Make it possible for faculty to have threads/replies expanded by default in Discussions Redesign

[eric_orton]

I have an instructor who tried the redesigned discussions feature this past semester. She found it to be worse than the "classic" discussions feature for her use for two reasons:

1. She wants students to read replies to other students' posts, but is concerned they won't click the links to do so, making replies collapsed--the only possible default state in redesigned discussions--an undesirable state.
2. She wants her presence in discussions to be easily visible to students, even if she doesn't reply to their individual posts. Again, her concern is that students won't see her replies as they would if replies were expanded by default as in the "classic" feature, because they won't click the links to view replies to others' posts.

I would like to propose an instructor-controlled setting in redesigned discussions that shows all threads in a discussion as expanded by default. As it currently stands, some of my faculty will see the redesigned discussions feature as less ideal than the "classic" version and will be disappointed/unhappy if it becomes the only discussion format available in Canvas.

[canvas_admin]

I agree.  It is clunky to click on "reply" multiple times to see the thread rather than seeing the thread laid out upon initial entrance into the discussion forum.

[lshulman]

< It is clunky to click on "reply" multiple times to see the thread>

In fact, it's not a true "threaded" discussion, as replies are no longer indented to show which level reply they are or which post they are a reply to. New replies simply get added on to the end (more of an old style "bulletin board" rather than a true "threaded discussion". If here is a long, active discussion among several people (rather than a simple back and forth between two people) what could be a lively exchange would get confusing, not knowing who is responding to whom.

[sstramos]

This new feature is very limiting on the interaction between students - the primary reason for discussions! Please give us instructors the option to enable the threads so they are easily viewed.

[pdaves]

Yes, I couldn't figure out how to get the discussion board to automatically show the threads so eventually I had to turn off new features entirely. I need for the discussion board to show all the threads automatically for everyone for it to serve my needs. There's no point in having it (for my purposes) if it doesn't. If you are going to do away with automatic display of threads, please let us know so we can find some other discussion board external to Canvas to use that behaves properly. 

[KatePuckett]

My institution just enabled the Discussions Redesign, and so I'm newly faced with the inability (as far as I can tell) to have expanded threads as the default display. Considering that this topic was first brought up in 2022, and it's now 2024, does that mean that we are not going to get a way to make expanded threads the default without reverting the the classic discussions? Or has there been some way to do this that is not reflected in the Discussions Redesign guide?

[mwolfenstein]

The feature has been improved pretty significantly since 2022 including the addition of the expand threads button. There wasn't actually a threaded view available in 2022 when the new redesign was rolled out.

That said, it would be extremely helpful within a course in the discussions settings to give faculty the ability to have threads expanded by default. I strongly support adding this feature along with the ability for faculty to enforce a default sort order in the discussions as per my comment on Discussions Redesign Coming to Canvas LMS on July 20, 2024!

Just to reiterate over here (since this is the community for this feature and that's the product blog), in the redesign currently posts re-sort based on activity but that doesn't accord with user expectations, and doesn't necessarily resolve the problem that sort by newest first solves. The problem from old discussions sorting by oldest first as default is that old posts will always be at the top and as such newer posts don't get commented on. Instructure responded to this by giving us the default of sorting by newest which is great, but it's kind of undone by things resorting based on post activity. Basically, if any activity on a post causes it to now be tagged with an updated post date/time, then old posts that get commented on will keep floating to the top and getting more attention.

From my perspective, the deep linking on @ notifications (which is awesome, thank you!) helps to keep engagement on replies where there is activity, but if that's not sufficient an alternate approach would be to distinguish between post date and post activity. This would be something akin to how Reddit allows you to sort by new vs hot. Both students and teachers might value the ability to either sort by most recent top level replies that they haven't seen yet or to sort by most recent activity which might include lower level replies and likes (when enabled) since those also seem to register in the current redesign as an activity which affects the sort order.