The latest on releasing modules to students and sections

[AllisonHowell]

If you’re a blog reader, you likely saw my post a few months back giving a sneak preview of the powerful new functionality coming to Canvas: the ability to assign modules, pages, and ungraded discussions to sections and students. I’m excited to let you know that this functionality is now on beta and will be in production on July 20. 

I want to thank each and every one of you who played a role in making this feature become a reality, whether that was through taking surveys, sitting on calls with me, voting on ideas, collectively contributing via user groups, advocating with your CSMs, or any of the other dozens of ways we heard that you wanted this functionality. It was a true partnership every step of the way, with each stage being validated by our incredible Canvas community. From my perspective as a product manager, it’s what makes working on Canvas so special. 

Okay, let’s get into the nitty gritty of these features, shall we? And yes, I say features because, as I mentioned in my last update, we’re actually talking about a lot of new stuff with this release.

Updated Assign To User Interface

First off, we gave the entire "Assign To" experience a major facelift, moving all of the existing cards presently found at the bottom of the content item’s edit page into a tray that remains consistent across different content types. All of the content in the trays remains the same, but the new design makes it easier to manage multiple differentiated due dates. You can refer back to my first post to get a better sense of what this looks like.

Introducing another level of view permissions is a big change, so to help orient the user, we’ve added “Inherited from [module name]” to the card at the module item level, so that they'll know why an assignment, for example, is already assigned to a particular learner or section.

This assignment is inherited from the module "Panda Introduction"

Pages 

At last, Canvas Pages can be differentiated! Educators will be able to assign pages to students and sections, as well as set availability dates. This unlocks content tailoring during the initial course design or on the fly based on your learners’ particular needs. 

Pages can now be assigned to learners and sections and availability windows can be set.

Ungraded Discussions

We’ve expanded existing features in ungraded discussions and have added the newly designed “Assign To” tray. This means that educators can not only post to sections, as they can now, but can leverage the full “assign to” functionality and assign to individuals as well (just like for graded discussions). This opens up possibilities for increased collaboration and provides more consistency across learning objects in Canvas.

Ungraded discussions can now be assigned to learners.

Modules

And of course, the biggest change is that educators can assign modules!

Educators can assign modules to sections and learners.

Since I already gave you an overview in my last post, I thought it’d be nice to focus on a few details that make the experience even better.

First up, you can assign a module item (quizzes, assignments, discussions, pages) directly from the modules page. No more clicking back to edit the content item to make changes.

Less clicking with the ability to assign module items from the modules page.

A “View Assign To” icon is present on the module header, so you know which modules are differentiated when quickly scanning the modules page.

The View Assign To button makes for easier scanning of the modules page.

Plus, we’ve reduced the number of clicks to differentiate assignments by adding an “Assign To” button at the top of landing pages and on the index pages for assignments, quizzes, discussions, and pages.

Less clicking by assigning directly from the landing page.

Now that you’ve gotten a preview, go try it for yourself! We want you to test as much as you can ahead of the production release and let us know what you think! We’ve got a handy list of frequently asked questions below that should aid you in your testing.

FAQ:

What permissions do I need to use this feature?
We have honored our commitment to providing more granular permissions so that administrators can make the right decisions based on their unique circumstances.

To change the “assign to” settings for modules and module items, you’ll need the permissions listed below:

• Assigning Modules -> “Course Content - Edit”
• Assigning Assignments -> "Manage Assignments and Quizzes - edit"
• Assigning Quizzes -> "Manage Assignments and Quizzes - edit"
• Assigning Graded Discussions -> "Discussions - moderate" and "Manage Assignments
  and Quizzes - edit"
• Assigning Ungraded Discussions -> "Discussions - moderate" and either a course
  admin enrollment or an enrollment that's not section restricted
• Assigning Pages -> “Pages - update”

To open the “assign to” tray from a module item’s create page, you’ll need the following permissions:

• Launch “assign to” tray from the assignments create page -> "Manage Assignments and Quizzes - add"
• Launch “assign to” tray from the quizzes create page -> "Manage Assignments and Quizzes - add"
• Launch “assign to” tray from graded discussions create page -> "Discussions - create" and "Manage Assignments and Quizzes - add"
• Launch “assign to” tray from ungraded discussions create page -> "Discussions - create" and either a course admin enrollment or an enrollment that's not section restricted
• Launch “assign to” try from Pages create page -> “Pages - update”

Will this work with Mastery Paths?
Yes! These features are Mastery Paths compatible.

