Center for Teaching and Learning

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

March 30 Release

Please watch the New Feature Screencast video for a review of the updates in this release:

New Gradebook Override Column

This release improves the functionality of the Override Column, which was introduced to the New Gradebook several months ago.

Currently, instructors may enter a percentage grade, which will correspond to the appropriate grade in your Grading Scheme.  The letter grade will then display in the Override column.

Previously, instructors had to input a letter grade, which was automatically converted to the lower percentage of the grade range:

New Gradebook Drop-In Sessions at Macomb

As Canvas strives to improve usability for faculty, there will be a significant update made to the Gradebook that adds new functionality and changes access to the SpeedGrader and how grades can be viewed.

The new Gradebook will be deployed on May 9, 2019, after the end of the Winter semester.  At the current time, you are able to turn on the new Gradebook to get a sneak peek of these updates.

For an overview of what to expect with the New Gradebook, please visit the New Gradebook Resource page in the Faculty Center. (Macomb login required)

The CTL’s Instructional Technology team has prepared some helpful resources and scheduled regular drop-in sessions to help with this transition.  These sessions provide an opportunity for hands-on training with the New Gradebook and cover common tasks such as:

• Add Points/Comments
• Access SpeedGrader
• Mark Assignments as Late/Missing/Excused
• Apply Late Policies
• Sort and Curve Assignments, Message Students
• Mute Grades and Download Assignment Submissions

Registration is not required, but cordially recommended so we know who is planning on attending.  Please see times, locations, and registration link below.

Drop-In Session Registration

April
Friday, April 5  –  1 pm  –  Online (Zoom meeting)
Wednesday, April 10  –  11 am  –  Center C-130
Thursday, April 11  – 1 pm  –  South J-104
Wednesday, April 24  – 11 am  –  Center C-130
Thursday, April 25  – 1 pm  –  South J-104

May
Friday, May 3  –  1 pm  –  Online (Zoom meeting)

Content Link Error Notification

A new option has been added to Notifications.  Instructors may now choose to be notified by text and/or email when a student clicks on a broken link within a course.  This notification will activate if the link is either broken, unavailable due to student permissions, or links to an unpublished page.   The notification defaults to daily frequency, but like all other notifications, you may set it to immediately, weekly, or off.

This change is intended to improve the process of finding and resolving inaccessible links in a course.

Groups: Warning for Removing Students

The wording of the message has been strengthened to clarify what exactly will be lost if an instructor chooses to remove a student from a Group.

This language underscores the risks of removing a student from a group or adding a new student after group assignments have already been submitted.  This Canvas Document gives further clarification:

You can move students within groups. However, changes should be made before assigning a group to an assignment.

If a student is added to or removed from a group after receiving submissions, the submissions and grades may not align correctly. If a student is added to a group after the group submission, any re-submissions will overwrite the original submission; all previous grades will remain but the Gradebook will show the assignment was resubmitted since last graded. If you want to move a group member with a graded submission, you may want to clone the group set instead.

Note: In group assignments, all students should be assigned to groups before the assignment is published. Grades and submissions may be affected for students who were not in a group at the time of assignment submission but who were later added to a group.

The complete production release notes for this release are available on the Canvas Community.

The next Canvas release will be deployed Saturday, April 20, with release notes available Monday, April 8.

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