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Canvas Release Notes (2019-07-13)

Canvas Release Notes (2019-07-13)

Upcoming Canvas Changes

Canvas Release Schedule Adjustments: July 15

Starting July 15, the Canvas Release Schedule will be adjusted to support two-week deploys and monthly releases every third Saturday of the month. For more information, please see Upcoming Canvas Changes‌.

In this Canvas release (July 13), users with permission to generate pairing codes can export a CSV file with newly-generated pairing codes for all students in a course. 

Admins can request Gradebook exports and the Grade Export report to include integration IDs. The sort arrow in the account-level People and Courses pages has been inverted to display the correct sorting for a specified column.

For all users, Finnish (Suomi) has been added as an available language in Canvas. 

Feature Options

  • For institutions using the New Gradebook, the New Gradebook includes a grade posting policy, which sets how grades and comments are released to students.

External Tools (LTI)

  • For institutions using Commons, the Search page includes featured content to highlight or promotes specific resources. Additionally, the Imported page includes a search field for users to search for, sort, and filter previously imported resources.

Release notes also include API updates and fixed bugs.

Release notes describe upcoming Canvas functionality and are subject to change.

Feature Options

The following feature options are addressed in this release:

  • Course: New Gradebook

Canvas release summary by user roleCanvas New Release ScreencastCanvas Release Collaborative ChatCanvas API Change Log


Release Notes Change Log

New Features

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New Gradebook

Grade Post Policies

This feature is used in conjunction with an existing feature option in Canvas. Please view the content below for additional details. For more information about feature options, please see the Canvas Release Notes FAQ.

Release Advisory (2019-07-17)

The Grade Posting Policy inadvertently affected the visibility of existing grades that were posted before the release. Some assignments may need to be manually posted for grades to display to students. If a Gradebook previously included assignments that were previously muted and graded prior to the release, the grades will remain unposted until they are manually posted with the Post Grades button.

For any assignments that have not yet been graded, they will be graded according to the course-level policy set in the New Gradebook Settings at the time of grading, unless the assignment is anonymous or moderated, which always have a manual post policy. Changing the policy for a course does not affect grade or comment visibility for existing assignments.

Feature Availability

15 July

Location to Enable Feature

New Gradebook

Configuration Details

New Gradebook Feature Option

Affected Canvas Areas

New Gradebook

SpeedGrader

Affects User Interface

Yes

Affected User Roles

Instructors, Students

Feature Enhancement Ideas

Existing New Gradebook feature ideas

Specified Tag for Feature Ideas

gradebook_new

 

Summary

The New Gradebook includes a grade posting policy, which sets how grades and comments are released to students.

 

Change Benefit

This change redefines assignment-wide muting to an individual assignment level, making grades visible down to individual sections of a course, or hide previously posted grades if needed. For a summary of Post Policy changes, please see the Post Policies Overview and API Changes document.

This change only benefits the New Gradebook. Instructors using the Old Gradebook must continue to mute and unmute individual assignments and release grades to all students at the same time.

Affected User Roles & Behaviors

Instructorsc

Instructors are able to control when grades are released to all students. Assignment grades may be manually or automatically posted.

Automatically posted grades for an assignment are the equivalent of an unmuted assignment where grades and comments are immediately posted.

Manually posted grades allows an instructor to hide all grades and comments until the instructor chooses to post the grades.

The concept of muting grades has also been visually updated by replacing the previously known Mute icon with an Eye icon, which represents the assignment’s grade visibility. A transparent eye icon displays for assignments with a manually posted grading policy. 

Manually posted grades include an eye icon

Course Grade Posting Policy

A posting policy for the entire course can be set in the settings, which will be set for all current and future assignments. By default, the policy is for grades to be posted automatically. 

Course grade posting policy options are in the New Gradebook Settings menu

After a course policy has been applied, any additional changes must be made to individual assignments. Any assignment can be changed to support an individual policy that varies from the course policy. Policies can be updated in the assignment menu.

Grade Posting Policy link is in the assignment menu

Manually Posted Grades

With manual posting, grades and comments are not revealed until the instructor chooses to post the assignment grades. 

When an instructor enters a grade for a manually posted assignment, the icon changes to a solid state to show the assignment has been assigned grades that are not visible to a student. 

Adding a grade to a manually posted assignment changes the eye icon to a solid color

When open, the Grade Detail Tray also displays a hidden label for each hidden submission. 

Grade Detail Tray showing the Hidden label because the assignment is hidden to the student

Post Grades Process

At any time, an instructor can open the assignment menu in the Gradebook and choose to post grades to students. When the Post Grades option is selected, the Post Grades sidebar indicates the number of submissions that are hidden, including the number of submissions graded but not posted. Additionally, a dot also displays next to the individual submissions. 

