It’s time for the triweekly Canvas release – let’s take a look at some of the new features.
The release will take effect Saturday, October 28. To view the changes before then, please visit the Canvas beta site. This site resets every week and any changes you make will not be reflected on the “normal” (Production) Canvas site.
Foremost is the Accessibility Checker, found in the Rich Content Editor toolbar (the new person-shaped icon to the right of the Paragraph styling menu – depending on your screen resolution, you may have to use the scrollbar to scroll to the right.) The Checker allows you to detect and fix common accessibility issues with headings, text color, images, links, and tables.
This much-requested feature is already generating lots of discussion in the Canvas Community where faculty and course designers are sharing feedback. We expect ongoing development and improvement of what promises to be a valuable tool in making courses accessible for persons with disabilities.
See Canvas’ New Feature Screencast video for a demonstration of this release.
You can also read and comment on the full Release Notes in the Canvas Community.
Also notable is the restyling of comments in the DocViewer application (for viewing file submissions in SpeedGrader.) Rather than showing the full text of multi-line comments, DocViewer will show expandable ellipses. This will allow you to view more comments at once without sacrificing detail in your comments.
This update is already available in the current production environment.
The next Canvas update will be released November 18 and can be previewed in Beta mode starting November 6.
Dr. Sue Richardson (English) will be facilitating a Lunch and Learn workshop on using Canvas Groups to enable peer reviewing among your students. Join us on Friday, November 10 at 10am–11:30am at South Campus, J-211 – lunch will be provided! Please register on WebAdvisor and search for 5-digit registration number 54489.
