DocViewer Instructor Feedback Download

Status: Completed Submitted by on ‎06-22-2017 08:37 AM
This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

The old version of Crocodoc allowed students to download a pdf of their assignment with Instructor annotations and feedback.  This should be added to the DocViewer as well so that students don't loose this feature.

Comments from Instructure

For more information, please see Canvas Production Release Notes (2018-03-10) 

For more information, please read through the DocViewer Plan.

Download annotated PDF:  Done 3/20/18
37 Comments
kakanczu
Community Novice
‎06-22-2017 11:45 AM

This is particularly important as students can't access past submissions. Thus, if an instructor gives feedback on a submission and then the student resubmits, the student has effectively lost all previous feedback. There's no way for the instructor to provide that to the student via an annotated pdf.

jthoms
Community Novice
‎06-22-2017 02:47 PM

Instructors place high value in the time they invest in providing students feedback. The smart students place equal value in that feedback, and may want to take it away in a download to digest and learn from it. This download was a key piece to effective learning.

conklink
Community Novice
‎06-23-2017 09:13 AM

This is also important because sometimes when students are assigned to work in groups in a single document, one student might upload a document that the entire group contributed to, and in some situations is it more efficient when I can comment and make annotations on that one uploaded document, then download and send (with annotations and comments) to the other students in the group. I know there are other ways that students can work jointly on a group document, and see feedback, but there are times when it is most efficient for me to do what I have described here.

If instructor feedback cannot be downloaded, it reduces my productivity for such situations.

beerline_n
Community Participant
‎06-23-2017 11:27 AM

But please make it so that it is easier to download the annotations than it was in the past. Students had to select special options in their pdf viewer, I believe, for the annotations to actually print.

zachw
Community Novice
‎06-23-2017 04:57 PM

Relatedly, it's a key piece to several of my instructors using Canvas at all.

mhoffman
Community Novice
‎06-24-2017 02:58 PM

The amended feedback viewer is too small and students need to be able to download annotated pdf feedback. The new viewer requires too much scrolling, making it less likely for students to view and integrate needed feedback.

drmy4ever
Community Novice
‎06-24-2017 07:21 PM

Canvas updated Speed Grader this Tuesday, and in the process, removed the Feedback Download option.  This has greatly affected my work. In the past, students had a hard time viewing the document comments since these comments only show up on a small window on their laptop. To work around, I would save my comments in a pdf and upload them to the students under assignment comments. Ever since the Speed Grader update, I am unable to do so.  I can’t even save screenshots because the “lines to the comments” are now only visible if the mouse is hover over the comments.  I am very frustrated with this latest version of update. I have already contacted Canvas on Wednesday and opened a ticket, but there is no ETA of when the Feedback download option will be back. 

A suggestion to the IT team: when you put this download option back, please also have it be available for our students.

hvaughn
Community Contributor
‎06-26-2017 07:26 AM

As others have mentioned, students and instructors both need the ability to download annotated submissions.  This has greatly affected our instructors and they are grumbling.  At this point we are not real happy with this change. We'd like to see this functionality return. (Pretty please.)

janice_dickensh
Community Novice
‎06-26-2017 11:54 AM

Since it is basically a waste of time to put annotations on students papers if they can not download them later, this absolutely MUST be added.

mmalone1
Community Novice
‎06-26-2017 01:40 PM

This is imperative for several reasons:

  1. Students are far more likely to incorporate feedback into future assignments if that feedback is printed in front of them. If a student has to log in, navigate to the page, and then keep that open while working on the next project, they just aren't very likely to do it. In my classes, I give students a very small extra credit boost if they show me downloaded and printed feedback from their papers. Right now they can't do that, and this update hit right in the middle of one of my classes, so students started the summer session getting these extra credit points, and not I've had to develop a workaround.
  2. Many students don't have access to personal computers. I teach in a low-income area with students who can only work on campus computers. If we hit a long weekend or a college holiday, the building shuts down and students have to work in advance to prepare for that. The inability to download their feedback severely limits these students.