Community

Theme Overview Create a more true simulation of student experience by being able to support all relevant student use cases What value could this provide to users? Student preview tool will support: • Ability to view all modules and artifacts regardless of being published • View all assignments without having to remove pre-requisites or fulfill specific requirements • View external tool functionality (eg lockdown broswer, LTI tools) • View only option for specific student in order to troubleshoot individual issues based on current progress • Expand test student capabilities to test differentiation • Toggle to view mobile option (simulate app) when using preview • Create observer view similar to student view ... View more

Theme Overview Improved data will improve user experience, and eliminate confusion What value could this provide to users? Single, shared identity between Canvas and Commons to eliminate sync/user assigning errors (similar but not same user) Include SIS ID in more reports, such as those in New Analytics and Attendance/Roll Call Display custom role names consistently to eliminate user confusion ... View more

Theme Overview Simplify admin tasks with basic functionality enhancements  What value could this provide to users? Central place exists for all users to access, launch access to all tools licensed by an institution. Able to easily access a newly created course to enable next actions Able to see Syllabus page version history and revert to prior versions Enable workflow for (optional) automated Creds badge assignment at course completion, also API access to badging Portfolium specific: provisioning cleanup -- automated access, rostering; adding faculty access without explicit admin invitation   ... View more

Theme Overview Finer grained controls on file visibility, improved download capabilities, and overall UX for file management.  What value could this provide to users? Able to customize defaults for file behavior (preview, pop-out) Able to download files, batch download of student work, customize filenames (auto-populate course/assignment) Able to customize download / export file outputs (eg 1 assignment vs all of them) Able to easily search files and view enclosing/containing folder Able to customize file visibility (i.e. date/time, which sections, courses, etc) ... View more

Since I joined Instructure earlier this year, I’ve been repeatedly honored and humbled by educators around the world and the work you are doing. I have found the many, many conversations I have had with teachers and leaders invaluable as we continue to deliver on our vision of the Instructure Learning Platform, build our roadmap, and look to what’s next.  I’m proud to know that Instructure plays a role in your story and the stories of students of all ages and levels of learning—that’s why our teams are dedicated to making Instructure products work harder for you. It’s also why we are committed to a higher standard of transparency, open dialogue, and collaboration with you in our product development.  To deliver on this promise, we launched our new Community Roadmap , presented in a now-next-later, outcome-focused format. This roadmap will act as your window into our work across the platform and into each product. There will be two key update cycles: the beginning of each quarter; and the first week of each month if changes occur within the quarter. And, to double down on transparency, our product managers will provide context for roadmap changes on the Product Blog . We’ve also announced a refreshed Idea Conversations process that will go live in February 2023. Our teams have been busy at work diving into open ideas submitted over the past few years, identifying themes, and building out the systems to support the new process–because our product should and will be informed by you.  Our discussions with you have also led to a more thoughtful and informed approach to New Quizzes . We heard you. First, we eliminated the deadline to transition from Classic Quizzes. Next, based on your feedback, we’re prioritizing the features most important to you into our New Quizzes Roadmap. Lastly, we have committed to continually communicate openly about our development plans. We hope you’re already seeing this new focus; for example, we have begun the phased integration of the Rich Content Editor (RCE) in New Quizzes with support for Drag and Drop, Math Editor, and the Accessibility Checker. ( Pro tip : Stay in the know of all things New Quizzes here .) Another sentiment we heard was the need for improved data and analytics. Enhanced analytics offerings—from the Canvas Admin Analytics beta, Canvas Data 2 beta, and expansion of Elevate K-12 Analytics dashboards and watchlists—prove that analytics is more than visualizations. It’s about surfacing insights that fuel data-driven decision making and meaningful conversations at every level. Next year you will see even more of our analytics work across the platform, and we’ll be using your input to ensure we get it right.  At the core of what we do is improving student experience and driving student outcomes. Our re-commitment to Catalog makes it easier for institutions to expand their offerings and enrollment, while simplifying the process for students to find, enroll, and purchase courses. We’ve also prioritized the needs of institutions around the world, with more customization and support for global markets. Our partnership with Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University (ASU) for their 100 MIllion Learners Global Initiative highlights Instructure’s commitment to breaking down barriers to quality education. And the addition of Canvas Credentials paves the way for the next generation of education, with experiences that are transferable, stackable, and learner-driven. This builds the foundation for a reimagining of the transcript to meet the evolving needs of learners, especially those of non-traditional learners and underserved communities.  As the Instructure Learning Platform continues to expand, we are working diligently to improve integration between our products and those of our partners. Our goal is to deliver a seamless experience for all users, while also providing best-in-class solutions for teaching and learning, assessment, analytics, and more. This means deeper data passback, more connection points, consistent UI, and smooth movement between products. And yesterday’s news that LearnPlatfor m is joining the Instructure family demonstrates our commitment to build the most open, transparent, and integrated learning platform in education. This unique platform equips stakeholders across the educational landscape with real-time, meaningful insight into the effectiveness of their tools of choice, and builds upon the power of  Instructure’s already robust partner ecosystem.  As we move into a new year, we want to thank you again for your continued trust and partnership. For those of you who will observe a much-needed, end-of-year break, we wish you a safe, happy, and restful few weeks. We look forward to the opportunity to continue to collaborate with you 2023–let’s keep the dialogue going!   But before we bid adieu to 2022, celebrate with us by watching the highlights of this year’s releases in the Instructure Year in Review below!    2022 Instructure Product Year in Review ... View more

