Issues Found & Ideas for Enhancement

[IvanZheng]

I was conducting some testing in our Canvas test environment around the Differentiation Tag feature, in preparation for our institution’s adoption. During this process, I identified several issues, some of which could be blockers, while others represent opportunities for improvement.

Potential blockers:

• The FAQ states that tags cannot be used to assign group work, but the system does not prevent users from doing so. If a student is in a group assignment that isn’t assigned to their tag, they won’t see it. However, their group members who do have the tag assigned can access the assignment, and all group members receive a score after marking (but the one not assigned to won't see it).
• If a student was previously in a tag and then removed, they may still be able to access quiz or page content assigned to that tag. This does not appear to affect assignments, though.
• CSV import feature is difficult to use. 
  • If a modified CSV is uploaded multiple times, the system appears to retain and use the original version. 
  • Importing tag sets often creates duplicate child tags. 
  • It should be clearly stated whether the ‘Download Template File’ is intended as an export function or simply a template. 
  • Currently, the 'Download Template File' function downloads tag data for the subject, but the data remains unchanged after the initial output. Since the URL includes /export_tags, it appears to serve as an export feature. However, this should be made clearer, and an explicit 'Export' button should be provided to avoid confusion.
  • If a CSV with invalid data is uploaded, no warning is shown. Uploading a CSV with an invalid student adds a 'ghost' student to the tag.

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Suggested improvements:

• When a student tries to access a resource that hasn’t been assigned to them, the message currently says “It is not available to your course section.” We’d prefer it to use more general language, such as “It is not available to you,” without mentioning sections or tags.
• If there are two pages of tags and the user deletes all tags on the second page, a blank screen appears, and they cannot return to the first page. This can be resolved by refreshing the browser.
  
• Sub-tags in the inbox do not display the tag set they belong to. This could be problematic if sub-tags with the same name exist under different tag sets. It’s also inconsistent with how tags are displayed in other ‘Assign to’ areas, which have their tag sets below.
  
• In ‘Tag As’, users should be able to select students first and then create a 'New Tag' directly from that feature, instead of always creating a tag first.
  
• A single tag can be converted into a tag set, but a tag set cannot be converted back into a single tag. Instead, it creates a tag set containing one tag. This doesn’t affect functionality but may be confusing.