Canvas Updates for October 2021

There are some changes coming to Canvas when it runs its latest sprint on the 16th. Let's dive in!

Speedgrader Submission Labels

The SpeedGrader sidebar includes an Edit icon to be used for submission statuses. Statuses can be edited the same way as in the Gradebook. Additionally, adjusting a status in SpeedGrader also applies to the Gradebook.

• Setting the status to Missing displays the Missing label.
• If a late policy is enabled, setting the status to late displays the late label. Additionally, a text field allows the grader to enter a value for the days/hours late.
• Setting the status to excused displays the Excused status, and the grade field displays as EX and is grayed out.
• Setting the status to None removes any labels that were previously displayed for the assignment.

For more information, check out the video below:

 

 

Assignment Search Function

The Gradebook includes two search fields: one for student names, and one for assignment names. Using the Assignment search field displays any search results that match an assignment in the course.

Course Notification Customization

The User Notifications page displays all notification options for a user’s entire account. However, if a user has any active course enrollments, the menu displays the name of each course. Users can navigate between their courses and set specific notification options for each course, if preferred.

Any updated notifications also sync to the course-level Notifications page.

As always, contact Learning Technologies or visit our website at https://bit.ly/2MPyE1R

 

Add STEM Content to the Rich Content Editor in Canvas

 

If you're a STEM instructor, you know it can be difficult to add mathematical or scientific notations in Canvas. ESU, however, has recently enabled a product called EquatIO in the Rich Content Editor (RCE) in Canvas, allowing users to input a wide range of STEM figures into anything in Canvas that uses the RCE. 

While the version within Canvas is the free version with slightly more limited features, the full version is available for free as a Chrome extension. 

Check out the video from TextHelp that demos EquatIO and shows how and where you can use it!

Canvas Updates for September 1st 2021

Back in June 2021, Canvas debuted a redesign of their discussion board. Learning Tech rolled out this redesign but then was made aware that the redesign was lacking certain features of the classic discussion board, most importantly the ability to add rubrics. 

On September 1st Canvas is pushing out an update to the redesign that will include rubric functionality for all discussion boards. At this point, if you would like to try out the redesign, Learning Tech would be happy to help you enable it! 

As a reminder, the redesign includes:

For individual discussion topics, the interface has been expanded for maximum space and ensure responsive views.

The following modifications have been made to the page:

• The toolbar has been moved to the top of the discussion thread. 
• Newest replies display at the top of the first page instead of the bottom of the last page.
• Users can sort replies from newest to oldest, or oldest to newest.
• Users can also quickly move to the top of the discussion topic at any time. 

Examples of both the old and new discussion board threads are shown below:

 

Canvas Updates for August 2021: The Enhanced Assignment Experience

 There have been some big upgrades to the assignment experience within Canvas. Let's dive in!

Updated Submission Tracker

The new tracker takes much less space, allowing students to have a larger landscape for completing their assignment. The previous "pizza tracker" took a large amount of space and was distracting to users as it would shrink and expand when the student was scrolling. Also, in its minimized form, it was difficult for students to determine the status of their submission. 

With the newly updated tracker, the information is included next to the attempt and assignment information and remains available in the same format so students know where they are in the submission process and what step is up next. 

The new submission tracker looks like this:

Updated Rubric Placement

In the initial work for this project, rubrics added to an assignment were included in a separate tab. The view has been updated to include the rubric as part of the assignment details so that students can simply scroll to view the rubric and their work. 

Given that rubrics provide critical information regarding the expectations for an assignment, it is important that students can easily view them and refer back to them as needed when completing their assignment. The new placement provides a more intuitive flow and when needed, students can collapse the rubric in order to maximize their work space. 

Also, when a student returns to the assignment to view feedback, the rubric will remain in the same location and default open with any scores and comments left by the instructor made visible to the student.  

Moved Feedback to Comment Tray

Feedback is a critical part of the learning process. Students should not have to hunt for feedback from their instructors; nor should instructors feel that they must create videos that walk students through how to find feedback, which is an unfortunate reality that we've heard, especially within our traditional assignment submission flow. 

To help students get the most out of the feedback provided, feedback has been moved from the separate comments tab and into the comment tray. This allows students to view feedback alongside their work and the scored rubric so that they can fully understand the feedback and make decisions about how they might improve. 

Submission Type Selection Updated from Dropdown to Icons for Each Option 

The new icons look like this:

Canvas Updates for July 2021

There aren't a lot of changes coming to Canvas with this release, but we thought we'd update you anyway!

SMS Notifications End of Life

SMS Notifications for Announcements and Grading have been removed from Canvas. Additionally, the SMS colu

 

mn has been removed from the Notifications page.

Rich Content Editor

The Classic Rich Content Editor is no longer supported in Canvas.  This is the editor that has the V button for embedding media, rather than the plugin icon. 

 

Microsoft Teams Sync

Ahead of August's rollout of new Teams LTIs, course rosters can now be synced with Microsoft Teams starting on July 15th.  

December Updates to Canvas

There will be some changes coming to Canvas over the winter break that of which we wanted to make our faculty and staff aware. 

