Need Ability to Lock EXPAND THREADS on Discussion Board Forums

kmclenna
Community Participant
5
355

The summer 2024 Canvas LMS updates resulted in a locked default of "Collapse Threads" on all discussion board forums. [Users can over-ride this setting but the "Expand Threads" button has to be clicked on every time a forum is opened.] The new "Collapse Threads" default is problematic for students -- since they often do not know they need to open-up the threads AND simultaneously may not read the instructions on class site forums.

Based on the above, an instructor-level ability to lock the "Expand Threads" view on discussion forums is needed.

A related concern with the summer 2024 Canvas LMS updates is how EVERY edit and deletion to a discussion forum is captured AND the edits/deletions ARE listed in the "Collapse Threads" view. In this way, if a faculty member deletes a thread on the forum (and a student does not know they need to click on the "Expand Threads" button), it looks like student threads have been removed from the discussion forum by the instructor.

Based on the above, an instructor-level ability to NOT track format changes/deletions on a discussion board is needed.

If you are a faculty member or Canvas administrator that agrees with the above feature requests, please support these requests. Also, please let me know if you have a suggestion for where I should post these requests in the Canvas Community site [for maximum reach within the Canvas Community (?)].

Thank you in advance.

5 Comments
JamesSekcienski
Community Coach
Community Coach

@kmclenna 

Since you are encouraging discussion with others about the Discussion Redesign, I would recommend reviewing/using the Discussions/Announcements Redesign group while it is still available.  This group has been the centralized area in the Canvas Community to talk about the Discussion Redesign while it was still in development.

I know I have seen multiple users (myself included), agree that they would like the ability to "Expand Threads" by default.  This has also been suggested as an Idea for Instructure to consider for development.  Based on some recent comments, this is one of the features they are currently investigating.  This was also one of the options that I ranked as a high priority in the recent survey that was shared.  You can learn more about the survey at Discussions: Help Us Improve and participate before the survey closes to share your thoughts.  In the meantime, a user script was shared to automatically click the "Expand Threads" button on page load.  You could share this with your Canvas admin to see if this is something they support using and/or may consider integrating into the Canvas theme.  This is only meant as a workaround until Instructure is able to develop something similar as a native feature. User Script to Auto-Expand Threads on Discussion Boards 

As for the other suggestion ('an instructor-level ability to NOT track format changes/deletions on a discussion board is needed'), I don't recall seeing that discussed yet.  This is something that would also be good to check to see if an Idea has been submitted yet.  If not, then you could write up a description of the problem that is caused by not having this feature and a brief description of how this feature would help solve that problem. 

kmclenna
Community Participant
Author

@JamesSekcienski -- Thank you!!! You have provided me with the exact information I was looking for (but was unable to find in the Canvas Community labyrinth on my own). In turn, I just took the survey, bookmarked the Discussions/Announcements forum, and will submit a ticket to include the user script (to auto-expand threads) in my Canvas course sites.

Again, thank you for your definitive reply to my post.

JamesSekcienski
Community Coach
Community Coach

@kmclenna 

You're welcome 😀

Jeff_F
Community Coach
Community Coach

@kmclenna  you must have the wind at your back this week! Guess what is about to happen!?

@TamasBalogh announced yesterday in the Product Blog that several improvements are on the horizon for Discussions. And the list for Q4 2024 includes enabling users to save their preferred expand/collapse setting. In addition, and bonus points to the development team, instructors can choose which setting they prefer and can chose to lock that view for course users. This will be at the discussion level. 

Here is the blog - 

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/The-Product-Blog/Discussions-End-of-Quarter-update-Q3-2024/ba-p/6... 

kmclenna
Community Participant
Author

@Jeff_F  - Thank you for the link to the product announcement blog! 😁