The Post Grades link is in the assignment menu and opens a sidebar with additional information about how to post grades

Grades can be posted to everyone, which means they are visible to all students, or they can be posted for only students with graded submissions. Additionally, both options support posting to one or multiple specific sections in the course. When posting by section, at least one section must be selected. 

Hide Grades Process

Grades can also be hidden or re-hidden at any time, which may be needed to conceal or adjust previously posted grades. This behavior is the equivalent of muting and unmuting an assignment. The assignment menu Hide Grades option displays for any assignment where grades are visible to students, and instructors can choose to hide grades at any time. 

When selected, the Hide Grades sidebar allows instructors to hide grades to all students by default, or instructors can select one or multiple specific sections where grades should be hidden. When hiding by section, at least one section must be selected. 

The Hide Grades link is in the assignment menu and includes a sidebar with information about how to hide grades

When grades are hidden, the visibility icon changes to a solid state to indicate grades have been assigned that are not visible to students. Grades can be re-posted at any time using the assignment menu.

Student View

When assignment grades are manually posted and hidden to students, students see the Eye icon in the Grades page. When grades have been posted, the grade and any comments are visible in the Grades page.

Student view of the grades page with a hidden eye icon

SpeedGrader Functionality

Grades can also be hidden and posted in SpeedGrader.

Individual unposted hidden submissions are also indicated by the hidden label in the SpeedGrader sidebar. The hidden label displays once the submission receives a grade.

SpeedGrader shows the hidden label once a submission receives a grade

The visibility icon manages the grade policy the same way as the assignment menu does in the Gradebook.

The Post Grades option in SpeedGrader mirrors the functionality of the Gradebook

Anonymous Assignment Process

Anonymous assignments must always be manually posted regardless of the course-level grade policy. This behavior protects student anonymity. Anonymous assignments must be posted or hidden for all students in the assignment and cannot be managed by section.

Anonymous assignments that are hidden show a Hidden label in both the Grade Detail Tray and the SpeedGrader sidebar.

After grades are posted, SpeedGrader reloads to remove anonymity from all submissions, and grades are visible in the student Grades page.

Posting grades in SpeedGrader with an anonymous assignment includes information about removing anonymity

Moderated Assignment Process

To be included in the Gradebook, moderated assignments must follow the regular moderation workflow. After the moderator has selected grades for all students and posted grades, the grades display in the New Gradebook. If the moderator wants to keep grades hidden, the Display to Students option should not be selected, and grades can be posted to students in the Gradebook at a later date. However, if grades are displayed to students and an instructor wants to keep them hidden, grades can be re-hidden in the Gradebook using the Hide Grades option.

Updated Features

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Commons

These features are used in conjunction with an external tool (LTI) in Canvas. Please view the content below for additional details. For more information about LTI tools, please see the Canvas Release Notes FAQ.

Location to Enable Feature

Commons LTI

Configuration Details

Commons LTI

Affected Canvas Areas

Commons LTI

Beta/Test Environment Support

Functionality affects content in the beta environment only; New/updated features not available until production deploy

Permissions

Course Content - add / edit / delete

Discussions - view

Assignments and Quizzes - add / edit / delete

Affects User Interface

Yes

Affected User Roles

Instructors

Feature Enhancement Ideas

Existing Commons feature ideas

Specified Tag for Feature Ideas

Commons

 

Featured Content

Summary

Commons includes featured content at the top of the Search page that highlights or promotes specific resources.

 

Change Benefit

This change allows instructors to easily identify high quality instructional content in Commons. Featured content is currently curated by the Commons team and highlighted to benefit all Commons users.

Affected User Roles & Behaviors

Instructors

Instructors can view and import featured content from the Commons Search page. Content can be viewed by clicking the content, the same as accessing any other resource item. 

Featured content is viewable to all Commons users and cannot be minimized in the page.

Commons featured content in the search page

Imported Tab Search Field 

Summary

The Imported page includes a search field for users to search for, sort, and filter previously imported resources.

 

Change Benefit

This feature allows users to find specific resources on the Imported page.

Affected User Roles & Behaviors

Instructors

Instructors can open the Imported page and view the search field. The search field functions the same way as the search field available throughout Commons.

The imported content page includes a search field

People

Pairing Codes CSV Export

 

Location to Enable Feature

People - Options Menu

Configuration Details

Self-Registration must be enabled for the account

Affected Canvas Areas

People

Beta/Test Environment Support

Yes

Permissions

Users - generate observer pairing codes for students

Affects User Interface

Yes

Affected User Roles

Instructors

Feature Enhancement Ideas

View existing people feature ideas

Specified Tag for Feature Ideas

People

 

Summary

Users with permission to generate pairing codes can export a CSV file with newly-generated pairing codes for all students in a course.

