[Discussions] Bring back push notifications for discussion boards.

I'm not sure why push notifications for discussion boards were disabled, but please reenable them.  I'm a student and they were a great way to get notified when there was a new post, or response.

43 Comments
rachel_page
Community Participant

Couldn’t agree more

tragarz_roberta
Community Explorer

Ditto!!!!!!!!😶

riki_thompson
Community Member
Please bring back push notifications for individually chosen discussion boards.
 
Classes just started and I created a discussion board for students to ask questions and share ideas - it is a central go-to place and has been extremely important for student learning and cultivating a learning community online in the past. Last week I told students to set notifications so they can stay abreast of new posts but then discovered this feature has been disable. This is unfortunate and it will certainly mean that students will be less likely to use this space that can support their learning by creating a virtual community that works similar to other social media platforms that they are accustomed to.
 
Push notifications for discussion boards is such an important piece to students actually using the discussion board! While a global push for boards in one class is not ideal because some boards are assignment focused and students will go to the board in response to assignment deadlines, the ability to set push notifications for specific boards (like classroom community boards, student sharing spaces, FAQ boards) are extremely helpful. Please bring back push notifications!
A_Persaud
Community Novice

I am a student. There should be an option to get notifications whenever a new comment is posted in a discussion board. I used to get notifications, but now I do not. And maybe the option to choose specific discussion boards you want notifications for.

Wretched0123456
Community Member

I just tried to create a post on this and a Canvas member refused to publish my post because "it is already being discussed" after I told them that the issue is Canvas's fault for removing a feature that is vital to discussion posts. The fact that the company did not bring awareness to this feature being disabled is beyond sneaky as students and teachers can no longer receive notifications based on their own initial posts. The solution can not be tons of emails for a person responding within a discussion ... the number of emails I would receive was too much especially when most of the emails were not even based on just my post but for any and everything within the discussion. 

The point of the software is to simplify our lives not make it more difficult and the fact tech users for this company are unaware of the system's capabilities is ridiculous. They continuously sent me "How To" documents when in fact the notification options for all devices are disabled by Canvas and users are unable to click the setting as it was turned off by them. One rep on this site felt the need to tell me there is difference between SMS alerts vs Canvas App push notifications ... I had to explain why would I want text messages when the purpose of the app is to notify me? This really shouldn't be this hard but is creating issues for users. 

JBMaurice
Community Explorer

I get too many notifications for new topic / new reply by e-mails and I don't check them in due time.

It seems like the push notifications on smartphones do not work for these features, strangely. It would be the push notifications the most useful to have though.

rbc4
Community Novice

I agree that push notifications should be reinstated!

Since the discussion notification default is "off", probably 99% of students and instructors don't even know it existed, but for those of us who use it, it is a big loss to not have it available! Also we have a recent doctoral dissertation that shows with data that push improves discussion see https://etda.libraries.psu.edu/catalog?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_field=all_fields&q=garbrick

 

note that email push is turned on below in this very discussion

meichelberger
Community Member

Anyone know the status of this??? Still waiting..... I need this back for my classes.... for when students need immediate help, to ask questions that I could benefit everyone in the class, clarify instructions, and the list goes on and on....Without this my email becomes bombarded

MarlonSadler
Community Novice

Please enable discussion post notifications.  I'm a student and they were a great way to get notified when there is a new post, or response to your posts. 

Felderburg
Community Member

Hi, my school started using Canvas this semester, and so far I really like it. However, both of my classes have used an 'introduce yourself' type discussion, and the notifications for discussions are terrible. Currently, it seems like there is no option for me to only get notified of replies to the posts I make? Is that correct? I can only get an immediate email, or summary emails, for *any* reply to a discussion, even if it's not mine? I have currently resorted to using ctrl+f to find my specific posts by my name, to see if there is an individual response.

I can see how some discussion topics might warrant this sort of thing, but I get the feeling that most of these classes' posts will be a 'reply to the topic and then a few classmates' sort of thing, and it is absolutely untenable to get an email with just dozens of posts that aren't relevant to me.