Today is the day! After reviewing our proposed path forward with various community members, we can share an outline of the next version of Idea Conversations! Building on what we learned from you, we created the following guiding principles, which shaped our new approach: Clarity of success criteria : Establish an idea intake process that enables Instructure to understand the problems which need to be solved for which audiences and how we measure success in order to promote teaching and learning with Instructure products. Larger outcomes vs individual solutions : Lead with an outcome-based approach by aligning relevant ideas to larger product outcome themes. Targeted focus areas : Focus Community discussion and voting on a finite set of outcome themes. When evaluating new ideas, strike a balance of team capacity, target audience, time to value for users. Regular communication on priorities : Structured communication between the community and Product team to keep the community engaged. Create additional opportunities for outcome refinement conversation as prioritized outcome themes move through the product development process. Delivery: Deliver on highest value outcome themes within a 6-month timeframe. So what will the new version be? Check out our infographic below which highlights the key components. We’re working our way through multiple years of feedback, and we’ve had a chance to take a first pass at all ideas submitted in 2022 to see what common outcome themes emerged. We’re not done yet, but here are some of the most recent themes. Grading Surfacing Incomplete Assignments and Low Grades Customizable Grading Approaches Managing Grades Across Sections Grading Flow Customization and Efficiencies Assignments Assignment Timing and Sorting Decoupling Functionality From Requiring Assignments Limit Assignment Viewing in Certain Cases Courses Flexibility In Course Visibility Improvements to Copying Course Functionality Over the next two months, our team will work hard to complete the analysis on over 5 years of history to pre-populate the outcome themes (so we don’t lose that rich history), and to build the new systems and processes to support this new approach. During this time, Idea Conversations will be in ‘read-only’ mode (starting today). We will continue to provide updates to the community as we get closer to Go Live - which is targeted for February 1, 2023. ... View more