Will this work with Course Pacing?
Not yet, but we plan to follow up quickly with making these two features compatible to unlock powerful new workflows in Canvas. Stay tuned.

What if I want to just deselect a few learners rather than adding all but a few?
We understand that’s a big pain and plan to follow up quickly with the ability to deselect a few learners to lower the burden on educators for large courses.

What if I have a large course with learners with similar names?
We have added the SIS ID, if available, under the learner’s name so that an educator can quickly differentiate between learners.

Why can’t I set due dates for Pages or ungraded discussions?
Since these aren’t graded items, we felt due dates weren’t necessary and this isn’t something we heard about from customers. Of course, feedback is welcome!

Is this feature available on the mobile apps?
Like all of our new features, this feature is responsive and can be used on mobile devices using the web version of Canvas; however, it is not available on the mobile teacher app at this time. We are actively working with the mobile team on making it available at a future date.

[IanGoh]

In "Is this feature available on the mobile apps?" you mentioned the mobile web is supported (responsive design), and you mentioned it wasn't available on the mobile teacher app?  So wasn't sure, does it work for the mobile student app, or just web?

[AllisonHowell]

@IanGoh apologies for the confusing wording! The educator experience only works on the web right now, but is responsive on all devices. The teacher app doesn't yet have this functionality. For students, the experience will not change as they will see the modules they are assigned, whether they are on the web version or on the student mobile app. I hope that clarifies. 

[laura-harste]

Amazing!  Thank you!  Can't wait to try this out.

[melodyc_lam]

Will the permissions be ON for instructors when this feature is officially in production, or will I need to go in and enable those permissions?

[chriscas]

Hi @AllisonHowell,

Thank you for the updates on this.  Very excited to see this in Beta as we speak!

I love the added consistency across Canvas tools that this update seems to bring.  Aligning the experiences in pages, discussions, assignments, etc is great!

I just have one comment / piece of feedback from the flip side though...  It seems users are noting that many recent Canvas updates are adding more clicks to common tasks.  One example is the "marl as read" feature for discussion redesign.  I also recently heard that commenting on new quiz essay questions also requires more clicks that what faculty used to have for classic quizzes.  I know some of this is required for accessibility reasons, but when possible adding more clicks to common workflows should, in my opinion, be avoided.  In this particular case, I'm wondering if the side menu can be automatically expanded when creating/editing assignments/discussions/quizzes.  Especially when creating a new assignment/quiz/discussion, adding dates is going to be a requirement.  The current design requires another click, and the link to click at the bottom of the screen doesn't even have a box or anything else around it like the other items to, so it's going to be so easy for faculty to miss (see screenshot)...  Any chance we could see some improvements to this behavior/design before the release to production?

-Chris

[AllisonHowell]

@chriscas Thank you for the thoughtful feedback and I certainly take it to heart. Agreed that in the screenshot you do see an extra click, and I'm afraid this is a casualty of the new tray design. We sacrificed a click on the edit pages for consistency and ease of use. We tried to manage that tradeoff by adding "one-click" options in many other places. Users can now "assign to" from the modules index page, from the assignments/quizzes/discussions/pages index pages, and from the individual item page at the top (you now don't have to click "edit" every time to get there). That being said, I take your point and we'll certainly think about this more as I understand it's most common to add those differentiated dates when creating the assignment. And let me get back to you about that box! 

melodyc_lam We are using existing permissions, so when the feature is enabled in production if you already have all of those permissions you'll be able to fully use each of the features listed. If you don't, you'll want to request yours be updated or you'll only be able to use some of the features (e.g. you can differentiate assignments but not modules). 

[james_whalley]

Hello @AllisonHowell,

Thank you and the team for all your hard work in getting us new features. I'm excited to bring this new feature to our professors here at Cornell.

I've done a little testing and noticed a little hiccup. If I use the Add to student to-do feature of Pages, the page then is listed on all students' Syllabus Course Summary. If the Pages are differentiated using this new function and try to follow the link from their Syllabus, they get an access error.

On the design side:

1. Graded discussions now have an extra click for assigning students/sections. Before, choosing the Graded option automatically opened the Assign To details. Now, we have to click Manage Assign To after enabling the Graded option.
2. Ungraded discussions do not list to whom the discussion has been assigned at the top left of the discussion prompt. This is different from Graded discussions.
3. Ungraded discussions should be able to have a due date. Even if they are not graded, an instructor may want to have the date just as they would have the to-do date on Pages. Lack of grading does not preclude wanting to have something finished by a given date.
4. Pages should not lose their to-do feature when fixing for the bug listed above.

