[Discussions] Thread Live Updating

[STARSHIP21]

Problem statement:

When you're in a discussion & you're looking at the posts in the discussion, they don't automatically update, so you can't see additional posts unless you reload the page, which can be frustrating considering that it may take several reloads until the teacher posts their response. Let's say a teacher has a Q&A discussion for math, & a student types their discussion question in. They are waiting for a response from their teacher, who usually posts her answer soon after the student posts a question. So, the student waits & waits for the teachers response. The teacher has already responded, but the student can't see the response yet, because his page hasn't loaded yet. So it's a few hours before his Canvas Discussion tab goes to sleep & reopens with the teacher's response.

Proposed solution:

A good solution to this problem would be having the page update its posts automatically as you are on the page. To prevent the page from jumping around because there are so many comments coming in (like a class discussion would), there could be a little button at the top of your screen with the format "[Number] new posts" (Example: "3 new posts). It would get rid of the hassle of reloading your page multiple times to see if there are new discussion posts. Please consider this feature for Canvas Discussions. Thank you!

User role(s):

instructor,student