Moses, you add another very important piece to this issue, that we don't want a discussion tool to be like Slack because Slack is a "chat" tool (Internet Relay Chat), not a discussion tool.  I agree with you, and I couldn't think of how to express this, so I appreciate your thoughts. I wonder if you would characterize this Canvas Community discussion tool as an IRC?  And I wonder if Twitter and even FaceBook are more like IRCs than discussion tools?  I don't use Twitter or Facebook, so I am a little in the dark.  And that product Piazza, it appears to be a discussion tool. Perhaps the key to a discussion tool could be the ability to keep track of "threads?"  Your thoughts? ... View more

Snugent, thanks for adding your thoughts to this discussion. You have done an excellent job demonstrating the power of Permalinks in the way that you have pointed us to other discussions here in the Canvas Community. You probably noted that we have been discussing this feature. Because the Canvas Community forum does not appear to support “threaded” or “nested” views, I cannot quickly tell to whom you are replying. We seem only to be able to view these posts in “oldest first” or “newest first” format. I show in my video that Moodle supports a variety of views chosen by the student, including nested, oldest first, newest first, and threaded subjects. I did read your suggestions and agreed with them. I hope that Jewel notes that the redesign discussion tool has some serious problems. I also hope that Jewel is getting a sense of how the discussion tool has many opportunities for improvement. My video shows Moodle contains some of your ideas. It is always good to see how other LMSs do things to feed ideas for improvement. I would love to see Canvas implement the best of all worlds. The current inability to add subject lines to posts, as you point out, is bothersome. For example, I am in a course that uses Canvas and has a Q&A discussion. As students add questions, it becomes one big mess. ... View more

Yes, when we have someone new, it’s an excellent opportunity to get them involved. (1) Yes, it appears that the new design has changed the user interface. You know more than I do, but I do note that you have said “completely.” And options, as you mention, “have been removed,” but I guess some will be added, too. (2) Different people view “threaded discussions” differently. For example, I see your post in the Community, and it appears that you are replying to Jewel because I see “Hi @JDPearson.” But are you replying to her original post (seems likely) or one of her other posts that she made, or are you replying to one of my posts because I said something to catch your interest, but you want Jewel to know? No problem. Your words are words, but I have lost some “context.” Likewise, is this reply to you or to Jewel? I didn’t care for Slack and don’t use it. My department tried, but it is no longer used. But I understand that some folks like it. My school recommends Piazza as an alternative. (3) More “click heavy” is not an improvement or enhancement. But this is the challenge. I would go crazy if I had to keep clicking on “view threads,” for example. However, you are offering some good suggestions. Perhaps Jewel will take note. There have been many good suggestions in this discussion topic. (4) Due dates are a challenge! (I want to set a “firm” due date, but allow students who don’t meet it to have a second chance, and a third chance, and a forth…) Right now, Jewel is our person! I too, hope that Jewel (and others) don’t see our discussion as being “too harsh.” We offer our ideas as suggestions for improvement. Perhaps, long term, the solution is to give the instructor some choices. Right now, the new design appears that (if your university allows it) can be turned on if desired. ... View more

Jewel, thanks for your reply. Down the road, we can talk.  I provided my video so that people can hear me at their own convenient times.  And this Canvas Community is a great way to share ideas, so I hope to keep the discussion going.   It would be nice if someone could create a simple list that contains comments about what users don't like in the new design, and what Instructure is doing about it. For example: Users Canvas reply. Treaded discussions gone. That's life. Too many clicks. Too bad. More due dates We are working on this.   ... View more

Jewel, I am going to add another thought to this discussion, since you are becoming involved. "Discussion Forums" take on all forms, and when you interact, you notice things that you like and don't like.  For example, this Canvas Community tool... I don't like it.  Could it be a setting that I am unaware of?  Perhaps.  But just as an example, it appears to me that I am seeing new posts "on the bottom."  I prefer a "nested" approach, where I can see who is replying to whom, because then I know if someone's reply is to me or to someone else. You have the opportunity to use this Community discussion tool, the Canvas tool, and the Canvas "new" tool.  Yes, three different approaches.  You might want to consider getting actively involved in a discussion in each to see what you like and don't like.  For example, can you follow a discussion?  Does it "feel" right?  Can you find a post?  (Search by author or keyword)?   On another topic, I am not sure why Canvas is using the word "redesign."  The redesign appears to me to be a brand new design, and not redoing the current design.  But maybe you can clarify.  For example, what percent of the new "redesign's" code is from the current design?  I ask this based upon the comments that I have observed about the new "redesign."  Or maybe this is Canvas' way of playing around with "marketing" terms. ... View more

