multiple Answer questions allow instructors to award students partial credit with penalty if a student selects an incorrect response. This grading option will be the default for new Multiple Answer questions with an option to use Exact Match instead.

Change Benefit

This change allows instructors to award partial credit when Multiple Answer questions are auto-graded. This change also provides parity with Classic Quizzes behavior, contributing to a smoother migration to New Quizzes.

Affected User Roles & Behaviors

Instructors

In addition to the Exact Match grading option for Multiple Answer questions, instructors can choose to award partial credit with a penalty. When this option is retained, students are awarded points for every correct answer selected and deducted points for every incorrect answer selected.

Clarification about each grading type is located in the Grading Help menu. Documentation about how to create a multiple answer question is also included in the Learn More reference link.

Existing New Quizzes Multiple Answer questions will retain the exact match scoring.

Newly created Multiple Answer questions will default to using partial credit but can be switched to exact match if desired.

Students

Students are not directly shown the grading option used. However, along with their total score, they can view their selected answer(s) and any missed options in the question.

Rubrics

Course Navigation Rubrics Link

Configuration Details	Rubrics in Course Navigation Feature Option
Affected Canvas Areas	Course Navigation, Outcomes
Affects User Interface	Yes
Affected User Roles	Admins, Instructors
Feature Enhancement Ideas	View existing Rubric feature ideas
Specified Tag for Feature Ideas	Rubrics
Community Idea Contributions	https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/13491
Feature Video

Summary

The Manage Rubrics button has been removed from the course-level Outcomes page and added to the Course Navigation Menu.

Change Benefit

This change allows course rubrics to be accessed more quickly. Additionally, the workflow is more intuitive as outcomes are not required within a rubric.

Affected User Roles & Behaviors

Admins

At the account level, the Rubrics button already exists in the Account Navigation Menu, but the Manage Rubrics button has also been removed from the Outcomes page.

Instructors

Rubrics can be accessed through Rubrics in the Course Navigation Menu;

Instructors who open the Outcomes page no longer view the Manage Rubrics button.

Note: Rubrics can still be viewed in concluded courses but only in a read-only state. 

Platform/Integration

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Browsers

TLS Protocol Changes

Summary

Support for TLS 1.0 and 1.1 will be removed from Canvas.

Change Benefit

This change ensures all customers are using the highest encryption protocols to protect user interactions with Canvas. TLS 1.0 and 1.1 protocols support usage of ciphers that do not sufficiently secure web traffic by modern standards and can easily be decrypted.

Affected User Roles & Behaviors

Admins

Users who rely on browsers to interact with Canvas should test their applications using the beta environment to ensure correct functionality, as support for TLS 1.0 and 1.1 will not be available after 20 June 2020. Users who rely on TLS protocols should ensure they are using the latest version of each supported Canvas browser. Users may be affected if applications are parsing page content or using a script against Canvas APIs. Background regarding these changes can be found in Deprecating TLS 1.0 & 1.1.

Release Notes Change Log

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Date
2020-04-14	Changed—Updated Features Rubrics: Course Navigation Rubrics Link changed to opt-in feature option
2020-03-30	Added available feature videos (from screencast) to feature sections Changed—Updated Features Assignments: On-Time Submission Celebrations changed to opt-in feature option
2020-03-23	Release Notes Published

[adehart]

Where is the option for an admin to disable the "Confetti for On-Time Submissions" option for the entire account?  When I viewed this option in Beta, it did not have an option to disable this feature.

Thanks

Angela

[venitk]

Lots of great stuff in this release! I recognize a lot of them from the ideas process. Offering partial points for multiple answer in New Quizzes will be hugely helpful. 

Question about the Rubrics added to the Course Navbar: Will this be visible to students? I'm guessing not, but wanted to ask (can't log into Beta at the moment). This will be really useful as many of my instructors don't know how to find rubrics in outcomes.

The ability to mute course notifications will come in very handy for us IDs. I'm in some courses as an instructor just so I can enroll people, but I really don't need to get the notifications.

Fewer clicks to SpeedGrader will also be much appreciated. 

Thank you!

