On Saturday, July 18, Macomb’s instance of Canvas will be updated with notable new features. See below for a review of these changes and how they will affect faculty and students. The Canvas Community links provide full documentation as well as video demonstrations of the new features.
Changes Affecting Faculty
Assignment Allowed Attempts
By default, assignments can be submitted an unlimited number of times. However, instructors can choose to limit the number of attempts a student can make for an assignment. Limiting attempts applies to all students associated with the assignment.
• How do I limit submission attempts for an assignment?
• Feature Video: Assignments: Limited Assignment Attempts (2020 Ready Releases)
Assignment Bulk Editing
The Assignments page supports editing all assignment, discussion, and quiz dates in a single page. The page also displays assignments with multiple due dates. Due dates automatically default to 11:59 pm.
• How do I bulk update due dates and availability dates as an instructor?
• Feature Video: Assignments: Due and Availability Date Bulk Edit (2020 Ready Releases)
• Feature Video: Assignments: Bulk Editing Enhancements (2020-06-20 Screencast)
Direct Share
Direct Share allows users to copy individual course items to another course and share individual items with other users.
• How do I use Direct Share to copy a quiz to another course?
• How do I use Direct Share to copy a page to another course?
• How do I use Direct Share to copy a discussion to another course?
• How do I use Direct Share to copy an assignment to another course?
• How do I use Direct Share to send a quiz to another instructor?
• How do I use Direct Share to send a page to another instructor?
• How do I use Direct Share to send a discussion to another instructor?
• How do I use Direct Share to send an assignment to another instructor?
• Feature Video: Assignments: Direct Share (2020-01-18 Screencast)
New User Tutorial
New instructors can view tutorials that display in each Canvas page. These tutorials explain the purpose of the page and what to do next. Instructors can manage whether or not tutorials display in their courses in the User Settings page.
This feature replaces the Course Setup Checklist.
• How do I use the Canvas course setup tutorial as an instructor?
• Feature Video: Courses: Instructor Product Tour and New Instructor Canvas Tutorials (2020 Ready Releases)
Help for Unpublished Courses
The Dashboard, Courses menu, and All Courses page display both published and unpublished courses. This change helps instructors see what courses are unpublished in various Canvas locations.
• How do I publish a course?
• How do I view all my Canvas courses as an instructor?
• How do I view my favorite courses in the Card View Dashboard as an instructor?
• How do I customize my Courses list as an instructor?
Module File Upload Enhancements
Instructors can add multiple files to the Modules page through drag/drop from their desktop.
• How do I add a module?
• How do I add course content as module items?
Confetti for Valid Links (Instructor)
Canvas generates a virtual celebration when instructors run the link validator and no issues are found. If instructors prefer to not have Canvas display any celebrations, they can choose to hide all celebration animations in their User Settings page.
• How do I manage celebration animations in Canvas as an instructor?
• How do I validate links in a course?
• What feature options can I enable in my user account as an instructor?
• Feature Video: Assignments and Course Settings: Confetti for On-Time Submission and Confetti for Valid Links (2020 Ready Releases)
Changes Affecting Students
Confetti for On-Time Submissions (Student)
Canvas generates a virtual celebration when students submit assignments on time. On-time submissions include both an initial submission and any resubmissions for any file type before an assignment due date. If students prefer to not have Canvas display any celebrations, they can choose to hide all celebration animations in their User Settings page.
• How do I manage celebration animations in Canvas as a student?
• What feature options can I enable in my user account as a student?
• Feature Video: Assignments and Course Settings: Confetti for On-Time Submission and Confetti for Valid Links (2020 Ready Releases)
Mute Notifications by Course
From the Course Home Page, a user can mute all notifications for the course where the user is enrolled. Course notifications are enabled by default.
• How do I manage notifications for a single course as a student?
• How do I manage notifications for a single course as an instructor?
• Feature Video: Notifications: Mute Notifications by Course (2020-04-18 Release)
• Feature Video: Courses: Course-Level Notification Preferences (2020-06-20 Release)
January 18 Canvas Release
Canvas is updated every month 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.
January 18 Release
Please watch the New Feature Screencast for a review of the updates in this release:
Student Context Card Progress Summary
This feature has been optionally available and is now standard. Context cards are small windows which give you a snapshot of the student’s progress in the course, including their current/final grade, number of missing and late assignments, and grades on the last 10 graded items.
Click on a student’s name from the Gradebook or People pages and the context card will display. Context cards are currently unavailable in Inbox, SpeedGrader, or Groups.
Post Submission Comments Without Grade
Instructors may now draft comments on manually-graded assignments without requiring a grade. Previously, instructors were required to enter a grade before they could enter a comment.
Note that the comments as well as the grades will be hidden from the students until you decide to Post them. The small red dot in the grade cell indicates a hidden grade or comment.
Personal Pronouns
COMING SOON: Students and instructors will be soon able to display their preferred pronouns, if desired. To select your personal pronoun, browse to Account (in left-side global navigation) > Settings.
If students opt to show a pronoun, it will appear across various areas in Canvas, such as the User Navigation Menu, Inbox, Discussions, Comments, and People pages.
The complete production release notes for this release are available on the Canvas Community.
The next Canvas production release will be available Saturday, February 15, with release notes available Monday, January 20.
Images on this page are from the Canvas Guides and Release Notes, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Agreement.
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Tagged comments, Direct Share, Feature Options, New Gradebook, personal pronouns, production release, student context card