 

Change Benefit

This change allows instructors to generate pairing codes for all course students in a single CSV file. Previously, pairing codes could only be generated individually.

Affected User Roles & Behaviors

Instructors

Instructors with permission to generate pairing codes can export codes for all students. Located in the Options icon, the Export Pairing Codes option downloads codes as a CSV file. This option only displays in accounts with self-registration enabled.

pairing codes export button in the people page

The CSV file includes the students’ names, pairing codes, and the date and time that each code will expire. These pairing codes can then be used to link observers to the students’ Canvas accounts.

examples of pairing codes in a CSV file

Reports

Integration ID

 

Location to Enable Feature

Account Settings - Reports

Configuration Details

Contact Customer Success Manager

Affected Canvas Areas

Reports, Gradebook Export

Beta/Test Environment Support

Yes

Permissions

Courses - View Usage Reports, SIS Data - read

Related APIs

Account Reports API

Affects User Interface

No

Affected User Roles

Admins, Instructors

Feature Enhancement Ideas

View existing Reports feature ideas

Specified Tag for Feature Ideas

reports

 

Summary

Admins can request Gradebook exports and the Grade Export report to include integration IDs.

 

Change Benefit

This change allows admins to access integration IDs for their institution.

Affected User Roles & Behaviors

Admins

Admins can request their Customer Success Manager enable an account setting to include Integration IDs in the Gradebook exports. Integration IDs are a secondary unique identifier useful for more complex SIS integrations and required by some institutions. Once this setting is enabled, admins can generate the Grade Export report with the included Integration ID column.

Admins, Instructors

When the Integration ID account setting is enabled, exports from the Gradebook also include the Integration ID column. 

Other Updates

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Languages

Finnish

Location to Enable Feature

Account/Course/User Settings - Language Menu

Configuration Details

N/A

Affected Canvas Areas

All Canvas

Affects User Interface

Yes

Affected User Roles

All Users

Feature Enhancement Ideas

View existing languages feature ideas

Specified Tag for Feature Ideas

Languages

Summary

Finnish (Suomi) has been added as an available language in Canvas.

 

Change Benefit

This change allows users to view Canvas in their native language.

 

Affected User Roles & Behaviors

All Users

Users can enable languages in their User Settings. Admins and instructors may enable a language for an entire account or course through Account or Course Settings, respectively. When a language is selected, users will view all Canvas areas in the selected language.

Account Course & User Search

Sort Arrow

 

Location to Enable Feature

N/A

Configuration Details

N/A

Affected Canvas Areas

Account People Page, Account Courses Page

Beta/Test Environment Support

Yes

Permissions

Users - view list

Affects User Interface

Yes

Affected User Roles

Admins

Feature Enhancement Ideas

View existing account search feature ideas 

Specified Tag for Feature Ideas

Account_search

 

Summary

The sort arrow in the account-level People and Courses pages has been inverted to display the correct sorting for a specified column.

 

Change Benefit

This change aligns consistency with other sortable tables in Canvas.

Affected User Roles & Behaviors

Admins

When admins view the Courses or People pages, they can sort each column individually in ascending or descending order. The arrow points up to indicate an ascending sort, while the arrow points down to indicate a descending sort.

inverted sort arrows in column headings

Platform/Integration

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API

API Change Log

Adjustments have been made to the following APIs as noted in the API Documentation change log:

  • Assignments API

  • Conversations API

  • GraphQL API

  • LTI Variable Substitutions

  • Submissions API

External Apps

LTI Advantage Deployment ID

 

Location to Enable Feature

Account Settings, Feature Options

Configuration Details

LTI 1.3 and LTI Advantage Feature Option

Affected Canvas Areas

Developer Keys

External Apps

Affects User Interface

Yes

Affected User Roles

Admins, Instructors

Feature Enhancement Ideas

Existing Developer Keys feature ideas

Specified Tag for Feature Ideas

Developer Token

Location to Enable Feature

Account Settings, Feature Options

Summary

External tools that are created using the LTI Advantage Framework display a deployment ID once the tool has been installed in Canvas.

Change Benefit

This change provides a deployment ID, if needed, for LTI Advantage tool vendors. The Deployment ID is noted in the LTI 1.3 IMS Core Specification as a stable, locally unique identifier with the issuer and is an essential attribute for tools to associate to an account.

Affected User Roles & Behaviors

Admins, Instructors

Once an LTI Advantage external tool has been installed by a user with sufficient permissions, the Settings menu for the app includes an option to view the Deployment ID. If the tool is disabled and re-enabled, the tool retains the same Deployment ID. However, if the tool is deleted, the external tool would receive a new Development ID upon re-installation.

