[Modules] Modules Display as Collapsed by Default

With courses that have many modules and module items, the default un-collapsed state on the modules page makes the view overwhelming. I would love the option to choose a 'current' module and have that automatically open for students or at least have the default view be auto-collapsed. The un-collapsed view is often a turn-off to faculty and designers who are considering different ways to represent their course content.

79 Comments
Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team

nicobsdc

The Ideas: State of the Union​ blog post may help shed some light on how feature ideas are one element of a greater process!  There are other channels that you can champion an idea through, however it is also fact that some features have to wait for a while.  I'm sorry i don't have a better answer for you at this time.  We have so many awesome and amazing ideas in the community, in fact, our CEO referred to it as a "gold mine" in his InstructureCon​.  We would love to build them all!  Prioritization and allocation is hard work!

nicobsdc
Community Novice

 @Renee_Carney ​ I'm really disappointed and disheartened to hear this. I feel that Canvas is heading into international markets without considering the requirements for those countries. It does make me question whether Canvas is the most suitable platform for our requirements. I understand that Instructure have to look at the wider picture but having an idea that was suggested nearly 2 years ago and not making progress is really unacceptable. I really would like to discuss this further. Would it be possible for you to email me so that I can discuss - perhaps a Feedback/Complaint procedure? or is this something I can discuss with our Customer Success Manager?

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team

Anique.

I also reached out via DM, but I wanted to make sure and acknowledge you here.  I do think that it is best to work with your CSM at this point.  Transparency and honesty can sometimes be difficult for both sides, but I want you to know that we genuinely listen.  Your thoughts have not fallen on deaf ears.

james_tedford
Community Novice

We at Biola University are very much interested in being able to set collapsed modules as the default, in order to minimize unnecessary scrolling for students. Students should be able to choose what content they want to view instead of being forced to view it all.

I teach at another school that uses Moodle, and they have a plug-in that allows for collapsed modules:

Collapsed Topics course format - MoodleDocs

It makes the design much cleaner. If you Google something like Moodle collapsed topics (or modules), you'll quickly come across the plug-in and its code. Hopefully that will make for a faster fix in Canvas. : )

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team
  Idea is currently in Product Radar Learn more about this stage...
jeckhardt
Community Novice

I can't believe this option (collapse all) does not exist yet.

michelle1_krumm
Community Member

I would love this option as well. In the meantime, I created a "table of contents" page containing a list of all the titles of the modules and linked each title to its module. So, if a student clicks on "Unit 8" it opens to the modules page and jumps down to module 8 (so that the top of module 8 is at the top of the page). It's an extra page click, but it's better than having to scroll all the way down to module 8.

ronmarx
Community Contributor

Nice workaround!

jhyatt
Community Novice

Our use case is that we have LTI content imported into modules, and each modules has 100+ objects.  Scrolling through that imported content is difficult, and the collapse/expand modules shortcut could help with this.

james_sanzin
Community Champion

 @pchaney  I would love a Collapse all/Expand all. I also feel this should be applied to assignments and not just modules.