Make Pronouns Fill-in-the-Blank in Canvas

[AndrewPenland]

I am an Instructor.

Our University recently moved to a drop-down menu for Canvas community members to select their preferred pronouns. Unfortunately, this places a burden on administrators to define the "possible" or "proper" pronouns that community may select.

Is it possible to simply allow community members to type in their pronouns, so community members can have whatever they prefer? 

[TiffanyStull]

I agree that it would be nice to offer the option (if enabled at the account or sub-account level) for users to enter their own pronouns.  In our current LMS, we have several predefined common sets of pronouns (He/Him/His, "She/Her/Hers, They/Them/Theirs, Xe/Xem/Xyr(s), etc.) and an "Enter my own" option to select from a drop-down.  When "Enter my own" is selected, a "My Pronouns" text box appears that allows you to type in your own pronouns (up to 16 characters).

It also makes sense to me that some schools (particularly elementary or high schools) would want to restrict the pronouns options to specific selections out of concern for students potentially entering inappropriate content.  That's why I think it should be an account-level option for administrators to enable.

[jslowiak]

I agree that an option to "enter my own" or customize one's pronouns would be helpful, and I agree with @TiffanyStull that it would be helpful to add as an account-level option for administrators to enable in order to prevent inappropriate content.

[RachelWilliams3]

Hello! I am currently a student and think the pro out feature on Canvas can be improved. At this time, we can only select she/her, he/him, and they/them. However, many students use a combination. For instance, I use she/they pronouns and would like to participate in putting my pronouns next to my name (as an example, to make me feel for comfortable, to be visible) but feel uncomfortable only putting they/them OR she/her. 

A custom option would fix this issue!! 

[RachelWilliams3]

*pronoun feature

[TiffanyStull]

@RachelWilliams3 do you have a way to contact the Canvas administrators at your school (maybe the IT department) with questions?  In the short term, one suggestion would be to explain you'd really like to be able to use she/they for your pronouns and ask if the administrators would be willing to add She/They as an option in the Pronouns drop-down menu.

[nonbinary]

Allow students to choose type in their own pronouns. What you have is too limiting.

[gabriel_anthony]

Hi. I am a student user of Canvas. First, I would like to thank you for giving users the capabilities to include pronouns. However, the options are not exhaustive as many of the pronouns people use are not available. It would be greatly appreciated by many if users could type whatever pronouns they want rather than only having three options. At the very least, more options, such as he/they, she/they, they/she, they/he, and more, should be added. Thank you for time and consideration. I look forward to improvements on the pronouns feature.

[mmma1]

As a student user of Canvas through my school district, I have noticed that pronoun customization under User Settings is frankly sad. I use multiple sets of pronouns, and I would much rather pronouns were fully customizable with an area you can type in, rather than being just a drop-down menu with only three options. While I appreciate that Canvas offers the option to add pronouns to your profile, I really wish this area were more customizable and inclusive.

[chriscas]

Hi @mmma1,

The pronouns options offered are customizable by your school/institution.  I'd suggest reaching out to your school's eLearning or IT support folks and letting them know  what additional options would be useful for you and your peers.  As a Canvas administrator myself, I can tell you that while I recognize the benefits of a free text box for pronouns, there are a lot of campus systems that don't support that for various reasons.  Our campus wants to have pronouns sync'd to as many systems as possible, so we did have to come up with a list of options that would work universally. It may be that your school/institution is in the same situation, but they may be amenable to adding more options.

Hope this helps a bit!

[goodema]

As an instructor, I'm hesitant to highlight the pronouns feature for my students when I know that not all of them will have an option(s) that fit.  I would support replacing the drop-down menu with a simple text box where folks can type in their pronouns.

[rtg54]

@TiffanyStull How did your school add the "Enter my own" option in Canvas? We'd love to do something like this.

"In our current LMS, we have several predefined common sets of pronouns (He/Him/His, "She/Her/Hers, They/Them/Theirs, Xe/Xem/Xyr(s), etc.) and an "Enter my own" option to select from a drop-down. When "Enter my own" is selected, a "My Pronouns" text box appears that allows you to type in your own pronouns (up to 16 characters)."

[TiffanyStull]

@rtg54 we didn't add it in Canvas - it's in our current Sakai-based LMS and we are transitioning now to Canvas.  I would like the option added in Canvas to have feature parity with what we had previously.

This is how the feature looks:

And the My pronouns text box that appears after selecting Enter my own:

[rtg54]

@TiffanyStull Thanks for sharing these images! Very helpful. Your school has a great model for doing this well. I appreciate the name pronunciation included also. We will strive toward something similar in Canvas (if possible) and consult our student body first.

[ProductPanda]

Comments from Instructure

As part of the new Ideas & Themes process, all ideas in Idea Conversations were reviewed by the Product Team. Any Idea that was associated with an identified theme was moved to the new Idea & Themes space. Any Idea that was not part of the move is being marked as Archived. This will preserve the history of the conversations while also letting Community members know that Instructure will not explore the request at this time.

[kvan]

Problem statement:

Currently, the only option available on the Canvas Admin side for pronouns is for the admin to set a predefined set of pronouns, where users are then able to select one from a dropdown list under their profile.

Proposed solution:

To add an option to allow admins the ability to enable a feature that allows for users to be able to 'type in' their own pronouns.

User role(s):

admin