External App Deployment ID button

Fixed Bugs

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Accessibility

Assignments

External tools retain correct focus within assignments for screen readers. 

Course Home Page

The Course Home Page window does not include links in underlined text unless High Contrast Styles is enabled.

Course Settings

The Link Validator links have been resized and does not include links in underlined text unless High Contrast Styles is enabled.

Discussions

The Discussions Index page does not include links in underlined text unless High Contrast Styles is enabled.

People

Spacing and formatting has been revised in the Add People page, including removing links from underlined text unless High Contrast Styles is enabled.

Outcomes

The Student Mastery Gradebook does not include links in underlined text unless High Contrast Styles is enabled.

Assignments

User Enrollments and Differentiated Assignments

Users who are added to an assignment and later removed from the course are restored to the assignment if they are re-added to the course. 

Explanation: When a user was added to an assignment but later removed from the course, if the user was re-added to the course at a later date, the user was not re-added to the original assignment. Canvas code has been updated to restore assignments to enrollments re-added to a course. This behavior also applies to MasteryPath assignments.

Commons

Audio and Video Preview

In some instances, audio and video files would not play a preview on the Commons search page.

Explanation: When a user tried to preview a file in the search page, the file was not able to be previewed. Commons code has been updated to allow previews in the search page.

Conferences

Conference Edit Error

Conferences can be edited using the Edit button.

Explanation: When a user clicked the Edit button for a conference, the conference page generated an error. Canvas code has been updated to correct the impeding error. 

Dashboard

Inactive Student Submissions

Inactive student submissions do not display in the To Do list.

Explanation: When a student submitted a submission for an assignment, and then the student’s enrollment was changed to inactive, the submission persisted as needed grading in the To Do list. Canvas code has been updated to not display inactive student submissions in the To Do list.

Outcomes

Learning Mastery Gradebook Pagination

Pagination is applied per user and displays 20 students on each page.


Explanation: When students were enrolled in multiple sections, the Learning Mastery Gradebook displayed fewer than 20 students per page because the duplicate enrollments were being removed. Canvas code has been updated to display 20 students per page.

Permissions

Sub-Accounts and Developer Keys - Manage

The Developer Keys - Manage permission has been removed from the sub-accounts permissions page.


Explanation: When a subaccount user viewed the Permissions page and tried to modify the Developer Keys - Manage permission, the page generated an error. Canvas code has been updated to remove the permission from sub-accounts.

User Settings 

Cricket SMS Notifications

Users can receive SMS messages via the Cricket network.

Explanation: When users tried to register a phone number to receive SMS messages through the Cricket network, the email domain was outdated and did not allow users to receive messages. Canvas code has been updated to update the email domain for the Cricket network.

Release Notes Change Log

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Date
2019-07-17                                       

Added—New Features

  • New Gradebook: Included details about managing existing grades in the New Gradebook post-release.
2019-07-12                                       

Changed—New Features

  • New Gradebook: Noted that to ensure all data is properly transitioned, Grade Post Policies will not be available in the production environment until Monday, July 15.
2019-07-01Release Notes Published
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Comments

The admin sorting arrows will finally be fixed!  Thank you!

No, it’s not just you, we’re not seeing several changes in the beta environments right now.

New Gradebook, Speed Grader … and possibly others.

Waiting on Canvas to identify the issue (documentation or deployment).

About the "featured content" change in Commons: who decides what content is featured, and will this be divided between education levels (primary, secondary school, higher education)?

When an assignment is hidden, will a student see the missing or late label on their grade page, or will those statuses be hidden until the grade is posted? I tried to test in Beta, but I don't see the new feature in that environment yet.

Hello mvandevelde,

When the beta environment refresh occurred, the post policy feature was unexpectedly removed from the environment. Our engineering team was made aware of this and have re-added the feature to the Canvas beta environment. You should see it in your beta instance today.

Cody

Hi  @audra_agnelly !

It appears that Late and Missing labels will still display while grades are hidden. You should also be able to test this feature in beta today. When the beta environment refresh occurred, the post policy feature was unexpectedly removed from the environment. Our engineering team was made aware of this and have re-added the feature to the Canvas beta environment.

Cody

 @cwhermsen ...

Per the above information:

Change Benefit

This change allows instructors to easily identify high quality instructional content in Commons. Featured content is currently curated by the Commons team and highlighted to benefit all Commons users.

Why did you make muting grades so complicated? It was simple they are on or off now we have so many layers we can't figure it out. Please remove this feature.

