New Discussion Board is Awful

[44008519]

I feel like I'm crazy. The new design has no functionality. If a student post two responses to another's post (which I can see in speed grader) I can't just do a control+F search for that student's name to respond in thread. I have to click on every single post that has a reply (most of which are my own replies) in order to find it. How are you guys using this to grade or to stay involved with the threads? Additionally, none of the students are clicking through to see who has commented on another student's post so they just completely miss giant posts that clarify concepts from ME. In the old format, they could just scroll through and see where the professor has inserted lengthy and clearly important additions to the the discussion. What is the supposed value added to this redesign? 

[Jeff_F · Accepted solution]

In case you were unaware: depending on if your Canvas admin 'locked' this feature option to be on or optional, you may be able to disable it. Take a look at the course Settings > Feature Options > to see if you can uncheck Discussions/Announcements Redesign.

ps. re: measures of sanity...  there are quite a many things going on in this clown world which I've observed as of late which sometimes have me thinking I am in some sort of Truman Show. As we know, the message there is to keep fighting against artificial narratives... 😉

[CMW-PGCC]

THANK YOU! The new design is truly horrible.  When you hide the responses, you contribute to students NOT READING THEM.  Online courses lose enough content with lack of in-person discussion, but this basically turns them into a digital correspondence course - not OK. 

I hope it does not become a permanent change.  I would hate to lose the option to turn that off.

[OCCProfRR]

I wish my college allowed us to get rid of this new design it is utterly horrible.   I am also trying to figure out how to use the group discussion board features.

[tue90553]

This just saved my life! Thankfully our admin did not lock us out of this. Thank you for sharing your knowledge!

[lshulman]

Unfortunately, as of this summer, the option to not use it is no longer available. 

By all means, it should remain an option indefinitely, NOT forced upon all of us. Clearly, many of us have too many complaints about it.

[gcako]

This reply so helped me...! Our tech team allows me to turn it off. Thanks!!

[gcako]

I was just told by my university -- that on July 20th 2024, this redesign will be forced on all institutions. So there is no way to roll it back after that time. I really hope Canvas listens to all these comments here and changes the redesign.

[kmoore2431]

I was told it's going to be forced on July 20th so there won't be an option anymore to turn it off. 

[jcrozier2]

This is not a valid solution.  If your admin keeps this dreadful discussion redesign we have to deal with.  I have LONG posts and reposts from students - they are to thread and not being able to find their post is a nightmare.  They are also to learn and interact with each other - clicking the EXPAND does not work

This is not an answer. This is not a solution to the problem.

[WaelHassinan]

I have the same problem, not able to see all replies in the threads and the sorting function doesn't work. 

[gregtew]

Agree, I teach very large online classes and the discussions are my venue for interacting with my students. The loss of the Sort by Likes tools is a disaster. Now every post is equal (they are not). And with no way to bring the insightful posts to the front page of posts makes the discussion useless.

[gcako]

As of today this feature is now locked. Very sad. Canvas people: please give instructors options to roll this feature set back permanently. This rollout is not ready for prime time!

[lshulman]

<If a student post two responses to another's post (which I can see in speed grader) I can't just do a control+F search for that student's name to respond in thread. >

I refuse to use the new discussion (turn it off) so I'm not familiar with how it works in speed grader. The old discussion in speed grader has an option to view a post in context within speed grader simply by clicking on the link to the discussion. The discussion opens without taking you out of the speedgrader for that student. Does the discussion redesign not work that way? If not, that will then be another problem with it I'd not considered.

[canvas_admin]

@lshulman It will take you to the discussion, but it also duplicates the course and main nav menus (so that it looks like Canvas is nested within Canvas! - see attached screenshot) and it does not take you directly to the student's post to see in context like the Old Quizzes currently do.  It's one of my problems with New Quizzes which prevents me from being able to adopt it for our institution. 

[hburgiel]

One of our instructors also commented that he liked his replies to individual students to be visible to the entire class.  The new format is great for peer feedback on student writing, but not as supportive of a seminar-style learning experience in which the instructor highlights, challenges, or encourages debate on the ideas posted.

[daniela_p_sow]

I agree that the layout could be better in the discussion board. I almost can't even tell what is a student's initial post and what are the replies from peers to follow! I'm worried, too, that my own posts as the instructor, could get lost in the mix of the discussion board thread, and then students would miss any clarifying/helpful comments from me.

P.S. I would love to see the Discussion Board have a completely efficient in-house closed captioning set-up available in the "record media" tool. Why does anyone need to go through Amara or YouTube to make these videos accessible? Canva.com video presentations are easy to record and they provide subtitle generation within a few minutes. I'd like to see Canvas Studio video recording replies do something similar. Instructors like me care about equitable access for all students!

[AlanCook]

I was coming here to lament that in speedgrader I can't see who students are replying to and have resorted to asking them to address that student in their reply...clicking to show the entire thread is useless since I would have to dig/expand every reply to find where they left their reply. Ugh

[lshulman]

Work around (for old discussions): Once you have the entire discussion open and expanded, you cannyse you browser "find" feature to locate all posts from a given student.
This will work in the old discussions. May not help much in Discussion Redesign as the pop out window for each post's replies means you can't "expand" all threads to see all posts at once.
Just one more problem with Discussion Redesign.

