January 5 Canvas Release

Posted on January 10, 2019 | Leave a comment

Canvas is updated every third Saturday with new features and fixes. The Macomb CTL posts highlights from the production release notes and related content to our blog at ctl.emacomb.com.  Please contact us at ctlsupport@macomb.edu if you have any questions about Canvas releases.

 

January 5 Release

Please view the New Feature Screencast for a demonstration of the updates in this release:

 

Resource Previews in Commons

Canvas Commons now includes a preview of the content which is to be imported.

Now users can view the content of the Commons resource without having to import it to their own Canvas instance first.

 

Course Link Validator Enhancements

The Course Link Validator in Course Settings now specifies whether a link or image is either invalid or unreachable.

  • Invalid – file is corrupt or unopenable
  • Unreachable – indicates file may have been moved or deleted from its host server. Try to find an updated link.

This change is intended to give instructors and designers more useful information to resolve broken links more efficiently.

 

Settings: Course Dates Clarification

This is a design change only – all functionality and user actions on the Course Details page remain the same.

The change of language on this page is intended to clarify the difference between courses and the larger term in which they’re scheduled.

 

The complete production release notes for the December 8 release are available on the Canvas LMS Community.

The next Canvas release will be deployed on Saturday, January 26, with release notes available Monday, January 14.

 

Images on this page are from the Canvas Guides, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Agreement.

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Winter 2019 CTL Professional Development Brochure

Posted on December 13, 2018 | Leave a comment

We are pleased to announce the release of the Winter 2019 CTL Professional Development Brochure.

 

New workshops this semester:

Canvas Groups

Increase engagement in your course by assigning students to Canvas Groups to collaborate on assignments, presentations and projects. Within Canvas Groups, students may share files, message their group, and create announcements, pages, discussions, conferences and collaborations.

In this workshop you will:

  • Set up Groups
  • Create a Group Assignment
  • Visit a Group
  • Grade a Group Assignment

Collaborating in Canvas

Collaboration among students and faculty is possible in Canvas using either Google Drive or the Office 365 OneDrive. This allows students to simultaneously work on the same document with others in the class. A few examples of how this solution might be used are team projects, practice activities and peer reviews.In this workshop you will:

  • Create a collaboration in Canvas using Google Drive
  • Create collaborations in Canvas using Office 365
  • Interact as both a teacher and student using each interface
  • Reflect on the benefits / challenges of using collaboration tools

Quizzes

Explore Canvas Quizzes with your colleagues while working asynchronously on replacing your on-ground Scantrons or paper assessments with online quizzes or surveys! In this workshop, you will create online graded and non-graded quizzes and surveys using the Quiz tool. Hidden gems, such as the Moderate This Quiz feature, Quiz Analytics, Question Groups and Question Banks will be covered. As always, course facilitators are available for questions and feedback!

Rubrics

Rubrics can be a great way to communicate and manage expectations for an assignment and how your students will be assessed. You may already be using rubrics as a part of your grading process, but did you know that Canvas has a rubric feature that can expedite and ease your grading process?

In this workshop you will:

  • Design a rubric using measurable criteria
  • Identify rubric options and settings
  • Create a Canvas rubric
  • Grade using your Canvas rubric
  • Reflect on designing, creating and grading using rubrics

Please review the Professional Development Brochure and register for workshops in the Noncredit/Continuing Education area of WebAdvisor on MyMacomb. 

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November 17 and December 8 Canvas Releases

Posted on November 28, 2018 | Leave a comment

Canvas is updated every third Saturday with new features and fixes. The Macomb CTL will post highlights from the production release notes and related content to our blog at ctl.emacomb.com.  Please contact us at ctlsupport@macomb.edu if you have any questions about Canvas releases. 

 

November 17 and December 8 Releases

Please see the New Feature Screencast for a video demonstration of the updates in this release.

The screencast for the December 8 release will be made available closer to the release date.

 

Rich Content Editor: Embedded Image File Uploads
  • Students and instructors may now upload an embedded image/file directly into the Rich Content Editor.
  • Click the Embed Image button in the Rich Content Editor to use the updated interface:

  • Select the Canvas tab and you’ll be able to quickly embed files from Course Files and My Files.

  • From this screen, you may also upload new images from your device to My Files and embed them on the page.

 

Accessibility: Screen Reader Browser Support

Screen reader support for Internet Explorer 11 and Edge browsers has been discontinued. Firefox is the recommended browser for those using screen reading software to access Canvas.