[chriscas]

Hi  @adehart ‌,

The way I'm reading the notes, disabling this feature is done on a per-user basis, no account option.  While I guess there's no real harm with this feature, I'm not sure if we'd enable it at our higher-ed institution if we had a choice.

This feature really highlights my frustration or perhaps lack of understanding about the feature request process...  The ideas linked to this feature had a total of 8 votes up and 1 vote down.  I don't understand how something like this gets developer time allocated when feature requests with hundreds of votes get no action for years.  I'm sure this one was way simpler to implement than Granular Permissions (my #1 request), but it surely required some time for the animation and to have the opt-out option on the user page.  Seems to me that development time could have been put to use on something with more votes.

Just my two cents, maybe I'm too grumpy today...

-Chris

[adehart]

I'm grumpy today as well and being in higher ed, I want to be able to disable K-8 items such as confetti.  

I also agree with your other points, I'd much rather function over flash.

Angela

[curtain]

Not too grumpy.  That is a reasonable question for sure.  

[buellj]

This year's WTF feature (last years was the Siri integration): Do users have to go into user settings to turn on the confetti, or is it turned on by default for all users? If the latter, this needs to be made an account-level feature we can turn off. THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR NONSENSE. The developer/team that came up with this should be re-deployed to T1 support if they have this much time on their hands.

[ehills]

I'm excited to hear that we'll be able to do partial credit for multiple answer questions. Does this calculation method feature also apply to category questions?

[sciosciap]

I echo your concerns, Angela. I am also very concerned that students can now turn off notifications for courses. Seems like it will cause more problems than it solves.

[dgrobani]

It appears to me that that's a feature option, meaning your institution can choose to activate it or not.

[stephen_poulter]

Agree with you as well Chris.  Really hoping that there is an api endpoint to be able to turn it off.  Not convinced by it being set to on by default, perhaps it should be at the assignment level. I work for a university and can't see us wanting this feature being enabled for our students.

[chriscas]

Hi dgrobani‌,

It's optional for a few months.  The Enforcement Date is listed as July 18, meaning at that point it'll be enabled for everyone.

I think there are some pro's and cons for course notifications though.  We're hesitant to create many non-academic course sites in Canvas because a lot of people want to use the for communicating with students.  Currently, in that scenario, is students become annoyed with notifications, they'd have to shut them off in their user preferences, which affects all courses.  With this new option, there is at least a choice to just shut off notifications for a single course and keep them on for others.  I hope this is very clearly communicated to users though (the link at the bottom of notification emails needs to somehow be adjusted to show there are options to shut things off just for that course or globally).

-Chris

[michellemeazell]

John, you're my new hero!

[kedmison]

Chris' comment X 1000.

Looking in our beta instance, there is a listing for the celebration feature at the account level, but it is set "on". I suppose you could right a JS plug-in to disable this, but that seems like a terrible way to have to manage this.

[marco_divittori]

This needs to be an account level feature option especially for higher ed institutions. We should not have to resort to JS or API endpoints to manage availability.

[stephen_poulter]

Looking at the settings available at root account level, I'm hoping this is something a CSM can disable if necessary

[dlyons]

I think this is exactly the time for a little cheer.

Positive re-enforcement through this small act of acknowledging an on-time submission will have a positive impact on a learner's desire to submit on time. Just like I appreciate being politely thanked when I return a library book on time; they didn't have to politely thank me because I'm required and expected to return it on time, but I sure do feel good that they did.

Education, little kiddos all the way up through PhDs, can benefit from a little more positivity.

ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory

[Chris_Hofer]

Question about the Rubrics added to the Course Navbar: Will this be visible to students? I'm guessing not, but wanted to ask (can't log into Beta at the moment). This will be really useful as many of my instructors don't know how to find rubrics in outcomes.

The new "Rubrics" course menu button appears to be a Feature Option that needs to first be enabled at the account level.  Once that is done, "Rubrics" will appear as a course navigation button, and it can be hidden from the course navigation via How do I manage Course Navigation links?.  But, I kept it visible in my own sandbox course, and then went to Student View.  The "Rubrics" course navigation button was not visible in Student View.

