Submission comments appear in Inbox indicator

[mccurdym]

As an teacher, I would like the numbered indicator next to the Inbox link include how many unread Submission comments I have. Although I keep my Canvas to email notifications turned on, a large number of our faculty turn off their email notifications. (As a Canvas admin at our institution, I hear how often this occurs.) They manually check the Inbox for submission comments.

This feature request fulfillment may also include displaying submission comments with Unread Messages in the Inbox, similar to Add Inbox + Submission Comments Filter in Conversations .

Excelsior!

[Stef_retired]

 @mccurdym , I agree with you--in principle. But here's the part I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around:

Having a count in the Submission Comment sub-menu would be advantageous to quickly see where to go in the Inbox.

So, we've got a user (student or teacher) who sees the number 6 on the badge, but only four messages appear in the default Inbox view. The user reads the four messages, yet the numeral 2 remains on the Inbox badge. What would prompt our user to know to access the toggle, change the filter to Submission Comments to see that there is a badge next to it, and view the two remaining unread messages there? (This is the problem that I recall resulted in a fair number of help tickets, at the time that the Inbox indicator did include unread submission comments.) The main Inbox badge wouldn't make it clear that the unread message badge is in the sub-menu--unless, of course, you could hover over the badge to see the breakdown of unread messages (aha!). Having said that, I imagine that a popup on hover that is accessible through browsers would not be available in mobile.

I appreciate this conversation--especially since I completely agree that we need consistency within Canvas. I hope we can come to a resolution that will please everyone (well, most everyone).

[RobDitto]

I love these two ideas.  Taken together, a user's default filter choice could govern what the Inbox indicator count actually means.

[kona]

I'm trying to wrap my brain around how to clearly show the Instructor that there are new submission comments (I like the idea of the indicator number for the Inbox), make it easy for find the submission comments in the inbox (so they can't be hidden and only available from the drop-down menu), and yet not get them confused with regular inbox messages (for me at least I want to know what is a submission comment - and what assignment it goes with - and what is a regular inbox message).

[kmeeusen]

Allison:

I am not sure what you mean.

Yes, I would like to see submission comments included in the unread message indication, but I would not want to loose the ability to filter by submission comments

[stevec]

For me, follow-up comments to my submission comments are no different from regular inbox messages. A student is trying to contact me regarding the comment I left, or the assignment. In the student's mind, putting a comment there is a way of contacting the instructor.

[dhulsey]

Steve has stated the case concisely and eloquently.

[kona]

I guess I want to make sure I know which is which because it's important for me to quickly (and easily) know if the question/comment is in relation to a specific assignment or if it's more general (or related to something completely different). I don't mind necessarily if they are together as long as it is clear which is which, and which comments go with which assignments.

[Stef_retired]

 @stevec , I absolutely agree with you. Yet I feel compelled to reiterate that I'm nearly positive that it used to be exactly that way in the Inbox, and that the feature idea (then called "feature request") to remove those submission comments from the inbox stream was so overwhelmingly popular in the old community that it (amending the inbox filter to include submission comments, thereby removing those comments from the main feed) was implemented without much fuss.

We need Instructure's grey-haired (ha!) Inbox Historian to weigh in on this.

[dhulsey]

I recall there being a hot debate when submission comments were removed, and Instructure said that they could not easily revert to having submission comments in the inbox because this was part of the reconfiguring of "New Conversations" that occured when the "old community" site was still in place. The later addition of the "submission comment" filter was put forth as a compromise because, apparently, this is an issue where users on both sides feel strongly.

[kona]

Yes, I think Dallas is right. It's been so long since we switched to the newer Inbox that I'd forgotten that.

[Stef_retired]

Yes, "New Conversations"! Thanks,  @dhulsey ​--I completely forgot about that missing piece!

And that's a key piece of this discussion. Although I personally was happy when submission comments were part of the inbox stream, and I'm equally content with the current design that incorporates the Submission Comments toggle with unread comments not included in the Inbox indicator--as Dallas says, "this is an issue where users on both sides feel strongly." So I would be very concerned if all of the proponents of this feature idea chime in on this thread to hammer out the details of a change, whereupon we discover that those who are not participating in this conversation (and let's face it, that's the overwhelming majority of users) get blindsided by what might be for many an unwanted change. That's the horse I have in this race.