 

Reorder Dashboard Course Cards
  • You may now move the course cards on your Dashboard. Click the Options menu (three dots) to see four choices for moving the card.

  • Cards can now be dragged and dropped as well, for easier placement.
  • Newly-added courses will appear at the bottom of the course card list.

 

HTML5 Supported in Media Recorder

The Record Media button in the Rich Content Editor now supports HTML5 for Firefox and Chrome browsers. You will see an updated interface for the Record/Upload Media dialog box:

Flash is still supported for Internet Explorer users, but you must verify that it is enabled.

  1. From the Settings gear, select “Manage Add-ons”
  2. Locate Shockwave or Flash from the publisher Adobe Systems Inc.
  3. If status is Disabled, click Enable button.

This update will make it easier for Chrome and Firefox users to use the Media Recorder. Previously, users had to manually allow Flash, which is blocked by default in Chrome and Firefox.

Full production release notes for the November 17 and December 8 releases are available on the Canvas LMS Community.

The next Canvas release will be deployed on Saturday, January 5, with release notes available Monday, December 17.

 

Images on this page are from the Canvas Guides, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Agreement.

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October 27 Canvas Release

Posted on November 2, 2018 | Leave a comment

Canvas is updated every third Saturday with new features and fixes. The Macomb CTL will post highlights from the production release notes and related content to our blog at ctl.emacomb.com.  Please contact us at ctlsupport@macomb.edu if you have any questions about Canvas releases. 

October 27 Release

Please see the New Feature Screencast for a video demonstration of the updates in this release.

Analytics Beta LTI
  • The Analytics Beta LTI tool will eventually replace the existing Course Analytics tool
  • Compare average and individual student grades across various assignment types
  • Interactive tables and graphs facilitate powerful data analysis
  • Activate Analytics Beta through Settings > Nagivation
  • Complete documentation on features
  • User Guide for Analytics Beta

 

Submission Status of Google Drive and Office 365 Uploads
  • The status of assignment uploads from Google Drive and Office 365 LTIs are now visible to both students and instructors

  • Exclamation point indicates upload failed, up arrow indicates a submission is queued for upload but has not finished

  • Instructors may view the same icons in the Gradebook
  • Icons also visible in SpeedGrader

 

HTML5 Option for Recording Media

Recording with the Rich Content Editor will no longer require Flash functionality.

 

Full production release notes for the October 27 release are available on the Canvas LMS Community.

The next Canvas release will be deployed on Saturday, November 17, with release notes available Monday, November 5.

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October 6 Canvas Release

Posted on October 10, 2018 | Leave a comment

Canvas is updated every third Saturday with new features and fixes. The Macomb CTL will post highlights from the production release notes and related content to our blog at ctl.emacomb.com.  Please contact us at ctlsupport@macomb.edu if you have any questions about Canvas releases. 

October 6 Release

Please see the New Feature Screencast for a video demonstration of the updates in this release.

 

Anonymous Annotation
  • Instructors may now add anonymous annotations to student submissions. This feature must be activated on the course level in the Feature Options tab of the Course Settings page:

Allow anonymous annotations in Course Settings page.

  • On the Edit Assignment page, you’ll now see a checkbox to anonymize the annotations for that assignment.

  • When students view their submissions in DocViewer, the instructor’s name will show as “Grader” on the annotations.

 

Rotate Documents in DocViewer
  • DocViewer now offers the capability to rotate pages within a document. See the new Rotate button in the Toolbar:

DocViewer document rotation

  • Instructors and students can rotate on a page-by-page basis to quickly fix documents with incorrect orientation.

 

Mark element in Rich Content Editor
  • The Mark HTML element, better known as highlighting, is now supported by the Rich Content Editor:

  • To use Mark highlighting, enter the HTML editor from the Edit Page screen and enclose the desired text with a <mark> highlighted text here </mark> tag:

 

Full production release notes for the October 6 release are available on the Canvas LMS Community.

The next Canvas release will be deployed on Saturday, October 27, with release notes available Monday, October 15.

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September 15 Canvas Release

Posted on September 19, 2018 | Leave a comment

Canvas is updated every third Saturday with new features and fixes. The Macomb CTL will post highlights from the production release notes and related content to our blog at ctl.emacomb.com.  Please contact us at ctlsupport@macomb.edu if you have any questions about Canvas releases. 

September 15 Release

Please view the New Feature Screencast for a video demonstration of the updates in this release.