[Kelvin_Dean]

In regards to limited submission attempts in New Quizzes, what would happen if the Allowed Attempts is set from within Assignments and not within New Quizzes?

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi, Kelvin,

New Quizzes isn't associated with this functionality, so the setting in assignments will not affect it.

Thanks!

Erin

[buellj]

I appreciate that you have a different opinion. Many view false positivity as passive-aggressive, inauthentic and inappropriate. The universal reaction at my institution has been negative - which is why this needs to be a choice up to individual institutions. As a student I would find this insulting.

[Kelvin_Dean]

Partial credit still does not apply to categorization questions.

The formula is (% of correct choices) - (% of incorrect choices). During preview runs, we set the number of points to be the number of correct choices in the question, as we really don't like decimals in point values.

The score is correct with 3 correct and 1 incorrect, so 3 - 1 = 2. Had Answer G not be selected, the score would be 3.

Partial credit still does not apply to Categorization based questions. With 21 options in the bank, this student should have gotten a score of 5 out of 21 (6 correct and 1 incorrect).

(Whenever we conduct a Fastest Finger First round, the student with the highest score in the FASTEST time wins.)

[ehills]

Yeah, it's important for kids to know that they should not sort all the answers unless they are 100% certain of the answer. I think the way teachers view this is as a double penalty for a wrong answer. I work at a middle school so trying to explain how it calculates these questions can be a little tricky and we try to avoid tricky when it comes to assessments. Thanks for the info and screenshots!

[James]

 @Kelvin_Dean  

This statement is not the way partial credit is calculated.

The formula is (% of correct choices) - (% of incorrect choices).

Some people wanted that, but it is done the same way with new quizzes that it was done with old quizzes.

For example, let's say I had a 12 point question, of which 3 of 4 correct answers were chosen and 1 of 2 incorrect answers was chosen. According to your calculation, it would be 3/4 - 1/2 = 75% - 50% = 25% for the score.

However, it is 6 out of 12 or 50%. 

Canvas only looks at selected items. In this example, let's call the student Casey because it's a nice gender-neutral name and it matches up with the Casey student in my paper explaining how the process works, there were four items marked.

The formula is

( number of selected correct responses - number of selected incorrect responses ) / (number of correct responses)

You then multiply that by the number of points possible.

( 3 selected correct responses - 1 selected incorrect responses ) / (4 correct responses) = 50%

Casey would get a 6 out of 12 points.

Avery selected all responses. In your formula, [s]he would get (4/4 - 2/2) = 100% - 100% = 0%

Instead Avery gets 6.

(4 selected correct responses - 2 selected incorrect responses) / (4 correct responses) = 2/4 = 50%

50% of 12 is 6.

In your example, the student selected 3 out of 4 correct responses and 1 out of 4 incorrect responses.

That makes the calculation

(3 selected correct - 1 selected incorrect) / (4 correct responses) = 50%

Since the question was worth 4 points, the student got 50% of 4 = 2 points.

The only reason (% of correct responses - % of incorrect choices) works is because you had equal numbers of each type

I wrote a lengthy paper explaining how multiple answers questions are graded with old quizzes. Thankfully it is done the same way now. I just double checked Jordan, Casey, Peyton, Avery, and Riley in the Example Students section of the paper and they all matched exactly what I wrote for the old system.

That process is explained in great detail in Understanding Multiple Answers Questions 

[clockett]

We also second this, as an Higher Education institution , we would like the ability to disable On-Time Submission Celebrations at an account level.

[venitk]

Perfect, thank you for checking. I don't know a single instructor who doesn't have a whole bunch of defunct rubrics in there, and if they allow student access, they'd have to deal with publishing and unpublishing rubrics, etc. Not allowing student access is the way to go, in my opinion.

[venitk]

There's a big difference between a universally respectful thank you and a storm of confetti, which is normally associated with children. Please keep in mind that you're not just designing this software for right now, this moment in time. Yes, right now we could use some cheer. I've watched my share of toddler cooking shows. But in two years, that cheer may start to grate.

As an ID in higher ed, I train a lot of instructors who enter our certification course as "students." Some are not that excited to be there because they've been teaching for 30 years and don't like the idea of being graded again and having to submit assignments. I think at least some would view the confetti as annoying or patronizing. 