Over the last few weeks, our team has brought cross-functional folks from across Instructure and customers from our community together to chat about the functionality requirements of Idea Conversations.  Our goal is to get to the root of everyone’s needs from Idea Conversations and have a well-rounded discussion on how we can build an updated solution that fulfills those needs and creates actionable insights for our product strategy. What you’ve told us is needed for the next version of Idea Conversations:  A safe space for community members to share what they need help solving in order to promote teaching and learning with Instructure products Communication channels that consistently assist us in understanding the current problems at hand and to provide ways for us to ideate together on how best to solve them A more present and consistent product voice A way to provide the why behind product prioritization decisions, even when we can’t prioritize it   So what comes next?  On November 30th, we will: Turn Idea Conversations to ‘read-only’ mode for ~60 days (through the end of January) Highlight the most common trends our team has identified from all the open ideas Provide an outline of what you can expect for the next version of Idea Conversations “Wait, what? Idea Conversation is moving to read-only?” It might seem counterintuitive, but it’s what we need to complete our analysis of the existing 4,446 open ideas and efficiently transition to a scalable new solution by early 2023. We recognize there is very rarely one solution that solves everyone's needs, and the ultimate solution will best balance opportunities for input with a scalable way for active product team participation.  Further, in an effort to be as transparent as possible and provide context, strategy, and insights on a regular basis we will be sharing a monthly Product Blog that spotlights use cases across our products and provides updates on any changes in product strategy or prioritization.  We appreciate all of the input we have received so far and are looking forward to deeper opportunities to collaborate. We are working hard to develop the tools and processes which will make this process simple, fun, and enriching for our entire community. And while we are in this transition, please continue to leverage other resources available to you throughout the Community, our Support teams, and your CSM / CSM team. ... View more

Tl;dr: You want a forward-thinking roadmap, you want insight on the problems we are addressing that matter to you, not just what released in the last quarter, and most importantly you want to know the what, why, and when of how Instructure intends to serve your needs best. We heard your feedback on the community and we will be making changes to address it starting with regular updates. This post outlines some of the changes being focused on in the coming months. In my post last week, I shared an update about the path forward for New Quizzes . As mentioned, I have had the unique opportunity to meet with many customers in-person, dive in deep to our community, and talk with our team members. These conversations have highlighted a few key areas which require change in order to effectively share our vision and hear from you.  In fact, we found our time with customers so enriching, we want to incorporate this cycle of listen-and-learn as a permanent fixture in our product development. Considering our diverse client base, and the communities they in turn serve, a listen-and-learn, rinse and repeat, mentality will help us to serve all of our clients’ unique needs.    We are dedicating the remainder of Q4 2022 to addressing the following areas to ensure that we are hitting the ground running at the start of the year.   Product Roadmap: Looking to the Future Many of you have been asking for more transparency into our future product strategy. We are pleased to announce that we have released a forward-looking outcome roadmap!  So what does that mean?  Our new company roadmap—found at roadmap.instructure.com —has several different features to help you understand where we are, and where we are going. We have added these various layers of information to give you the option of having as broad or as detailed a view as you want.    Company-wide Focus Areas: This new company roadmap shows the focus areas across all of our products as a whole.  User Problems we are Solving: The roadmap is rooted in the problems we are solving and the impact for our users. Roadmap by Product : Each Instructure product family now has its own roadmap page, making the content easier to read, sort, and find what’s relevant to the tool(s) you’re using. Links to each roadmap are found in the top-level navigation and by clicking on the Product Name in the legend. More detail for current quarter items: For current quarter product roadmap items, you can click the plus (+) icon to read detailed explanations about what is changing, why it is valuable, and which Idea Conversations align with the update.     Instructure Roadmap     The Path Forward for Idea Conversations 4,393 Open Ideas…love all of the ideas… I do not love so many being in open status. We want to take advantage of the valuable input from customers who utilize our products in their day-to-day. Currently, we know Idea Conversations are unequivocally not structured to aggregate and act on contributions in a scalable way. As a team, a top priority is to create a new process, which allows us to gather your insights, assess their actionability, and close the loop with customers through regular, clear, and detailed responses.   Over the next few weeks, we are consulting with various community members, internal teams, and community forum experts to determine the best path forward. We will explore questions like: How can we provide better visibility for community members into problem identification and prioritization? How can we identify trends and group similar ideas under a single problem statement? What is the best way for users to support ideas while maintaining their voice? How can we foster better communication and collaboration between our product teams and users? How can we better classify ideas? How can we create visibility which clearly shows where your ideas are in our development process?   Change is coming. We are excited for positive change and committed to creating a proactive and inclusive product development methodology which takes into account the wide diversity of our client needs. We are dedicated to transparency and specificity and will not provide partial answers moving forward but fully fleshed-out responses when they are ready. Over the next month you will see a variety of modifications to our ongoing systems for gathering ideas and input as we determine our next steps. We ask for your participation and patience as we develop the right system of processes to gather your input and disseminate the details of new plans, highlight important deadlines and dates, and explain our rationale behind important roadmap decisions and their impact on your users. We look forward to embarking on this new journey together and the opportunities it provides to edify each other and create the best possible product roadmap for all of you. Thank you all for your feedback, comments, and insights over the last few months and remember to keep your eyes peeled for another update on November 17, 2022! ... View more