Okay, Jewel.  I am just trying to help improve Canvas. ... View more

Hesspe, I tried your workaround solution, and it seems to work. It sure would be simpler if Canvas were to supply a “Permalink” link on the bottom of every post. Hopefully, this idea will make it into the Canvas redesign. I am puzzled by the folks working on the Canvas redesign. It seems like they are starting from scratch instead of saying “What works well in the current design? Now let’s add to it.” I have seen numerous posts, like yours, saying “the existing feature no longer works.” Here is a video showing your workaround: LMS Comparison: Work_Around_Canvas_Solution ... View more

Jason, thanks for your thoughts. I don’t use Moodle’s “whole-forum” grading, so you are probably right that you can Rate post-by-post. I don’t use a “like” rating feature, but Moodle does offer this. (See this post on Moodle.org.) Yes, Moodle offers several types of forums. I haven’t used any except “Standard forum for general use. The “Q and A forum” might be similar to Canvas’ “student must reply before seeing post” feature.  Here is a screenshot showing the various Moodle forum types. I appreciate your comment about “night-and-day.” When I was exploring the Canvas question bank, I spoke with the “Canvas question bank expert” at my school. He was somewhat newly hired to support the Canvas question bank, but he had about five years of experience using Moodle. He said to me, “Rick, if you are looking at the Canvas quiz engine and coming from Moodle, it is like ‘night-and-day.’” ... View more

Hi JDPearson.  I came across your post within this discussion about the new discussion feature. I am going to share a video that I recently made.  I began this video as a reply to a colleague, and as I continued, I decided to make a “presentation” about some of the differences between Canvas and Moodle discussion boards.  Since you, JDPearson, might be new to "discussions," maybe my video will be helpful. I didn’t know how long my video would be.  It ended up a little longer than I desired, around 30 minutes instead of a desired 25 minutes. I would appreciate anyone’s thoughts about two issues: 1) Are there any “technical” errors in what I say?  2) What do you think could be removed, or added?  Someday I would like to improve this video and give it as a presentation at a conference. A Comparison of Canvas and Moodle Discussion Tools ... View more

I have recently encountered this problem and have made a post elsewhere.  I will do a quick reply here. Typically, the absence of color should imply an "absence of activity."  Items not read should be white, not blue.  Furthermore, I would argue that the system should not be changing the color because only the student knows if they have really read something.  So an Announcement (or discussion post) should have a white dot that only the student can change to blue, meaning that the student believes they have read the post. I was equally confused with Canvas' behavior as Mary.  At least now I understand this (faulty) logic. ... View more

I stumbled upon this discussion because I was in a Canvas course as a student, and the course used discussions.  Here is what I discovered in the Canvas course. When I enter a discussion web page, all unread posts show with blue dots but then quickly change to white, meaning the posts have been read.  This is how the Canvas course that I was in was acting.  It has nothing to do with me, the student, actually reading anything. All that it says is "The student opened the discussion web page and Canvas thinks the student read all posts." I think that this is a fundamentally incorrect design.  Only the student knows what they have "read" or "not read." Any new posts should be "white" to indicate that they are unread, and then the student can check off those specific posts that they have read, making them blue.  Blue should mean "I read this," and white should mean "This post is new and unread."  The absence of color should mean the absence of reading.  Canvas has this incorrectly reversed, where the absence of color means student activity. Apparently, a system-level setting might affect this logic, but I am not an administrator, so I don't know.   ... View more