[snewman]

This works, but it takes a lot more time than simply having Speedgrader and the Discussion posts align in the same order like the old version did. I'm super frustrated.

[jcrozier2]

Alan - I just said the same thing - that adding the student name so we can see it in grades would have been an improvement (I make them address their classmate by name) but this redesign is not helpful.

[govreacladmin]

Would rather the interface be more like social media - the use of the pop-out of the discussion is annoying you definitely can't see any threads easily. What about multiple due dates - that seems more important that a pop-out.

[lshulman]

Agree about multiple due dates.

As to the issues with the pop-out window... That is now an OPTION ("split screen") that the user can turn off or on as they prefer.

[snewman]

My frustration with the new discussion board is that it doesn't align with Speedgrader any more. I used to have the discussion open on one screen and Speedgrader open on the other. I had my Speedgrader settings to list in order of submission, and I could easily move through the discussion and grade as I went. Now the order is all over the place. I have changed the discussion board settings to list oldest first, but that still doesn't make them match up. This change has effectively tripled the time it takes me to grade my discussion assignments.

[jcrozier2]

YES!  The new board design is AWFUL! 

And if we cannot uncheck it or if eventually you guys decide this is it- you need this feedback.

The hidden threads is awful - but BIGGER than that - it is IMPOSSIBLE to READ which reply belongs to which student because you took away the LINES that surround each post.  You are making it SO MUCH HARDER to READ!   Keep those lines!!!  And when I expand the threads it does not seem to stay - or it seems that way because I cannot see which post belongs to which thread because of the missing lines.

I also hate the two page thing - you are adding extra steps to click to the new page - who cares if it is long and the person who posted about doing control F - yes - that control F will NOT allow me to find a students name on TWO pages.  Do not make it harder.  Redesigns should make things cleaner and simpler for people to navigate.  This is making it so much harder.

Here is a way to make an improvement to the discussion - give me the name of the person the student is reply to.  I have to have students say the name (which they should anyway) so I can see it when I grade.  It would have been nice to see (somehow) the student they reply goes to in the grading feature.  That is an improvement that would be nice on the board.

AND also - using Turnitin on the board for AI and plagiarism.

Do those - not this.

Sorry Canvas - epic fail.

[lshulman]

I turned on Discussion Redesign to test out the newest updates to it. 

It IS improved over the initial Redesign (though I do agree they just should have done something entirely different and less drastic to really improve it's functionality, like add a subject line and a multi star rating for each post rather than the simple "like" option, and multiple due dates)...

The Redesign now has more options on the user end:

1. the individual user can CHOOSE to toggle between "view split screen" (the pop out window that many have complained about) and the more traditional "view inline". I would NOT use the "split screen" view so I did not bother to test how this now works.
2. When you are in "view inline" mode, you then have the option to "expand threads" (to view all replies at once) or "collapse threads" (so as to only see the top level replies). Not sure if a discussion with a LOT of posts might get pushed onto additional pages (just one page that we continue to scroll down on would be more helpful to avoid missing posts at the bottom as well as to use the "find" function to locate ALL posts from a given student).
3. the user can also "sort" posts by "newest first" or "oldest first" (which seems to be based on the timing of the first level replies only, not reordering the sub-level replies).
4. While there is no option to toggle threaded on or off in the Redesign, the default is to be threaded (which some of us might NOT want to use).

I do, however, find it confusing to determine which toggle mode I am in: these buttons read what is NOT the case (the option to change TO). That makes some sense for the "view" and "expand/collapse" options. But "sort" just says "sort" and only says "newest" or "oldest" when your cursor is on the button. It might be easier to display the option that IS activated and have a drop down menu for changing options.

An issue I still have with Redesign is the dot to "mark as read/unread" does not do anything to just click on the dot (like it used to do in the old discussion format). One has to go all the way over to the right to find and click on the three dots to gain access to the menu to "mark as read/unread". It is faster if we could just toggle the green dot on (unread) or off (read) without having to first open a menu to get to that option.

As for me, in my course site, I will continue to use the discussions with "Redesign" DISabled for as long as I am able to control this. The old discussion format did allow some of the same display options ("expand/collapse", view newest/oldest first). 

Are we hearing from STUDENTS in the discussions here or just from instructor/administrator perspectives? What students do not experience (with the Redesign disabled) they will not miss. But they might get as frustrated as we do trying to get accustomed to the new functions of the Redesign. Leave "well enough" alone.

[jcrozier2]

Adding to my own previous comment.  I was able to "turn off" most of the redesign.  And it did give me back the lines around the threads.  However, you can only reply to just one post - instead of me being able to post a reply to someone elses reply in that thread.

[jcrozier2]

Never mind my post today - I realized my button for threaded replies got turned off - I think between new design and changing back.  I had to edit board and click the allow threaded replies button again

[lshulman]

As you now realize, you were not using "threaded" format. Non threaded simply adds new replies to the bottom of a running list of replies. Thus the only place you see an option to "reply" is at the bottom of the list of replies.