As for documentation, I would recommend being very clear that limiting to whom a Module is assigned does not limit to whom the module contents are accessible. For instance, if a page is linked nowhere else but within a module that is for Section A, but someone from Section A shares a link to that page with a student from Section B, the student from Section B can see the page. This seems counterintuitive to how a published page in an unpublished module is not available to a student (even with a direct link), nor is a page in a locked module (mastery paths) accessible to a student. I would either update the functionality here to be in line with how modules can gate access to published materials in all other cases or make sure that it is thoroughly explained in documentation (though, even then, I imagine a number of faculty will assume that the Assign To limitations of a module would apply to all content within).

I am happy to discuss more if you would like.

Thank you again,

James

[dbrace]

Thank you @james_whalley for raising the concern where a student (Student A) with a module item assigned to them shares the link with another student (Student B) that has not had the module item assigned to them. I am able to confirm through some testing that Student B was able to access the module item.

[nwilson7]

@AllisonHowell I fully agree with @chriscas and don't really understand why the Assign To area needs to now be a sidebar with a click to reveal?  I appreciate consistency and yes, having a long page if you have multiple Assign To boxes can be annoying but it was nice not having to click into it.  The majority of our faculty copy courses from term to term and do NOT use the adjust dates during import or the screen where you can adjust multiple assignment dates at once. Instead they go into each assignment/quiz/discussion and update it.  Now they have an additional click for every single one of these.

I really do appreciate the work on module assignments though, we get that request a lot.

-Nick

[James_Kocher_UF]

While testing in Beta, I found that using the "assign to" from within Edit will utilize the default due time as set in settings, but when using the button from the main assignment page, it defaults to 11:59pm.

Also semi-related, it would be nice if the default due time would apply to "until date", either by default or a checkbox to include it under settings!

ETA: 11:59 isn't a choice in the dropdown menu in either location!

[rmartini]

Thank you for your work on this! This is definitely needed functionality that our faculty have been waiting for. I know we'll have a number of people interested in using this so I've taken some time to test some things in Beta. I'm finding some issues with assignments and quizzes that may be related to what James has also noted here. I opened a case (10887365) already that was escalated to L2/engineering but wanted to include my observations here in case it's helpful for others.

Content is Assigned to Specific Section and "Everyone"

My workflow in testing this was to create a module, add content (assignment, quiz, etc.) but not adjust any "assign to" settings, then assign the module to a section. When I did this, the assignments have one line for the specified section (in this case, Grad Section) and one line for Everyone (as opposed to "Everyone else" like it would normally display). I suspect the same thing is happening for other types of content (like pages and discussions), but since those don't have the same "preview" page as assignments, you're not able to see the assigned section along with "everyone"--so @james_whalley 's observations make sense with what I'm observing in assignments and quizzes (behind the scenes, I assume the discussion and pages are assigned to everyone--which isn't what I want to happen). Related to this, when I go to edit the assigned section, I am unable to remove "Everyone" when I open the tray because it doesn't appear as an option:

Assignment that is assigned to a section as well as "Everyone" with the Assign To tray expanded but missing an option to edit/remove "Everyone"

The same issue occurs when I create a new module (with no content initially added), assign the module to a section, and then add an assignment. I still end up with a line that's assigned to "Grad Section" and "Everyone".

Problems with Grading

What I intended to happen when assigning a module to a section was for all assignments in that module to only be assigned to the specified section (in this case, Grad Section). Since I can't retroactively remove "Everyone" from the tray, this then causes other problems in the gradebook because the column looks like it's gradeable for everyone. While chatting with support, they noted that the instructor actually can't enter grades for everyone (even though it looks that way). When an instructor attempts to enter a grade for someone who isn't in the specific section, they get an error:

Gradebook view after trying to enter grade in a cell that looks gradeable along with the error message at the top of the screen

Duplicate "Assign To" Fields After Adding to Module

Based on the problems I was seeing in my original workflow, I attempted to "reverse engineer" the assign to field so that the assignment would only be assigned to the specific section. However, that also seemed to cause problems. In this scenario, I created an assignment from the Assignment Index page, changed the assign to field to the Grad Section (removing "Everyone"), published the assignment, and then added it to the module. In the gradebook, this technically worked (students in the Grad Section showed as gradeable and everyone else had a grayed out cell). However, when I viewed the assignment page, I still saw two entries for the Grad Section. It seems that no matter how the content is created, when I add it to a module that has been assigned to a section/person, it automatically adds another entry for it (even if it's a duplicate).