Rich Content Editor

Starting after finals week, Canvas will be transitioning all users to the "new" Rich Content Editor (RCE) that has been available as an option for several months. This will change the look of the editor from the classic version to the enhanced version. 

 

Classic version:

 

Enhanced version:

 

 

As you can tell, there are several changes to the enhanced content editor. According to Instructure, the main changes are these:

 

• The Rich Content Editor expands to the full width of the browser and can also be expanded into full screen mode
• The toolbar includes a condensed, more intuitive look
• Toolbar menus are grouped by common icons and interactions
• The content sidebar only displays when linking to other parts of Canvas, accessing Canvas files, or accessing uploaded media
• Image and media additions include drag and drop; images include an Unsplash search and content auto-scaling
• When content in a browser window is long enough to require a scroll bar, the Rich Content Editor menu bar is fixed at the top of the browser window.
• The Keyboard shortcut, Accessibility Checker, and HTML Editor icons have moved to the bottom of the editor next to the word count. Additionally, the Rich Content Editor window can be resized using the Move handle below the window, and the window can be expanded to full screen.

Many of you may have opted to switch to the enhanced RCE earlier in the year. For those who haven't, it will be rolled out to all users over the break, so keep an eye out! For more information on the RCE, scroll through the RCE UI Overview for a breakdown of how each button and menu will function.   

Canvas Push Notifications

We are all frequently being overwhelmed by digital communication these days. Reading emails, getting texts, notifications from apps, all of these can clog up our senses. 

 

According to Instructure, "students spend 89% of their time on native mobile apps and just 11% of their time in mobile browsers, and surveys show students prefer using apps on their smartphones instead of being pointed to mobile websites. In fact, nearly one million students downloaded the Canvas Student App in March and April of 2020 alone." They add that push notifications "appear in a student’s notification tray, where today’s youth check dozens of times daily."

 

In an attempt to help clear some of the noise, Canvas is streamlining its push notifications. These send messages out to students when something happens in their course in Canvas. Starting January 16th, a more condensed version of push notification will be available. These notifications include:

Announcements

• New Announcement
• Announcement Reply

Assignments 

• Assignment Created
• Submission Graded
• Assignment Due Date Changed
• Submission Comment
• Submission Needs Grading
• Submission Comment for Teacher
• Submission Grade Changed
• Assignment Changed
• Annotation Notification
• Assignment Due Date Override Changed
• Peer Review Invitation
• Rubric Assessment Submission Reminder
• Upcoming Assignment Alert
• Annotation Teacher Notification
• Assignment Unmuted
• Quiz Regrade Finished

Events 

• New Event Created
• Event Date Changed
• Appointment Group Published
• Appointment Group Updated
• Appointment Group Deleted
• Appointment Canceled by User
• Appointment Deleted for User

Conversations

• Conversation Message (new conversation or reply)

Conferences

• Web Conference Invitation

Collaborations

• Collaboration Invitation

Conclusion 

As always, if you have any questions about these changes or any other Canvas utilities, please contact our Learning Tech office. We're here to help!

September and October Updates to Canvas

 

There have been some recent updates to Canvas, as well as a few new updates coming in October to be excited about.  

An increase in analytics 

 

September saw an update to Canvas's analytics potential with the introduction of downloadable CSV files for missing assignments, late assignments, excused assignments, the class roster, and course activity data. 

 

This change provides instructors with table visualizations of essential course information via Canvas APIs into a consumable format.

 

The CSV format is especially helpful for instructors with large classes who may need to dig deeper into the data about their course to determine which students might be struggling or falling behind. 

 

This update will only affect instructors. Watch the screencast about the new feature below:

 

Global Navigation Update

 

This feature will be released on October 17th and will add an addition to the Global Navigation menu.  

 

The Recent History link will be located below the Inbox link and will allow users to access the most recent pages viewed in Canvas up to the last three weeks. 

 

This update will apply to all users. 

 

Updates to Notifications 

 

This is a minor update that will allow user-level notifications to match the design of the course-level Notifications page. Additional enhancements have been added to clarify notifications between each level.   

 

Additionally, for the Grades notification, the Send Scores in Emails option has also been added as a course-level notification preference.

 

This update will affect all users and be released on October 17th.  

Canvas Updates for August 2020

 

Canvas releases updates on the third Saturday of every month in sessions called sprints. There were a few new features released for August of 2020.

Bulk Delete Pages

Being new to building Canvas courses can often mean a lot of mistakes (or at least it does for the author!) Canvas has made it easier be free of these "mistakes" as multiple pages can be deleted at one time in the Pages Index page.  

Course Section Visibility

While all students are visible under the People area of each course, there is a column labeled Section that lets users know which student is in each section. This column can now be removed so that students cannot see who is in each section of the course. 

 

Some instructors use sections within a single course to create groups that have different due dates. Sometimes these due dates are based on a private, potentially identifying reason (illness, personal issue, etc.) that they might not want other students to know. By removing the section column, instructors can continue to use sections to group students without publicizing this information to the rest of the course. 

 

 

The Global Announcements Page

 

Global Announcements is a new option under the User Navigation Menu that allows users to view announcements that were previously dismissed from the Dashboard. 

