Discussions Redesign - Major Issue

[jawmedina]

I noticed the redesign was put into place on our campus and I noticed a major issue for my classes. Overall, I think the redesign looks great and has positive aspects, but it make it extremely difficult to track my replies. 

I try to "spread the discussion love" to all of my students. The thing that has helped me do that is the lists of posts in Date Posted order. That feature seems to be completely wiped out. Additionally, if I try to sort by newest or oldest, it sorts by replies instead of just posts. Further, if a student's post doesn't get any replies, it will stay at the top or the bottom depending upon the sort so they will likely be excluded from the discussion. This seems as if it will cause DEI issues. 

Also, the read/unread should be fixed. If I read the post, I should be able to click on the dot to mark it read. I should not have to mark the replies as read before the it shows the post is read. 

Leaving everything else the same, is there a way to have posts stay in date submitted order so the most recent reply doesn't push the posts all around the discussion?  Also, is there a way to leave the post as read even though there are new replies? 

[mwolfenstein]

I know this topic has come up in another post, but this one is focused on this issue so I wanted to register here that I just experienced a serious exacerbating issue around this problem. I have a course where different student cohorts get access to the same discussion over time. When I returned to a discussion where I had marked all of the cohort 1 student posts and replies as read as I worked through them to create a sum-up announcement about the discussion, all of the posts and replies had been reverted to the unread status. I suspect this happened when the discussion was assigned to the new cohort (cohorts are managed in sections). It's pretty disastrous for my workflow as I'm trying to work through just the cohort 2 responses now for the second sum-up announcement integrating just their replies.

[lshulman]

I agree that once a post or reply is marked as read, it should not automatically revert to unread.

But wondering...

What is the purpose of having multiple cohorts using the same discussion? Why not make it a group discussion, so each cohort gets a clean discussion to work in? 

Or make multiple copies of the discussion (if they need different availability dates) for multiple cohorts?

[mwolfenstein]

Fair question. I have a unique use case, but I suspect that the issue it created for me is nonetheless potentially problematic for other use cases. I train my faculty and certify them for teaching in Distance Education formats. In the course that I run, there are 4 cohorts that run sequentially and each one includes 6 weeks of instructor paced content (primarily the discussions). Later cohorts get the benefit of the participation from earlier cohorts in these discussions, and a handful  of the earlier cohort members will continue participating after the 6 week run for their group has concluded. It's been working extremely well, but as I noted it's a unique use case. Nonetheless, something happened where the posts all reverted to unread and that definitely shouldn't be happening and never happened with old discussions.

[jawmedina]

I agree it is a problem for regular use too. I try to spread out my comments to be inclusive of all students. The problem goes even beyond marking read threads as unread. When someone replies to a read post, not only does it mark the post unread, it also moves that post to the top or bottom (depending upon the sort). In your case, that means discussion posts from past cohorts will end up at the top of the discussion as if they are part of the current cohort. Students will not realize they are replying to what is essentially a dead thread.   

[lshulman]

When I experimented with the Redesign earlier this year (couple months ago), I seem to recall finding that the "unread" indicator appears on the top level, previously read, post only to alert the user that there was one or more "new" replies within the thread. In addition, this thread then relocates to the top of the discussion due to the "newest" post being a new reply in what might be a much older thread.

However, as soon as you OPEN (expand) the thread, you see the "unread" indicator ONLY on the new replies that you'd not yet seen/marked previously as "read". 

It is deceptive and problematic when thread change location based on newer replies deeper into the thread.

I don't recall if there is a "order by date" option to keep threads in the order they were originally posted (date of top level post). Does order by "oldest" accomplish this? That could help by at least keeping posts in order based on the date of initial post vs date of replies.

[ErikFritsvold]

Thank you for raising this issue.  The constant reshuffling of the order of posts in the new model is highly problematic.  At the time our Univeristy adopted the new model, I was overseeing a program with 10 faculty teaching in Canvas, including myself.  In the ten years I have worked in this capacity, I have never received such strong and regular negative feedback from students and faculty.  One class of 21 students was particularly vigorous one week and had nearly 350 original posts and follow ups in a single discussion board.  It was nearly impossible for that faculty member, and the students, to make sense of the chronology of the board, monitor each post, and respond strategically and in a timely fashion.  I am pleading with our University Canvas point people to try to broker a solution to this and give individual faculty the option to retain the "old" model with the simple chronological logic.  

