Comment Bank, A Plea for the Sensible

[rosei_espedido]

If a comment bank has been requested, REPEATEDLY, since 2012, why is Canvas so adamant that "speed grader" will remain the most painful system for making and resist continued pleas from teachers who use the application, more so than any Canvas creator ever would? As educators, we will continue to make use of individualised feedback (which is the argument against a comment bank, as reported by Canvas), however, having to type the same thing to every student, as it stands currently, or make use of a copy and paste function, minimises our willingness to provide individual feedback as the basic, common feedback needed by all students takes up most of the marking time. As teachers, many of us are given a limited amount of time to mark student work (casualisation of the tertiary workforce is probably the most significant area of issue). Having a comment bank will speed up the process AND enable us to make additional comments to support students at both the macro and micro level. Additionally, a comment bank will enable us to make use of hyperlinks in the feedback so that students can click on links to support their learning; this function is not currently available. Also, many students think they know where to go to get information, however, as teachers, we often know that they will make use of the first 1 - 2 links and their ability to use key terms is limited, therefore providing additional learning support via appropriate digital resources is critical.

If comment banks are not available, why not introduce a function for general comments to the group being marked, rather than have to submit comments for each student individually?

Furthermore, having the capacity to give a voice recorded comment would be appreciated.

[JC74]

ABSOLUTELY!!!  A COMMENT BANK IS THE FIRST THING THAT CANVAS SHOULD HAVE INCLUDED WHEN DESIGNING THEIR "SPEED GRADER!"  What a joke, Canvas names their grading system "Speed" when it's anything but!  Google Classroom has a comment bank and I'll bet all the rest have this function as well.  Maybe Canvas designers just don't know how to add it to their "Speed" grading system, or maybe they think that they have so many customers that it must not be that needed.  On the contrary, my district is requiring every teacher to use Canvas, so it's certainly not by choice that I'm here.  Canvas would probably retain so many more teachers as customers if they add this simple feature which would result in so much more revenue!  But, hey, what do I know?