All this mumble-jumble that you provide is a way to hide what actually happens, and I don’t buy it.  The reason is that at this point in time (if your database system is correct,) there are no 10% items tagged as “In Development,” even though some of these have been around for 3-4 years.  And the only items that show “In Development” are low voted items having less than 115 votes (see my attachment), which I doubt were ever in an upper 10% category.   So as much as you try to explain the Canvas methods, they do not appear to support any of this 10% stuff.   I would agree that Canvas wants to have a system that continues encouraging users to provide ideas for improvement, but to say that Canvas likes all ideas is incorrect. This is why Canvas moves ideas to other places (archive and cold-storage).  If Canvas really liked all ideas, all ideas would remain in the one database systems for all people to always see.  These 10% methods are a convoluted way of encouraging people to provide ideas with an “incentive” that if their ideas gain support, that it will be worked on.  Esmail’s post reflects this: he thinks that he needs 100 more votes! This seems far from what is happening.   The rational that Canvas doesn’t want to keep all ideas in one place because it confuses users is ridiculous in the modern world of database systems.  Canvas could have a million ideas in one system, and with good filtering and sorting tools, users could find what they are looking for, all in one place.  It makes no sense to force people to query three different places, active, archives and cold-storage, to see if something has been already suggested.  And it makes even much less sense to force them to have to recreate items that have already been created.  This system of Canvas is so convoluted that it has caused me never to post another feature request.   Canvas can continue with this weird system, but I suggest to remove this 10% mumble-jumble stuff and put all ideas in one place.  Then you could properly “scale” ideas.  (I know that there has been discussion about this, maybe even a feature request somewhere, but I can’t find it.  Probably archived, or in cold-storage.  Who knows?) ... View more

(Sorry for my delayed response, and that we are a bit off of the original topic.) So, Renee, understanding that feature-requests that are in the upper 10% might not ever be worked on (which is the case right now,) and feature-requests that get low votes can remain on the list and be "In Development," this can lead someone to ask "What is the real purpose of the 10% rule?"  I will try to answer this with my own perspective. The 10% rule gives Canvas the opportunity to easily archive (meaning somewhat hide, or can) those ideas that didn't get enough votes and that Canvas doesn't like.  Even if the same feature-request is re-created again, it will likely not get enough votes because those who voted on it earlier will most often ignore the re-created identical feature-request, and because the re-created feature-request does not adopt old votes.  If Canvas likes a feature-request that doesn't get enough votes, Canvas will keep it on the list. If Canvas didn't have this 10% rule, there would appear to be no justification for Canvas to get rid of ideas that they don't like.  And if this undesirable feature were left alive, Canvas would risk that someday it might gain enough votes. I am just trying to be realistic about what this 10% rule does.  Maybe others will see other things that it does. ... View more

Okay Renee, I feel better. But it still seems that we are skirting the issue.  I hate to talk for Esmail, but it seems that he was wondering why this feature request has not been implemented and that it might need another 100 (of his) votes.  The point is that this feature request already in the upper 10%, it (right now) doesn't need another 100 votes, and that the nature of it being in the upper 10% does not say anything about it ever being worked on.  The #1 feature request (the one with more votes than any) is not in development.  None of the feature requests in the upper 10% are in development.  What I think you are trying to point out is that when something isn't "in development" that it doesn't mean that it "will never be in development." It might (half-full.)  And I think that you are pointing out that the feature request system is only one of many places where Canvas finds ideas for development.  The feature request system and its procedures do not mean that any of these feature requests will every be worked on.      Additionally, as I have posted in my graphic above, something can be worked on that is not in the upper 10%.  So the feature request system is only a system to gather ideas.  Canvas works on what they feel is most important.  (I am not trying to imply that Canvas is wrong to work on what it feels is important, this is often normal business. We users can be contributors, but users are not "in control" of development.) ... View more

Renee, you are going to have to help me.  We seem to have several questions, but let me focus on the main question. 1) "Which of the feature requests in the upper 10% are in development?" Can you tell me how to filter for these, and maybe provide a screenshot showing what these filtering conditions should produce? Also, what did I do wrong in the screenshot that I posted above? ... View more

Hi Renee, thanks for your post and clarification. As a suggestion, someone should add a date to this top comment about "This idea was ...." so that it is obvious how old these are.  Otherwise, how are we to know? Okay, I went to the click link and found 8 pages of feature requests that apparently make up the upper 10%.  It appears that at this point in time, it only takes 227 votes for a feature request to be within the top 10%.  Great!  Thanks. So, my comment to Esmail that he doesn't need 100 votes is still correct.  And, at this point in time there is no development on this feature request, meaning the glass is completely empty.  If development were in progress, then the glass is starting to be filled and Canvas could provide a percent complete. I guess that I don't see the glass being half-filled relative to development.  Yes, I understand development.  Right now, only 10 items are in development, and the odd thing is that these 10 items are not in the upper 10% (see graphic.)  Well, I am probably not filtering this correctly, or am I?  I go to your provided link, Renee, and then on the right side click on the "In Development" button and see what I have provided below.   I seem to confirm this by first picking "Top 10% by Vote" and then applying the "in development" filter, and nothing shows.  What am I doing wrong? ... View more