Assignment that shows the same section twice, but only appears once in the Assign To tray

Related to this, on the Edit Assignment Dates page, if an assignment is assigned to the same section twice, this will appear twice as if you could enter due dates for "both" sections. When I tried to save (with two different due dates), I correctly received an error message. But I found it interesting that the section appears twice:

Edit Assignment Date page with duplicate sections

No Warning Message When Using the "Assign To" Button

Previously, if an instructor changes the "Assign To" field in an assignment and does not include everyone, they would receive a warning message saying that not all sections will be assigned the item. This message still appears if they are editing the assignment but it does not appear if they only select the "Assign To" button and hit save. I appreciate not having the extra click to continue, but I can also see the warning message being helpful in certain scenarios. Mostly just wanted to flag this for consistency.

Assigning to "Everyone else" Displays as Something Different Rather than "Everyone Else"

This seems to only happen if the assignment is already within a module that has been assigned to a section. If I edit the assignment, add a new assign to field and enter "Everyone else", and save, it does not display as "Everyone else" as expected. In my case, it's changing to the name of the course site (OPEN LEARNING - Rachel's Sandbox), which is also the name of the section I'm in as the instructor. When I go back to edit the assign to settings, it still displays as "Everyone else." Everything functions like I'd expect (the assignment is assigned to everyone else, and students not in the OPEN LEARNING section can access the assignment), but it definitely looks confusing. I opened a separate case for this (10889962).

Assign to "Everyone else" displaying as a different section

[dbrace]

While I did not do nearly as much as what @rmartini has (thank you), I have had a similar experience and I have reached out to Canvas Support (it was escalated).

[tomdavis]

These are great new features -- the more granularity the better!

[AllisonHowell]

Thank you all for you thorough testing and candid feedback. This is a huge effort, so we expected some bumps along the way. We are addressing bugs and other issues as they come up here or via support (the most efficient way to get issues to us). 

I wanted to take a minute to address the repeated comments about the extra click on the edit pages for assignments, quizzes, etc. We've heard you and appreciate you voicing your concerns. We're currently mocking up some possible approaches to alleviate your concerns and will update as progress is made. Thanks everyone!   

[AdriëneGeurts]

Great development! Will this also be available for files, that are made available directly in the Modules? So that you can share notes/powerpoints etc. per section.
As a work around we can create pages and publisch the files there, but it would be great if the files could be assigned to groups, just like the pages.

[VictoriaWolfUVA]

Hi @AllisonHowell,

Thank you for sharing this new feature with us on Beta! I have some concerns regarding accessibility and the overall layout of the new Assign To panel.

First, while the panel is keyboard responsive with focus indicators, it is difficult to close out of the panel without excessively tabbing back up to the "x" (Close) button. Additionally, using the Escape key does not take the focus away from the Assign To panel, and instead occasionally triggers the Help section of the Global Navigation menu to quickly open and close. To ensure logical navigation for keyboard users, it may be helpful to place the Close button at the bottom of the Assign To panel. 

Second, there is no indication when changes to the Assign To panel have been saved. This could appear as a temporary notification or as a button at the bottom of the panel (ex: Save and Exit). The auto-saving feature of New Quizzes already causes instructors to second-guess whether or not their changes were saved, and repeating this in the Assign To panel could cause further confusion.

Thank you for keeping us updated as changes are made in Beta.

Kindly,

Victoria

[TiffanyStull]

@AllisonHowell extending the functionality to allow instructors to assign pages/modules to specific sections is a welcome change, as it's a feature our users missed from our previous LMS - thanks for working on this!

However, I'm very concerned about the following:

• Availability dates are now being buried behind a "Manage Assign To" link, which is not at all an intuitive place for an instructor to look for dates.
• All date-setting functionality is inside a side panel that has no prominent button to save the settings and close the panel. It can only be closed by navigating all the way back to the top of the panel and selecting the Close (X) button at the top right.
• There does not appear to be any warning when you try to enter a date in an invalid format in the new side panel.