Bulk Accept for Moderated Grading
  • This change affects only courses using the New Gradebook with Moderated Grading
  • The moderator can choose to accept all grades by a grader for all assignments in which that grader is the only grader for the student
  • Students with submissions graded by more than one grader will still need to be individually approved by Moderator

Moderated grading bulk accept

 

Last Date Attended in Student Profile
  • Instructors may now note the final date of attendance in a student’s Profile page
  • The date cannot be deleted once added
  • Allows instructors to easily see the last date of on-ground attendance from each student’s Profile page

Last date attended

 

Export All SpeedGrader Comments as PDF

  • Click the Download Submission Comments link in the SpeedGrader sidebar to generate a PDF containing all comments for the submission
  • Allows easy exporting, sharing, and printing of comments
  • Not available for muted assignments

 

Full production release notes for the September 15 release are available on the Canvas LMS Community. 

 

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Canvas Production Releases: August 25 and August 4

Posted on August 24, 2018 | Leave a comment

Canvas is updated every third Saturday with new features and fixes. The Macomb CTL will post highlights from the production release notes and related content to our blog at ctl.emacomb.com.  Please contact us at ctlsupport@macomb.edu if you have any questions about Canvas releases. 

August 25 Release

Please view the New Feature Screencast for a video demonstration of the updates in this release.

Dashboard List View and Mark as Done Module Requirements
  • Existing feature: Instructors can require the student to click “Mark as done” on a page
  • Change: The Mark as Done requirement now synchronizes with the recently-implemented Dashboard List View
  • When the student marks a page as done, the checkbox in Dashboard List View will be automatically checked.

Mark page as done

When the student marks the page as done, the checkbox in Dashboard List View will automatically be checked.

 

SpeedGrader: Anonymous Assignment Hidden Submission Details
  • SpeedGrader will hide submission details if an assignment is muted.
  • Upon unmuting the assignment, all details will show in SpeedGrader, including student names and submission time.

 

Student Learning Mastery Gradebook Outcome Icons
  • Only available in the New Gradebook
  • Clicking on the “i” icon allows students to quickly view information on their progress towards outcome mastery
  • Promotes the alignment of assessments with learning outcomes

 

Full production release notes for the August 25 release are available on the Canvas LMS Community. 

 

August 4 Release

Please see the New Feature Screencast for a video demonstration of the updates in this release.

Student To Do List View
  • The Student Dashboard now offers a List view for to-do items in each course.
  • Toggle List view by clicking the three dots near the top right of the Dashboard.
  • Students can add list items of their choice, and instructors can add graded and ungraded assignments to students’ to-do lists.

dashboard list view

Instructors can directly add modules, assignments, quizzes, or discussions to students’ to-do lists when creating or editing the page:

add to student to do

 

Google Docs and Office 365 Assignment Submission Processing Notification
  • Upload process for Google Docs and Office 365 submissions has been improved
  • Students can browse away or close the page without affecting the submission

Office 365 processing

 

DocViewer Comment Stacking
  • In DocViewer, related comment threads are now represented by stacking.
  • Initially shows the number of replies.
  • Click the comment box to expand all replies to the original comment

Docviewer Comments

Full production release notes for the August 4 release are available on the Canvas LMS Community. 

Future Updates

The next production release is scheduled for Saturday, September 15. Please see the Canvas Releases page for Production Release Notes, available on September 4.

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Canvas Production Release: July 14

Posted on July 17, 2018 | Leave a comment

Canvas is updated every third Saturday with new features and fixes. The Macomb CTL will post highlights from the production release notes and related content to our blog at ctl.emacomb.com.  Please contact us at ctlsupport@macomb.edu if you have any questions about Canvas releases. 

July 14 Release

Please view the New Feature Screencast for a video demonstration of the updates in this release.

 

Anonymous Moderated Grading
  • Requires enabling by Canvas admin  – contact CTL if interested
  • Anonymous Grading – graders are unable to view students’ names
  • Moderated Grading – instructor can set assignment submissions to be reviewed by one or more graders, and which grade should be made final
  • Please see the official Canvas documentation of this feature for complete details and discussion

Anonymous Moderated Grading

Instructor sees anonymous students and graders, with option to choose final grade

Anonymous and moderated

Assignment submissions can be moderated, anonymous, or both.

