At my school, many students have individualized start dates and assignment due dates. Sometimes students take leaves of absence which require me to adjust due dates for those particular students. Although Canvas seems great at managing groups of students, it is not yet world-class with regard to managing students engaged in independent study. I'd like to change that. My plan involves two initiatives. First, I'd like to collect from the community use cases related to managing independent study students, so I invite you to share your use cases below. Thank you for sharing! Second, I am writing an open-source web application called Easel that supplements Canvas with features related to independent study. I am hoping that Instructure engineers see features in Easel that they can incorporate directly into Canvas.
Below are four short videos showcasing Easel features that I have implemented for use at my school. Currently, Easel is only a prototype. It is not ready for prime time. It should not be pointed at a production instance. It changes constantly. I intend to write installation directions and draw an architectural map when I have time.
This video shows how to generate a set of assignment due dates:
This video shows how to modify a set of assignment due dates:
This video shows how to generate elapsed times for a course:
This video shows how to use Easel Sets to create programs:
Thank you for sharing your use cases related to independent study!
Matt Hagen
This looks really great, and I hope you continue development on it.
One thing we would find useful in my building is to be able to manipulate the available from/until dates as well as the due dates.
I often don't change the due dates for students who get extended time on assignments, I just give them a later "available until" date but keep the same due date. This is mostly because it makes it clearer to them that I am giving them their specified extra time (since they can see the original due date) and gives them a clearer idea where in the semester the class is right now. (This is particularly important for students with an accommodation like "can turn in all assignments until the last day in the term" - they probably will do better with the structure of suggested due dates rather than no due dates at all until the last day and then a giant list of things due.)
I don't personally use the "available from" feature at all - if I don't want students in something yet I lock it at the Module level if it's already published. I don't know if other people would find it helpful to be able to manipulate that part as well.