My MBA students are already well-established in their field, often with an MD, a PhD, or are in the military.  @dlyons , I respectfully disagree that most MDs inundated at their hospitals and doing MBA work at night, or an officer in the Army earning their MBA while deployed overseas is going to like the confetti. I also don't think they're going to have time to figure out how to turn it off. (I myself have barely looked in the user settings area.)  

I think this is an awesome idea for the K-8 crowd. It's very age appropriate for a kid audience.

It seems like a perfect compromise to allow us to decide whether we want to turn it on for our institutions, especially considering how so many people have said it's not appropriate for their students. 

[marco_divittori]

Agree with you  @venitk ‌ and tbh I'm a little resentful that we've had to invest this much time discussing such a feature when we all have more pressing matters to attend to. It's clearly not a universally applicable feature. IMO the sane choice here is to make it an account option.

[venitk]

My husband (also a prof) had a different point: on the screen it doesn't say why the confetti. Like, it doesn't say "you submitted on time, yay!" so students won't really know why they're getting it. He is not against it on principle (he thought his students would probably be mildly annoyed but that they have bigger things on their minds right now), but he did think that unless it says why the confetti, the celebration seemed virus-y. ie, some students might think they accidentally downloaded a virus. Something to consider.   

[venitk]

One more thought to draw an analogy to the confetti in my real life:

Whenever my son used the potty, we used to cheer and clap. Eventually he grew out of the need--and desire--for positive reinforcement to do that particular task that's expected of him. Now he would be quite confused and think it's babyish if I clapped and cheered every time he used the potty. As he aged, we changed the method of positive reinforcement. Now when we're trying to get him to establish new habits, we don't clap and cheer. Instead we say "Thank you for doing XYZ," or "I appreciate that you did XYZ because ABC." And he beams because he's being treated like an adult rather than a little kid. So yes, we still give him positive reinforcement (or "nudge" him, according to the link shared), but it's not the same positive reinforcement we gave him when he was younger. 

For young students just learning how to submit assignments and understand things like due dates, this is totally appropriate. But not for close-to-retirement professors, middle-aged Mayo doctors fighting a pandemic, or captains in the Army.  @dlyons ,  you said you appreciate a polite thank you for returning a library book on time (I just use the book drop, so I don't even get that), but how would you feel if whenever you did so, the librarian clapped and cheered? What everyone is saying is we're not against positive reinforcement, but we don't think this positive reinforcement is age appropriate for our students and would like the option of turning it off for our accounts. 

Here's more information about my students, if you're curious: Our Students | Wisconsin Online MBA Program  

[marco_divittori]

Are you providing this excellent feedback to your CSM as well? I think it would be helpful if we all did.

[Jeff_F]

While a visual stimulus may well cause the neurotransmitter dopamine to release thus spawning an ever so brief rush of pleasure which tends to motivate a person to repeat a behavior, I’d opine that your higher ed market typically has less frequent assignments so the conditioning benefit of such a nudge isn't fully realized. 

Perhaps I am biased as I also disabled celebrations in Asana as I disfavor such distractions.  Or perhaps I have now achieved curmudgeon status.  :smileycool:   But how about that rainbow unicorn in Asana?  Extra fancy, yes...?

From Asana -- 

[dlyons]

omg that unicorn! 

[cbward]

Very excited to see the on-time submission celebrations! Little things like that make a difference to the students' confidence, regardless of age. You can turn it off if you don't want it, but, especially with everything going on around the world lately, we could all use a little celebration for doing something good!

[ellen_peters]

This release contains a lot of features that will be highly appreciated by our users, I think. Especially the Mute notifications by course, we have been waiting long for that. I am also happy with the Limited submission attempts, Speedgrader link and Course navigation Rubrics link. Thanks!

[chriscas]

For the Limited Assignment Attempts option, will there be a moderation option similar to quizzes so a teacher could give an extra attempt to a single student, if necessary?  I don't see any mention of that in these notes, nor do I see any option like that when I'm looking at Canvas Beta right now.  I'm pretty sure a moderation feature is going to be a necessity for almost anyone who enables this new feature, so I hope I'm either missing it right now or it's going to be released very quickly (within a month or two).