[jamely]

Maybe by adding a large header bar across the top of the message like this:

Submission Comment

Would be helpful if both inbox and submission comments were streamed together.

As a student using Canvas for 6 years, I have only had 1 class where my instructors wrote a comment and then saw/answered my return comment. It almost doesn't count, since these instructors both work for USU CIDI, so they happen to know more of the functionality of Canvas than the typical faculty does 😜

[stevec]

I have trouble seeing it as a compromise. I came into this discussion because I was missing important communication from my students based on the default settings of the inbox. To me, that's a very high priority concern. I'm struggling to understand why the placement of this filter as the default setting is such a pressing concern for those who support separating these comments out. 

[olexar]

I respect the effort of separating submission comments and the inbox, but I find that it's created a serious communication issue for students and instructors. In my humble opinion, ensuring users see submission comments far outweighs being able to filter them from other inbox messages. Just this semester, a student's reply to my submission comment (a week after I sent it) started, "Wow! I just saw this." This is a student who usually replies to anything I write to her within 24 hours. Back during my first semester on Canvas (Spring 2015), I was embarrassed to find unanswered submission comments that I didn't even know were there. I have this fixed now, but I can imagine the unanswered unacknowledged submission comment universe is vast and distinguished. I'm reminded of the new "Clutter" box added to Office 365. (If you haven't checked your clutter box, you may want to, and you may want to turn it off!)

[olexar]

Here's my suggestion. All messages go to the inbox. The unread link shows all unread messages (including submission comments). The submission comment link acts like the unread link, but instead of filtering unread, it filters submission comments that are in the inbox.

[RobDitto]

Beautifully simple, olexar​! This could clarify an Inbox indicator count incorporating both unread messages and unread submission comments.

[kona]

This would work for me!

[Stef_retired]

olexar​, I like this direction, but I was thinking more along the lines of having all messages go to the inbox by default and having the filter remove submission comments instead. The overwhelming majority of the submission comments I receive from students are of this variety: "Here it is!" "Thanks!" or "Chapter 1 Reflection." I get an ASAP notification of each and every blessed one of these--and that's fine, because for every 20 of these I get, I also get one submission comment that I need to address quickly. But I really don't want the "clutter" in my Canvas Inbox. I'd prefer to be able to remove them with the filter toggle.

I'm seeing two separate use cases here--how teachers view submission comments, and how students view them--and unfortunately, both of them rest on the same platform. As I mentioned, we teachers receive a goodly number of inconsequential comments from students. However, I think we're all operating under the basic assumption that if we, as teachers, make a comment on a student's submission, it's because we have important information to convey. With that in mind, I like the idea of adding the header differentiation  @jamely ​ depicted in her comment above for submission comments (although I would like to see the course information included in the header, just in case the user is in the All Courses view). These submission comments would really stand out in the default Inbox view we've envisioned. Those students who toggle the submission comments "off" would be doing so mindfully, and they would still have the unread indicator badge on their Inbox to show that they might still have missed something.

Do you all think such a filter setting should be "sticky," or should it be a filter that has to be reset every time the user navigates to the Inbox?  (I'm inclined toward the latter.)

[olexar]

Almost all submissions in my course are quizzes, so I haven't run into that issue; however, I can totally see how that would get annoying. That being said, I think having a filter that would remove from the inbox might lead to a lot of confusion.

Maybe changing the label on the student submission screen might help cut-down on superfluous comments. For example, maybe "add a comment" could be changed to something like "message your instructor about this submission."

[skalert]

Kona, I agree with you. Is there anyway to include a live link in the recent feedback section of the dashboard? Whether or not you are a student or an instruction, a submission comment could be considered recent feedback, and as such should be alerted. I am not sure I like the idea of having it stored ONLY in the inbox and the assignment. Our instructors would prefer to have access to it in the dashboard.