Thank you,

Karen Matson

I don't have the new feature on and I have the eyeball for some assignments and not others and I can't get rid of it. Why?Canvas new mute eyeball

Thank you,

Karen Matson

Well I turned the feature on and then turned it off to clear out the eyeballs. So for those of you frustrated by the eyeballs you can turn on the feature and then turn it off to clear your screen.

Karen Matson

I read through the Admin notes and I don't see the ability to NOT turn on the Grade Posting Policy am I missing that? Do we have the option of not turning this on? We didn't turn on the Advanced >> Allow final grade override and I want to know if we have the option of NOT turning on Grade Posting Policy in the same manner.

Thank you,

Karen Matson

 @kmatson ...

Part of your question on "Why?" might be answered here:

The concept of muting grades has also been visually updated by replacing the previously known Mute icon with an Eye icon, which represents the assignment’s grade visibility. A transparent eye icon displays for assignments with a manually posted grading policy.

 @kmatson ‌ I'm not seeing those eyeballs in my test courses unless I make changes to the posting policy. I wonder if they're showing up on assignments that previously had the mute function applied?

Now that it's showing up in Beta, I was able to do some testing. I really like the fact that there's an overarching policy. We're K12 and get feedback about the constant notifications, and this will give teachers more streamlined ability to hold notifications by default, so they can grade at night without the system firing off notifications. In testing, I had some issues with the workflow and use of indicators in the gradebook:

  • Previously, to mute an assignment from the gradebook, you clicked Mute from the assignment menu and then clicked the confirmation. Now you select "grade posting policy" from the menu which opens a panel. You have to then select "manual post" and confirm. It's just one extra click, but feels like a step back when the flow was simpler before.
  • I'm concerned about the clarity of releasing grades to specific sections. When you select "post grades" from the assignment menu, a panel opens and orange dot indicators appear in the cells where the grade has been unreleased. After I choose my post options and click Post those orange dots go away. So, if I've only posted a grade to one of my sections, there's no indicator to highlight those other sections/grades to remind me that I haven't posted that section yet. I can see that in Speedgrader or in the grade detail tray but not when I scan my gradebook. I can see teachers very easily forgetting that they hadn't released grades for a particular section. I'd like to see those orange dots on all the time as a reminder that a grade hasn't been released yet.
  • I find the eye icons confusing. Maybe it's something people will need to adapt to, but I don't find them intuitive and kept having to go back to the release notes to understand what they were indicating. What bothered me the most was that after I had entered scores for all students and released the grade the transparent icon remained at the top of my gradebook. It makes it feel like something is wrong or incomplete about the column. If there are eyes at the top of every column, I'm less apt to pay attention to them and address an issue. If the grades are released and all grades are posted, that icon should go away. It seems like you'd be able to use the same logic that enables/disables the "All grades posted" option in the assignment menu could be used to hide/display the eye.

Chris thank you for that insight. I do think that faculty will be confused by the constant eyeball icon and determining what it means and trying to figure out if students are seeing their grades and their feedback.

The only advantage I can see to this is I can check the box to Manually Post Grades and all of my assignments will be muted automatically. I love the irony.

So who controls this Grade Posting Policy when there are multiple faculty, TAs, and graders?

Thank you,

Karen

Yes the student still sees the Missing and now a score so that is confusing for them.

Karen

Interesting points,  @audra_agnelly . Let's hope the Instructure engineers are still working on these things.  Somewhat similar to  @kmatson 's experience--but in a different place---I found that in a brand newly-created class where no policy was created at all, I had the crossed-out eye icon appearing for me in the Total column on the gradebook  but not on the assignment itself (as Karen did):

316518_total column.jpg

Also, in the same class (again...NO policy ever created; it's just at the default of "automatic") when I post a grade for a student in SpeedGrader, the icon in SpeedGrader has the crossed-out eye icon, as well. Note that the student score does NOT show "Hidden" next to it:

316519_sample posted grade.jpg

I might also point out there is currently no screentip appearing when mousing over the eye icon in SpeedGrader, though again I realize--this being Beta--it may still be a work in progress.

Overall, however, I believe this is an awesome, awesome feature and much-needed....and requested through the years.  It just needs a bit of fine-tuning still on the part of the engineers.  I personally am not bothered by the eye icon, either.  I think the crossed-out eye icon is much, much better than the dorky bell icon we had before.  Everything just needs a bit more fine-tuning.  Hopefully that will happen before it reaches production.

The eye icon in the total column has some really odd and inconsistent behavior. I hadn't even looked at it when I was reviewing the update earlier:

    When I mouse over the icon in that cell, the tooltip displays that warning about scores being hidden, even though there were test students whose grades had all been unhidden. When I dragged the Total column elsewhere in my gradebook the eye icons disappeared. In a different test course, there was no eye icon until I chose to hide grades for an assignment, but when the icon appeared in the total column, I couldn't get that tooltip to appear. 