[hesspe]

Although one would imagine the ideal to be software that is flexible enough to meet everyone's particular needs, in reality applications that try to do that become bloated and difficult to use.

Regarding these two points:

- if I try to sort by newest or oldest, it sorts by replies instead of just posts. Further, if a student's post doesn't get any replies, it will stay at the top or the bottom depending upon the sort so they will likely be excluded from the discussion. This seems as if it will cause DEI issues.

- Also, the read/unread should be fixed. If I read the post, I should be able to click on the dot to mark it read. I should not have to mark the replies as read before the it shows the post is read.

In my differing view, for general use, these design decisions represent a very desirable strategy for promoting engagement.  If someone replies to a post, the thread containing their newly added thoughts gets floated to the top (assuming Newest First sort is selected), and the thread itself gets updated as "unread."  That provides a structure that optimizes the possibility of drawing students' (and instructor's) attention to new content.

Overall the way this design seems to me to be very thoughtful and respectful and superior to how most discussion boards and social media that I interact with operate.  I want to give the design team get some props for considering the issues deeply and coming up with a good general-use solution.  If others agree, I would encourage them to voice their support because there has so far been more negative than positive feedback.  

[lshulman]

<there has so far been more negative than positive feedback.  >

This is a common tendency just about anywhere. "The squeaky wheel gets the grease". Complaints are more common than praise. Perceived problems stand out like a "sore thumb". 

< superior to how most discussion boards and social media that I interact with operate. >

That is part of the problem. People don't like change. They like what they have become accustomed to. But when forced to adapt to new circumstances (the changes) eventually they find "work arounds".

People who do not like the discussion threads to jump around based on new replies, would simply opt to set their user end option to "oldest at top".

Though I still would not want a previously read post to show up with the green "unread" marker lit up again. Perhaps these top level posts of the thread can just have a green number to the right showing that there are new replies (same way the discussion show the number of new posts in upper right). Though I do think, when the thread is expanded, it will be easy to see which posts in the thread have been previously read (including the initial/top level post) and which replies are new (unread). The green dot on the previously read post(s) will disappear once the thread is expanded.

But while we talking about improvements to how that green dot works... PLEASE make it easier to toggle it on and off (as in the old discussion format). Why make it a two-step process by forcing a menu to open and then we have to click the desired menu item just to turn off (or on) the green dot?

[mwolfenstein]

@lshulman @hesspe It's true that people don't like changes to UX, but that doesn't mean there aren't real and obvious UX issues with the way the redesign is shuffling content currently. Basically, what we have now is a functionality that entirely defeats the point of one of the key redesign elements that was most heavily requested. Furthermore, since they removed sort by likes and converted likes into an activity that makes a post float to the top as newest, you can't even tell without expanding a post whether it's up top because it has a new comment or someone just liked a comment under it.

Personally. I think the solution to this is to offer more options for sorting. Allow us to sort by post date (default to newest), by most replies (default to most recent), and by likes (default to most). It would empower the user with different ways to engage in the discussion including ensuring that new top level posts will float to the top through the default UI setting instead of being drowned out by older posts that keep getting commented.

Just to add a use case for your consideration, how many times have you used a discussion or forum environment where one thread devolves into a back and forth argument between two people? With the current content shuffle, one post where two students were arguing would essentially be fixed at the top of your discussion by default.

[Mittelstadt]

I have also been frustrated with the new redesign of the Discussions threads and have experienced similar issues with sorting posts. When I go to sort from newest to oldest it brings up posts that have the newest replies rather than the newest initial post. It has made it extremely difficult to follow students thoughts and replies and make sure I have responded to everyone.

[LaramiePaxton]

The issue I have is that it is sorting them based on the last reply instead of the initial post date. I have never had that be the case in any learning system I have used and I cannot find initial posts that I have not responded to without scrolling up and down every time. There is no way to change the functionality on my end. 

Currently the old system displays the initial posts in chronological order no matter when the last reply was. I am hoping that this can be restored because it is difficult and time-consuming to use this way. I selected the option to only view the unread messages, but it includes all of the replies not just the initial posts so again I am basically forced to scroll up and down through the entire page every time I need to respond which is four times a week.  The initial posts are not in chronological order and there is no way to set them this way.

Instead of new posts coming at either the very top or the very bottom they are getting scattered throughout the entire page based on the date of the last reply so that I have to scroll down the entire page to see any new initial posts in order to reply to them. I have never had this with any learning system and it is not how the current discussions function so please do whatever you can to get canvas to fix this issue!