Dates are among the most important settings in an assignment. At a minimum, the "Everyone" or "Everyone else" primary date setting should continue to display and be editable on the main assignment settings page, with the side panel allowing you to edit those dates and add/edit additional assign to cards. If there are any extra "assign to" cards enabled, there should be some indication like "Assign to cards are set for [student name(s)], [section name(s)]," displayed directly on the page as to what those are, so you don't have to dig into the side panel to find them.  For example: "Assign to cards are set for John Smith, Jane Doe, Section 001. Manage Assign To."

Regarding navigation, I tested as a sighted user with keyboard only. I was only trying to set dates for the entire class (with no individual exceptions), which required me to:

1. Tab down to Manage Assign To, press Enter to open panel.
2. Tab 3 times to Due Date field.
3. With no indication in the panel of what the correct date format is, type in the date (I couldn't find any way to use keyboard navigation to access the calendar and select a date). Originally, I entered the date and time in an incorrect format, 25 June 2024 12:00, which gave me a resulting date of Jun 20, 2012 and time of 2:00 AM (pictured below). No warning was presented (on current Canvas production, an alert displays if you set a due date in the past - while there are valid use cases for past due dates, for example, no submission assignments to record grades, the alert would have been helpful here). I changed the year to 2024 and left the time 2:00 AM.
   
   Note: Entering a date in the format 25 June 2024 12:00 on production Canvas gave me Jun 25, 2024, 8:00 PM, which isn't the time I wanted, but at least the date was correct. Additionally, some text displayed in a tooltip when tabbing into the field with the proper date format (I couldn't get the tooltip to show up in the screenshot below, and I'm not sure how good it is for low vision users, given that it is a tooltip and only appears intermittently, but it was better than no indicator at all).
   
4. Tab to and enter Time (in correct format) or arrow down through available time options and press Enter to select one. I'll note here that many users, when presented with a drop-down menu, are not aware they can also type in the field.
5. Tab past Clear link.
6. Tab to and enter Available from date. (In my test, I opted not to enter anything here.)
7. Tab to and enter Available from time. (In my test, I opted not to enter anything here.)
8. Tab past Clear link.
9. Tab to and enter Until date. (In my test, I opted not to enter anything here.)
10. Tab to and enter Until time. (In my test, I opted not to enter anything here.)
11. Shift + Tab 10 times to get back up to the Close button.
12. Press Enter to close panel.

After taking the above steps, the panel closed and my keyboard focus returned to the Manage Assign To link with a "Pending Changes" indicator next to it (pictured below). There's no indication on the page of the date I entered, and I have no idea what is "Pending".

After opening the side panel, it looked like how I had set it, but the "Pending Changes" leads me to believe that something is incorrect, and I don't know what that is.

If it takes so many steps for a sighted keyboard user to navigate the panel and set dates, I suspect it would be even more time-consuming for a screen reader user (unless there is some helpful screen reader only text that isn't displayed to sighted users, for example proper formatting for date entry).

Please add some kind of Close or Save button at the bottom of the panel dialog to make it easier to use.

Thanks!

[jmerlenbach2]

@AllisonHowell I know this is a feature that many instructors have requested for a long time, so I share the sentiment of many others that this work is welcome. I will add my voice to everyone else's concerns about the interface changes and discrepancies in the flyout menus - I'll refrain from rehashing them, but I'm hoping to gain some clarity, though, about the timeline for rollout of this feature.

From the sounds of it, this new interface and functionality will be rolled out fully to production July 20th, with no option for an opt-out. I'm curious why this new UI display and functionality is not being rolled out as a feature option like many other large scale changes have in the past. With feature options, there is an understanding that bugs might occur as the product is in progress - since this is not being treated as a feature option, can we assume that the issues described in this thread will be resolved prior to the July 20th rollout, or else that date will be pushed back?

At a time when instructors are setting up for their summer semester finals, it is going to be difficult for us to communicate this mandatory change with users on such short notice. With all of the issues described in this thread, and no documentation that we can point faculty members towards to assist them besides a blog post with a few screenshots, I fear that faculty members are going to be left scratching their heads.

I recognize the need to have this larger suite of features available before the Fall semester so that faculty members can get their courses set up if they are hoping to use the module assign to feature, but this change impacts all instructors.

[AllisonHowell]

Hi all, we have put together a couple of options to address the concerns on the assignment edit page brought up by many of you. We are looking to address this quickly and would appreciate you taking this survey over the next day or two, if possible: https://t.maze.co/249176992. Thanks!