Thanks  @ctitmus  and Canvas for the fast response on this.

All working now as expected. Smiley Wink

Audra,

We are getting the same error here with the total column. Everything is graded yet Canvas tells me there are ungraded items. Where are they?

316642_WhyDoIHaveEyeBallInTotal.jpg

Karen Matson

Yes Ken they have to get this right. I think it is too many layers.

Kraen

Chris,

I don't have a Manually Post Grades checked and I still have eye balls.

316664_GradePostingPolicy.jpg

Can anyone shed light on the Deployment ID? We had some discussion in the Beta Chat, but weren't sure of it's implications. Will clicking that link display the deployment ID or will it bring up editable fields? Is the ID assigned automatically when adding a tool that uses LTI 1.3/LTI Advantage? As an Admin, what's a situation where I would need to do something with this?

 @kblack ‌ and  @audra_agnelly ‌: 
After the release notes chat today I hopped back into Beta, in a course with the classic/old gradebook and turned on new gradebook. I did not see the Eye icon, anywhere, until I changed the posting policy from automatic to manual. This behavior is consistent with my testing from Monday. When toying with posting hidden grades
from SpeedGrader, I note the slash through the Eye icon disappears when grades post. It would make sense, to me, for the icon's coloring in SpeedGrader to align with its behavior in Gradebook not only for consistency but also to highlight the ability of an instructor to post hidden grades from within SpeedGrader.

 @kmatson ...

The screen you are showing appears to be for the overall "Grade Posting Policy" which would be for the entire course (accessed through the gear icon shown in the upper right corner of my attached image)...not for just one assignment.  My setting here is currently "Automatically Post Grades".  For a given assignment, you should have a three-dot "kebab" icon (which only shows up when you hover over that area, by the way) like the one shown in my image next to my "Mobile Assignment" column.  If you click that icon, you should have an option at the bottom for "Grade Posting Policy".  Here is where you change it from "Manually" (eye icon) to "Automatically", and I think it *should* remove the eye icon.  Does this help?

Grade Posting Policy

Canvas I am concerned you have a problem with this new policy. I deleted all assignments imported three new ones and I have the eye icon telling me there is a difference and I have a problem. I haven't entered anything. This doesn't go away when all scores are entered and is there when no scores are entered. Is that a permanent feature we ignore because it is meaningless or how do I get this to not show?

316666_EyeBall in total.jpg

Thank you,

Karen Matson

I'm a bit confused about when you choose to Post Grades. There are two options: Everyone (Grades will be made visible to all students) and Graded (Grades will be made visible to students with graded submissions). Surely, the only student who will benefit from viewing their posted grade would be one who had been graded? (I presume that if the student hasn't been graded yet then they would not see any alteration to their submission so they don't gain anything by viewing it). Maybe the first option refers to submissions which have comments but no grade yet?

I know that this change to muting grades is still evolving but, when the sidebar opens, can you please add some information about what each of these options mean? (It is easy for staff to choose an incorrect option when it is unclear about what each option involves).

Thanks.

I read that, but that doesn't answer my question: will this be divided between education levels (primary, secondary school, higher education)? Why does the Commons team decide what kind of content our teachers get to see, and what criteria is this based on? Do these criteria take into account matters like location, culture, style of education (and level, as mentioned)?

Being able to set a policy for posting grades in a course is a very welcome addition. I do have a question though: I find the phrase "Any grades that have already [been] posted will remain visible." for the Manually Post Grades option somewhat unclear as it currently seems to do the opposite (and I assume the word "been" will be added later). I turned it on in a test course with unmuted grade columns which were "muted" for the teacher and made invisible to the students. What does "visible" mean in this context, visible to teachers or students?

Edit: removed other comment that no longer applies.

Posted this elsewhere and a colleague has asked me to drop something in here too. Apologies if you've already seen this.

Reading the release notes I'm extremely saddened and frustrated to read that 'Anonymous assignments must be posted or hidden for all students in the assignment and cannot be managed by section.'  i.e. this won't work for anonymous assignments - and will detrimentally affect large swathes of Canvas customers.

 

It's really hard to contain how exasperated we feel with this development decision. The release doesn't reflect the extensive conversations that we had with Product Management or the agreements that we thought stood.  We made strategic plans, and promises to faculty on the back of that, and are now in a really challenging position because of this.

