Initial post sorting date, discussion revision: major issue

[LaramiePaxton]

Hello everyone the discussion revision is creating a terrible problem trying to reply to students' initial posts. 

The issue 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!

[Jeff_F]

To help with this I am thinking of a filter button that enables instructors to view only those initial replies that they have not posted a comment on. Just an idea.

Or sorting only on the date of the initial reply, thus not sorting on the dates of replies at levels 2, 3, etc.

[mwolfenstein]

I like @Jeff_F's proposed design solution, and it's very much in line with what I've suggested a number of times in conversations on this site about this feature. Just to put that feedback in one place, I would really like to see the options to sort by "New" (i.e. sort by post date) and sort by "Hot" (i.e. activity) to use the Reddit UI terminology as separate filters. Sorting by post activity can definitely be useful, but it isn't a replacement for being able to sort posts by date.

With this in mind, I don't really think that @LaramiePaxton's post has been "solved." This is a design choice or a bug for which there is no end user work around. As far as I know Instructure has not let us know whether the current sorting functionality is a bug or is working as intended. Either way, I view it as extremely problematic and would really like to know if it will be remedied before the enforcement date since the resorting that happens currently significantly undermines both the workflow for most instructors and the main benefit conferred by sort by new as default. If the redesign is enforced with this feature working this way, I'm going to be fielding grievances from a lot of unhappy faculty.

[Jeff_F]

Hiya! I 'unsolved' this per your note. 🤗

Additional faculty feedback:

While the expanded ability for students might be nice, I can't say it helps me know which posts I've responded to and which ones I still need to without going through all of them every night.  Seems like all of them have new posts due to the replies.  Not finding that to be very time helpful.  

[mwolfenstein]

That's the sort of thing I expect to hear a lot from my faculty if enforcement happens with this feature still working this way. To put it another way, it's going to make managing a good discussion extremely difficult effectively punishing faculty who develop good prompts and get their students engaged in vigorous discourse.

[Sylvia_Ami]

Thank you @LaramiePaxton for bringing this to everyone's attention. Now that I look closer, you're right, the sorting doesn't make sense. One main reason it would be helpful to sort all posts (at all levels) so that instructors can determine the following:

• Students' activity such as the last date a certain student submitted to the discussion. 
• How long it's been since anyone posted to the discussion. I don't see any "activity" date listed on the Discussion page or in the discussion itself. On the Discussion page, the discussions are arranged by recent activity, but that doesn't tell an instructor how long ago the most recent post was.

[dbrace]

Instructure/@SamGarza1 is currently requesting feedback to sorting in a Product Blog post at Discussion Redesign Updates.

[BrianEvans1]

This is causing me headaches as well. I have a lot of worksheets must attempt before seeing other responses. The first response is MY response with my answers - but now it is last. Students will have to scroll down to find my answers - and it seems the default is "first post last" ... and even if you resort it, if you leave the discussion and come back, it overrules your resort and goes back to first post last. I really dislike this. Instructors should have the ability to force the default for all discussions to be like it used to be. (And, on different note, I wish Canvas would allow my first post (instructor post) to roll over every term - so that I do not have to go upload my answers and videos for every discussion).