-Chris

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi, Christopher,

No additional functionality is included with this feature. If that's something important to you, please ensure it's captured as a feature idea in our Ideas‌ space, as I guarantee our product team is always keeping an eye on your requests!

Thanks,

Erin

[Kelvin_Dean]

Actually, yes, but only when the New Assignment Workflow for Teachers is released (First Look: Teacher Assignment Enhancements > New Assignments Teacher View > Students > Accommodations > Attempts Allowed), as shown from InstructureCon 2019‌ > .

[venitk]

erinhallmark‌

Thank you for changing the celebrations to opt-in! This actually helps us a lot during a stressful time by saving us the need to communicate this feature to our stakeholders and provide support if they want to turn it off. I appreciate that you guys listened to feedback from the higher ed audience.

Changed—Updated Features

• Assignments: On-Time Submission Celebrations changed to opt-in feature option

[venitk]

erinhallmark‌, do you all have an ETA, even very rough, of when the new assignment workflow for teachers is being released? Eg, Q3, Q4, or even not until 2021? We're starting to plan our annual professional development meeting for our faculty, and if it's released by Jan 2021, we might want to include that in the agenda.

[marco_divittori]

While it's great that celebrations has been moved to an account feature flag, apparently it will still be forced on for all clients in July. I'd prefer to see it remain an option in perpetuity. If others agree please inform your CSM.

[venitk]

 @marco_divittori ‌, oh dear, I missed that. Yes, that's not ideal. 

[chriscas]

Yep, we just heard that from our CSM yesterday.  I think it's great the feature has now been moved behind a flag, but I agree with  @marco_divittori  that the flag needs to stay permanently (not go away in July).  I let our CSM know that yesterday too, and I think others should definitely do the same.

[rmurchshafer]

I heard that not only will the celebrations be there for everyone in July, there will also be different celebratory themes you can pick from.  Initially there will be 10 stock themes in addition to the one we've seen in beta, but then a Celebratory Theme Builder© will be released so schools can create their own.  I think in August the plan is to release the ability to apply different themes for late submissions.  Obviously no confetti and unicorns for those and Canvas is a little worried about what to actually put in themes for late submissions.  A wagging finger maybe?  Skull and cross bones?  Anyway, this is why they want to get the Celebratory Theme Builder© out in production first so schools can build their own to use for late submissions.  

The Rickster

EDIT: This post was an April Fools joke.  I know of no new plans for a Celebratory Theme Builder©.  It is all fiction as far as I know.  

[buellj]

Yes - please make a fuss about this. I don't understand why it's so hard for Instructure to understand that this needs to be a choice. This is not an encouraging sign of the new administration...

[marco_divittori]

Thanks for the additional info  @rmurchshafer2 ‌. This one is a real head scratcher for me. I mean who doesn't like a flying unicorn really, but I'm quite certain we all have items on our respective feature enhancement lists (e.g. more granular permissions, improved speedgrader filters, ability to hide groups, etc.) that we would consider to be higher priorities. 

[buellj]

Indeed - there are SO many broken features and such a long list of more useful enhancement requests hat this should have never risen to the top of any list. It sends the wrong signal about Instructure's priorities.

[erinhmcmillan]

Oh, Rick. Out being a jokester again... 

[marco_divittori]

I see that you deleted your more fulsome post Rick. Shame on me for falling for your joke. This isn't Reddit and I think that we all have more on our minds this year than April fools.

[robyn_reese]

chriscas I agree!  I won't turn this on at my institution until there is a way for extra assignment attempts to be provided to individual students--students often need to complete assignment resubmissions and, as far as I can tell based on my testing, there is no reasonable way to do that without offering extra attempts to everyone, which defeats the purpose of having the limit in the first place. 

 erinhallmark do you have any idea when the Assignment moderation feature will be enabled? 

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi, Robyn,

The extra attempts feature you all would like is on our product team's roadmap, which has been adjusted based on world events! But they're aware of the need.

The option to enable this feature will be in the production environment on April 18.

Thanks,

Erin