I don't know why anyone would want to use unthreaded discussion. Cannot tell who is replying to whom when you have multiple people in a series of replies to any given post.

[gregtew]

Agree, I teach very large online classes and the discussions are my venue for interacting with my students. For me, the loss of the Sort by Likes tools is a disaster. Now every post is equal (they are not). And with no way to bring the insightful posts to the front page of posts makes the discussion useless. I also agree with others that the default of hiding threads/replies means students will no longer read replies.

[SamGarza1]

Hi @44008519, 

We recognize the challenges that change often brings, and I'm sorry to hear that you are having issues with the redesign. Control+F should still be working in discussion threads and if it's not working for you I recommend reaching out to our support team for troubleshooting. We've also updated the search functionality to include user names and @ mentions; which should make it easier to find all posts by a specific user or any time they've been mentioned by another student. 

Many of the changes we've made from the legacy design to the redesign were made to bolster support for accessibility and cater to diverse learning styles. The introduction of inline and split view options empowers all users to select the experience that aligns seamlessly with their preferences and requirements. Like the legacy view though when users are viewing inline they can choose to "Expand Threads" so they don't have to open each thread individually. 

As for new value to the redesign, our team has added features like @mentions, role pills for faculty recognition, additional sort and filter options, full and partially anonymous discussions, and edit history. And while all planned work on the redesign has been completed that doesn't mean our team has stopped looking at future functionality that we can add.

[SeanQuallen]

Are there plans to address the SpeedGrader interface considering the new Quote feature? This is, far and away, the largest criticism I get from my faculty.

I have several faculty who use discussion boards to promote student-student interactions. However, when viewed in SpeedGrader, all posts are presented as isolated, context-less blurbs. 

Why not have the quotes available to view in SpeedGrader?

[mangles]

FYI, the @ mentions is a great way to un-personalize students. Perhaps we should just use numbers.

Really. I work hard to treat my students as adults. This means using their first names.

I am only into the second week with the new discussion features. I find myself explaining to my returning students how they have to work around the Instructure improvements so we can carry on meaningful discussions. Gone is a simple default discussion threads presented in chronological order for all to see.

This is not about teaching an old dog new tricks. This is a management of change (MOC) project that should never had been released to production until it had been live tested with actual classes. 

Not everyone teaches the same way. Not everyone learns the same way. And coders and PMs should NOT have the final say with new releases. Ask me how I know? 

Please listen to the feedback from those that have now used this horrible release. Even using the reply button appears to be a dead link until you figure out you need to scroll up for the reply window.

With that said, I know I am just wasting my time with this feedback, so I will say no more.

~mike angles, West Valley College

[jcrozier2]

Yes!  Canvas please listen to feedback and make changes ASAP!

[gregtew]

The new discussions design as crushed my method of engaging with my students. When you have a large class (my classes are huge), the Sort by Likes option (that is now gone) was essential. I found that as the teacher, it worked best to comment on a students post WITHIN their post. You can see in the attached file that I would highlight key points in a student post and then add my thoughts in blue so everyone could easily see my comments. The LIke button kept the active discussions on the first page of posts which is important when a typical discussion gets several thousand replies.

[HughBonar]

"The challenges that change often brings"? Give me a break. We're telling you the update makes the situation worse while also ignoring other requests for useful changes that still haven't been implemented. So now it's permanent? Great. 

[HughBonar]

Thank you! I agree, the new design is freaking horrible. Canvas, what were you thinking? 

[hesspe]

I've been closely following the discussion that is going on here, and find myself taken aback by the tenor of the conversation.   I take very seriously the negative judgements that people are sharing, especially given the intensity of the feelings that are being expressed, but I can't say I have felt the same sense of discontent as yet.  I and some of my colleagues did a month testing prior to our turning on the Redesign in May.  Our test didn't expose any major issues, but I realize our small demonstration project couldn't give a good indication of  how  a high traffic, high frequency, high stakes implementation would work.  Since we enforced  the redesign in May, at the start of our summer term, though, there have been over Discussion 64,000 participations and 530,000 Discussion page views, in 360 courses, and I am aware of virtually no push back from our users, and no expressions of praise or satisfaction either.  I can't help but wonder, is our community apathetic, or is the change not that dramatic from the perspective of our users, or perhaps the pluses and minuses cancel each other out for them.   If so, perhaps this discussion board is a magnet for discontent that is itself atypical.  I would like to know - not that I expect to find out - is our experience the common one, or is the unhappiness of the posters here more universal than my  personal experience indicates.

[SeanQuallen]

Totally agree with this comment. It's, of course, easier to be concerned about negative impacts of change than it is to be delighted by the positive impacts, but this discussion has turned into a pure gripe session.

I, personally, see it as just another thing to learn and to teach to my faculty. I hope that others can see it the same way.

[cmuir]

There's a big difference between "there are changes instructors will need to learn how to deal with" (always have been and always will be) and "there are changes that are causing accessibility issues for instructors and students", or "there are changes which prevent instructors from using their chosen online pedagogies".  Asking for both accessibility and instructional needs to be met within any change isn't unreasonable or griping.