I’m excited to extend the End of Quarter Update practice - which might be familiar from New Quizzes Updates - to Discussions, ensuring you’re informed about recent improvements in the last 3 months and our upcoming objectives for the upcoming quarter.
Q3 Updates
Edit Discussions Directly from the Index Page
A small, but handy update which has been deployed to production on October 23, 2024. It allows instructors to directly edit discussions from the Discussions Index Page by clicking on the kebab menu and choosing the Edit button.
Announcements Timestamps
To improve clarity around announcement dates, a recent update has changed how timestamps appear. Now, only the publish date (and the last edit date, if edited post-publication) is visible to students. Instructors, however, can see the creation, publish, and last edit dates. This feature was also released on October 23, 2024.
The introduction of Disallow Threaded Replies Option
The Disallow Threaded Replies setting was missing from Discussions initially and our team added that later. If you are unfamiliar with the situation, you can read my post here. Due to the high impact, we introduced a temporary button as a self-service solution.
Based on the feedback, we are revising the temporary button placement and its availability date. For now, we are keeping it as it is, but you can expect some tweaks in the near future and more details on the availability.
Survey about your needs within Discussions
We shared a survey a few weeks ago to understand your needs and priorities for Discussions. We got a lot of feedback already and thanks to all who’ve responded so far! We’d love to hear from more of you. The survey shouldn’t take more than 5-10 minutes to complete. If you haven’t filled it yet, you can do it here.
Keeping the Discussions/Announcements Redesign User Group
The Discussions/Announcements Redesign User Group was initially set to close on October 20, 2024, but we decided to keep it until December 20, 2024 and will revisit if the group is still needed.
Q4 Updates and Objectives
AI Translation in Discussions/Announcements
AI Translation has been released to Beta on October 21, 2024 and will be available on Production on November 16, 2024 as a Feature Option on the account level. The feature allows users to translate text into different languages. More details can be found in our release notes.
Discussions Checkpoints
The Checkpoints feature, now available in Beta as of October 21, 2024, will reach Production on November 16, 2024. T The Checkpoints feature allows instructors to create a more intentional discussion environment. Beyond the initial reply to a discussion prompt, educators can now require additional replies to peers to foster deeper engagement. You can read more about the release in Sam’s latest post.
Save Sorting Preferences For Users
Currently, Discussions does not retain user sorting preferences, meaning the default “newest to oldest” setting is reset each time a user navigates back. We’re working on making preferences “sticky” within individual discussions. This update has been deployed to Beta on October 24, 2024 and will be available in Production by November 6, 2024.
The sorting preference will be saved within the given discussion. If the user navigates to another discussion, the default setting will be applied there. This decision was made to prepare for the next phase of sorting preferences:
Set Default Sorting For Discussions and Lock It as a Teacher
We understand that different pedagogical approaches require different sorting needs for discussions, we’re adding a feature that lets instructors set a default sorting order for each discussion, and will be applied to every student until they change their preference. In addition to that, we will add the ability to lock the sorting in case an instructor doesn’t want their students to change it. This likely will be released by the end of the year to Beta environment and in January to Production.
Save Expand/Collapse Preferences for Users
Following the pattern of sorting preferences, we plan to let users save their expand/collapse preferences for each discussion. While a date hasn’t been set, we’ll update you as soon as deployment is scheduled.
Set Default Expand/Collapse View For Discussions and Lock It as a Teacher
The default expand/collapse view will also be controllable by instructors on a discussion level and they will be able to lock the expanded view if they see fit. It will most likely come in the same timeframe as the setting of default sorting feature.
Thank you for your continued feedback and engagement! Your input is instrumental as we work to improve the Discussions experience. Stay tuned for more updates.