The Global Announcements page defaults to the Current Announcements tab, which displays all active announcements for the institution. There is also a Recent tab that allows users to refer back to older announcements (as long as their end date has been within the past four months.)

 

 

Recent Updates to Canvas

Most of the recent updates to Canvas have been "enforcements" of previously released features (meaning now you have to use them.)

One change has to do with rubrics, however. Previously located within the Outcomes section of each course, they have been moved to the Course Navigation Menu.

This allows faster access to rubrics and creates a more intuitive workflow. Rubrics in Canvas are increasingly important as more classes switch to hybrid, Hy-Flex, or fully online modalities, as they both simplify the grading process and help provide feedback to students.

There should be more updates coming in August, so keep visiting this space to learn more!

Recent Updates to Canvas

Canvas is constantly rolling out updates in the form of "sprints." There were several new features included in the recent sprints, including:

• Assignment menus in the gradebook now contain a link to SpeedGrader, making accessing SpeedGrader simpler.
• There is a new option called Direct Share that allows users to copy individual course items into another course and share those individual items with other users.
  
• Drag and drop functionality for multiple files has been added. This simplifies importing large numbers of documents and makes the process more efficient.
  
• Instructors can now limit the number of attempts for an assignment. Rather than automatically allowing unlimited attempts, you can restrict students to only one or two submissions.
• All users can now mute notifications on a course by course basis.

As always, contact the Help Desk or a Learning Designer for assistance with any of these new features.There will be more sprints coming in June and July; keep an eye on this space for more information!

Canvas Automatic Grade Sync with Banner

There's a new Canvas tool that will help make your grading process that much easier. Canvas Automatic Grade Sync with Banner lets instructors push grades from Canvas directly into Banner, rather than entering each grade into Banner individually. 

To use this new feature, you'll first need to choose a Grade Scheme in Canvas. Your department may have a common grading scheme that you can use or you can create your own. Once you've selected a Grade Scheme and completed your grading, you're ready to sync the grades to Banner (the Student Information System). 

When grades are synced, Canvas will immediately initiate the grade transfer but it may take a few minutes before grades appear in Banner. Once the sync has successfully completed, you will see an on-screen confirmation and receive an email confirmation. This process should only take a few minutes. Once you receive confirmation, make sure to verify students received the correct grade and check for any sync errors (these will be found in your email receipt).

Canvas Automatic Grade Sync is a great tool but it's not completely hands-off. If you have a student who withdrew from your course, earned an F, or is receiving an Incomplete, you must manually enter these grades into Banner.

For step-by-step instructions, check out this tutorial on Grade Sync from Learning Technologies.

Canvas New Features Sep 21, 2019

Canvas no longer supports Internet Explorer

Instructure deprecated functional support of IE11 on August 3rd, which we had previously announced in the Canvas Community in April of this year. This meant that we would no longer be testing and running QA with our releases and updates in IE11. As of August 30th, the IE11 Browser has now had all support and access deprecated since current functionality in IE11 no longer reflects the quality user experience that users have come to expect from Instructure.

Any user who now tries to load Canvas using Internet Explorer is automatically redirected to an "Unsupported Browser" page and provides links to how they can upgrade to a Canvas-supported browser. We would suggest communicating this out to your users and working with your institutional IT teams to ensure that campus equipment be updated with browsers that are supported by Canvas.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Learning Technologies via the Helpdesk, or Mark Summey (msummey@emporia.edu), Hind Aati (haati@emporia.edu, or Rob Gibson (rgibson1@emporia.edu).

Canvas Scheduled Outage

Canvas Maintenance Saturday, Aug 31.

Instructure be performing maintenance on our Canvas instance starting on Saturday, August 31st at 10PM MDT and lasting until 2AM MDT the following morning. You may experience a short downtime during the maintenance period and we recommend that you make contingency plans for any processes that you have active during this maintenance window.

Canvas updates 8/17/19

New for Canvas Fall Term-Course Copy, New Gradebook

Copy a Canvas Course

Are you ready for the Fall term? Here is some new information about copying course content.

Canvas has introduced a new feature when copying a previous course. Before searching for a previous course, make sure you check the 'Include Completed Courses' box.

Course Settings>Import Course Content>Copy a Canvas Course>:

This will allow you to search all of your previous courses.

New Gradebook

In January 2020, Canvas will switch all users to the new Gradebook:

Old Gradebook:

As you can see in the example, the grade columns will remain. The main differences are in where to find the various controls/filters.

You can continue to use the current gradebook during the Fall term. You can switch back-and-forth between the two gradebooks by going to Course Settings>Feature Apps. Toggle the New Gradebook on/off to switch between gradebook views. We are encouraging everyone to try the new gradebook during this Fall term before the change in January.

The Student gradebook view will not change.

As always, if you have questions, contact Rob Gibson (rgibson1@emporia.edu), Mark Summey (msummey@emporia.edu), or Hind Aaati (haati@emporia.edu).

Canvas July 13th Updates

New Canvas Features
July 13, 2019 Screencast

 

  

New Canvas Features
July 13, 2019 Release Notes

Refer to the Comprehensive Release Notes more details.