 

Unmuting the grades for students in Section A (which has been assigned one Due Date) at a different time to unmuting the grades in Section B (which has a different Due Date) is not connected to, and should not be prevented by, the anonymity status of those Sections.  It is however, because of the way that Instructure has implemented anonymity.  So anyone who lobbied for selective unmute (by section), who also uses anonymity, isn't in luck.

 

This goes back to the discussions the UK HE User Group has had with Instructure about working with them on the User Stories they are using to develop from.  That development still seems to be happening behind closed doors, and it seems arbitrary decisions are being made that do not actually align with the business users' needs?

In testing on our beta environment, for some assignments tested, the Eye icon does not change to 'solid' when a grading change is made. It's not clear what is responsible for the discrepancy. It does not appear to be related to assignment settings.
In assignments where the Eye icon is present but does not change, the Grade Detail Tray does not display the 'hidden' label. Conversely, where the Eye icon does change as expected, the 'hidden' label appears as expected.
In assignments where the Eye icon does not change, choosing 'Hide grades' from the vertical ellipsis dropdown menu results in an error message 'There was a problem hiding assignment grades'. A refresh of the page, and the Eye icon turns solid and the menu options from the vertical ellipsis change so that 'Hide Grades' is replaced with 'Post grades'. So it appears to be 'fixed' at this stage.
Post Grades sidebar indicates number of submissions that are hidden. Max number displayed is '98+'. We have courses with over 10 times that enrollment number so this is not much use.
It does not include the number of submissions graded but not posted, which would be useful.

At this stage I'm concerned that there are too many unexplained behaviours involving the Eye icon. Unresolved, it will cause confusion.

Ric,

I am very concerned about this too. I also don't know what you mean by a "solid" eye. I don't see that I see an eye with color and without color. The eye always has a slash. My CSM told me there would be an eye without one but I don't see that either. Can you share a screen shot of the "solid" eye?

Karen Matson

Ric,

I re-read the release note to find the solid eye is the orange eye. 

Thank you,

Karen

 @ric_canale  thanks for this. I saw some of the same issues you mention on July 3, but I couldn't reproduce any today - Post Grades, in particular, seems to work properly today.

In case anyone finds a contrary behavior, in addition to sharing here I'd like to suggest raising a ticket via Report a Problem or your institution's admins (or, if you're an admin, directly in Service Cloud).

How do others feel about the slash? Without getting into specifics, I'll say that anyone who took a film class might find the current "grades hidden" icon design disturbing. I wonder whether the slash icon tested better than a closed eye in UX testing?

Hi  @bkompe ,

When you post grades and select the Everyone option, students with ungraded submissions will no longer see the Eye icon for that assignment on their Grades page. When you select the Graded option, students with ungraded submissions will still have the Eye icon displayed for that assignment. You are correct that students with graded submissions will see the same result for either option.

Cody

Continuing to test the Grade Post Policies on Beta, it looks like there are still issues with the student view.

For the student, the entire assignment is not showing while the policy is enabled. In the Release Notes it says the correct view for students will be to see the assignment, and in place of a grade, see the 'hidden' eye icon.  I was able to reproduce this consistently.

Once I post the grades, the assignment re-appears with the released grade. In the images below, the assignment I am testing this on is called "grade post testing".  

student view graded assignment appearsstudent view assignment disappears

On the instructor side, is this the way the menu is supposed to look? I couldn't "unbreak" this until I typed in another grade, then the eye became solid and I was able to hide and show grades again using the menu. This seemed to be a intermittent issues, I couldn't get it to happen again, but it would be frustrating for instructors to figure out how to fix this.

instructor gradebook menu column

Thanks!

hi erinhallmark‌, eallen‌ - looks like the video for this release needs to be added Smiley Happy 

Thanks,

Lindsey

Hi, Lindsey,

Looks like the screencast was posted soon after your comment! We don't have a set time that they'll always be available but we try to get them up as quickly as we can.

Thanks,

Erin

Hi, Chris,

More information will be available from our Commons team about this feature shortly! 

Thanks,

Erin

Hi, Audra,

The link displays the deployment ID. As noted, deployment IDs are sometimes used for LTI Advantage providers and are assigned automatically after the tool has been added at the account level. The only thing you may have to do is provide the deployment ID to the tool provider.

Thanks,

Erin

Hi, everyone ( @kmatson ‌,  @lftapper ,‌ @ric_canale ‌,  @kblack ‌)

Thanks for your feedback on grade policies. Even with beta features, we recommend submitting a support case when you find behavior that is contrary to the release notes description. Please be sure to include a Canvas URL where the behavior is occurring, along with all steps to reproduce the behavior. As much as we would love to, we are not adequately able to triage behaviors through release notes.