One of the things that made me want to join the Instructure team as the chief product officer was the culture of transparency that it has developed over the years. When I joined Instructure earlier this year, I felt it was really important to hear from our customers as we prioritize development of our products. I’ve spent the last several months meeting with our customers and hearing their unique needs. I want to thank you for being so open with me about the challenges you face! I sincerely value the amount of trust you place in us to get it right.    We Hear You Many of our customers wanted to talk about New Quizzes. I heard loud and clear that our rollout of the tool has been… uhh… less than perfect. We hear you and I want to assure you that the development of New Quizzes is now our top priority. Many of you expressed a desire to engage with us on product decisions and rollouts before they happen. We’re committed to transparency throughout this process.   Elimination of the Deadline for Switching to New Quizzes During a recent call with some of our university customers I heard, “reasons to switch to New Quizzes should be compelling, not compulsory.” I couldn’t agree more. We want our customers to use New Quizzes because it is the best solution available for achieving positive assessment outcomes, not because of arbitrary deadlines. So we are removing the deadline to switch to New Quizzes. This will give each customer the ability to consider what they need to be ready to make the most successful transition. Since we have a very diverse customer base, not all institutions will have the same priorities. We’ll continue to partner with each institution to meet their unique needs as they plan to transition to New Quizzes.    The Path Forward for New Quizzes Our customers have told us what they need to transition from Classic Quizzes to New Quizzes successfully, and we’re making those features a priority. We understand that our customer base is diverse, and we’ll continue partnering with them to meet their unique needs as they transition to the new product. In addition, we’ll partner closely with institutions that have chosen to adopt and migrate to New Quizzes and ensure we account for their emerging needs in our ongoing product development.    We’re Giving Everyone More Time Our goal is to facilitate a seamless transition to New Quizzes when customers are ready—not because of an arbitrary deadline. So, we’ve eliminated the end-of-life date for Classic Quizzes for now. We hope that will ease the pressure on customers and give them time to plan an implementation of New Quizzes when it makes sense for their unique needs.  However, we will focus our development energy on New Quizzes. It’s our top priority, so we will not be adding any new features to Classic Quizzes. However, we will continue to fix critical bugs and maintain the product.   We’re Here To Help To help everyone migrate and transition to New Quizzes, we’ve created a New Quizzes Hub , where customers can find up-to-date roadmaps, release notes, and other resources to aid in the transition to the new product. We also encourage our customers to join The Community , where they can connect with their peers and learn from their experiences as they plan and deploy New Quizzes.  We aim to meet our customers’ needs with every new feature in Canvas, and we believe New Quizzes is the best assessment tool on the market. We’ve listened to customers’ concerns about the product and migration deadline. So we’ve made changes to ensure everyone can move to New Quizzes when they’re ready.  If you’ve transitioned to New Quizzes, we’d love to hear about your experience, and if you aren’t ready, we’d love to hear from you too. ... View more