 

Non-Scoring Rubrics
  • Must be enabled by a Canvas admin – contact CTL if interested
  • Create a rubric without point values to promote learner engagement and interaction with ungraded activities
  • See the official feature documentation for further details

Non scoring rubric in Speedgrader

Example of instructor view of non-scoring rubric within SpeedGrader. Points column is used for verbal feedback.

 

Self-registered Courses: Pair Students with Observers
  • Observer does not need to know student’s username or password
  • Student can click Pair with Observer button to generate a six-digit code to share with their intended Observer (most often a parent, mentor, or guest) who enters the code in their own User Settings.
  • Please see the official Canvas document on the Observer role for more information on its permissions and restrictions.

Pairing code button

 

Full production release notes for the July 14 release are available on the Canvas LMS Community. 

 

Future Updates

The next production release is scheduled for Saturday, August 4. Please see the Canvas Releases page for Production Release Notes, available on Monday, July 23.

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Canvas Production Release: June 23

Posted on June 21, 2018 | Leave a comment

Canvas is updated every third Saturday with new features and fixes. The Macomb CTL will post highlights from the production release notes and related content to our blog at ctl.emacomb.com.  Please contact us at ctlsupport@macomb.edu if you have any questions about Canvas releases. 

June 23 Release

Please view the New Feature Screencast for a video demonstration of the updates in this release.

 

Duplicate Modules
  • Copy a module (and all contained items) within a course with two clicks: Settings > Duplicate
  • Duplicated modules and items will be unpublished by default. Be sure to publish as needed.
  • Caution: at this time, you are not able to copy modules that contain classic quizzes. You may only copy modules containing no quizzes or Quizzes.Next quizzes (new Canvas quiz engine, available for testing after June 28, FAQ here) Please move any classic quizzes out of the module to activate the Duplicate feature.

Duplicate feature in module settings.

Duplicate feature in module settings.

Cannot duplicate modules that have classic quizzes

Duplicate module not available in modules that have classic quizzes

 

New Gradebook Updates

You are now able to view the Grade Detail Tray for students with concluded enrollments, and for submissions from closed grading periods. This feature is only available in the New Gradebook.

New Gradebook concluded enrollment

 

Calendar Event Duplication

The Recurring Events Calendar option has been renamed to Duplicate. You may access this feature through the More Options button in the Edit Event box:

Canvas Calendar Duplicate Event

From here, you may specify the number and interval of recurrences, or opt to display a count number to identify events in a series.

Full production release notes are available on the Canvas LMS Community. 

Future Updates

The next production release  is scheduled for Saturday, July 14. See the Canvas Releases page for Beta Release Notes on Monday, July 2 and Production Release Notes on Monday, July 9.

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Canvas Production Releases: June 2 and May 12

Posted on June 6, 2018 | Leave a comment

Canvas is updated every third Saturday with new features and fixes. The Macomb CTL will post highlights from the production release notes and related content to our blog at ctl.emacomb.com.  Please contact us at ctlsupport@macomb.edu if you have any questions about Canvas releases. 

June 2 Release

Please view the New Feature Screencast for a video demonstration of the updates in this Canvas release.

DocViewer Annotations and Commenting experience
  • Instructors can delete comments or annotations for any user – useful for incorrect or inappropriate posts
  • Can add annotations to JPG, PNG, TIFF and other popular image formats
  • Comments are now truncated to five lines instead of one. Click the comment to show the full text.
  • Large images are automatically scaled down to avoid scrolling
  • Users can now comment on annotations even if they are not the original author of the annotation

Truncated Comments

Comments truncated after five lines.

Full production release notes are available on the Canvas LMS Community. 

 

May 12 Release

The New Feature Screencast presents a useful walkthrough of the changes in this release:

Announcements

The “Allow users to comment” checkbox allowing students to comment on course announcements is now persistent, meaning you will not have to check this box on every announcement – Canvas will remember what you selected for the previous announcement.

Assignments

The submission details sidebar now will show the term “submitted,” where previously “turned in” was used. This improves consistency of terminology throughout Canvas.

Student assignment page wording update

Files

In the Files area, the settings for each file is now represented by a three-dot Options icon:

Permissions

It is now possible to enable students and observers in a course to search for users by primary email address. Previously, only Canvas administrators, instructors, and TAs could search by primary email address.

Detailed release notes are available on Canvas Community.

Future Updates

Stay tuned for the next production release on Saturday, June 23. See the Canvas Releases page for Beta Release Notes on Monday, June 11 and Production Release Notes on Monday, June 18.

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