Our Gradebook team performed a backend data fix that converted muted grades to the post policies, and the beta environment itself may have been affected with the previous beta refresh behaviors. Beta environment behavior is a preview of what will be in production environment, so if something seems amiss, our support team is always standing by to let our engineers know if we need to correct something. As of right now I'm not able to find any support cases about these behaviors so I'd definitely encourage you to submit one!

Thank you!

Erin

Hi, James,

Our product manager noted that he responded to you thread, which can be found here: https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/6702-mute-by-section?commentID=144430#comment-144430

We'd prefer to not answer the same content in multiple places, so included links are encouraged if you are referencing the same thought in another location.

Thanks!

Erin

Thanks erinhallmark‌, I'll submit a ticket.

Hi, Does anyone know how Grade Post Policies will work with both the Turnitin Framework tool and Turnitin LTI? We are unable to test this in the beta instance and are concerned that post update, students will not be able to view their originality report if grades are posted manually.

Cheers

Bethan

Hi All,

I'm getting a bit concerned about grade post policies being released this weekend when it seems to have so many issues. I've spent a lot of time testing this today and so far come up against the following issues. I haven't yet tested this against groups, so there's a lot more testing yet to complete.

- The transparent eye icon persists in the total column when there's at least one student who hasn't submitted even though all columns have been posted (ticket 4463724)

- no alt tag appears for the eye icon in speedgrader (ticket: 3410718)

- in student view if a student has not submitted work, they see the eye icon, and the alt text says 'the instructor is working on grades'. This could be really confusing to students. I suggest an alternative icon for students who have not yet submitted. Obviously it would make more sense if it was a non submission assignment for the eye to appear if the assignment is muted. (ticket: 4463748)

- some of the wording is quite confusing. It's taken us a while to figure our what it means, and it also took a while for me to communicate this to canvas support who also found the statement confusing. When posting grades for an anonymous assignment a panel appears on the right hand side. There is an information box which states: "Grades can only be posted to everyone when the assignment is anonymous. Anonymity will be removed. It's actually referring to the 'Everyone' option. We understood it to mean initially that named submissions can't be posted to everyone. It may be better to say: Grades can only be posted using the 'Everyone' option when the assignment is anonymous. Anonymity is then removed. (ticket:4464163)

- the transparent eye persists on some anonymous columns even though it should change to an orange eye when a mark is added, it also persists even though marks and feedback have been posted (ticket:4463846)

- Where there is a transparent eye issue as outlined above (ticket: 4463846) it looks like it's anonymous in the grades area (even though grades have been posted), students are able to see their grades.  (ticket: 4464262)

- anonymity persists on some assignments even after marks have been posted (ticket: 4464466)

As you can see there is a long list of issues which are currently being investigated. I haven't always been able to reproduce all of them right away, but do have multiple examples of these bugs. Assessment is a high risk area, especially revealing of marks to students - this needs to be carefully managed. Would it be possible to withhold this functionality until some of these have been ironed out? It would be great to have a longer testing period for updates relating to grades in particular, but the new updates schedule may help with this. It also seems to me that this functionality may be better off as a feature option, so that institutions can switch it off if they aren't using sections, or find this functionality too administrative. Some of this functionality is great - being able to apply course policies for all assignments instead of having to manage them individually, I just think this needs a bit more consideration?

Thanks

Bethan

Hi, Bethan,

Post policies doesn't affect any current behavior associated with LTI tools. The main change is how the UI displays assignments that with grades hidden or posted to students. If you find some concerns about how grades are functioning when the feature is available in the production environment, send our support team a note and they'd be happy to investigate!

Thanks,

Erin

Hi, Bethan,

Thanks for your feedback! As I previously mentioned, we know that the beta environment may be affecting some of these behaviors. One of the Gradebook engineers and I will be looking into your tickets today for additional review.

Erin

Hi, Rob,

After checking with our designers, we've retained the slash with the eye as user testing showed us a closed eye didn't work unless an open eye was directly next to it. Additionally, the previous icon included a slash, and by retaining the slash we wanted the icon to retain some previous familiarity.

Hope that helps!

Erin

Hi, Chris,

Visibility refers to grades that are posted for students to see in the Grades page. The icons in the Gradebook assignment headers help indicate how those grades display to students so instructors can know as well. Instructors can always view grades in the Gradebook.

Thanks,

Erin

Hi  @ctitmus ‌,

This is really confusing. What's the point in hiding something that doesn't exist? What the use case scenario for hiding grades for non submissions? I have raised a ticket with tier 2 about this: 04463748. For students who have not submitted, but where 'graded' the option has been used to release marks, the student sees the eye with the text the instructor is working on grades. It leads the student to believe they have submitted work and are awaiting feedback when this might not be the case.

Thanks

Bethan