There are a number of new features and bug fixes that were released by Instructure. These include updated look and feel of the interface (calendar, account menu, courses listing), support for large courses (inbox/conversations, gradebook performance), discussions (analytics, restoration), SpeedGrader (graded surveys, group assignments), course link checker, course imports, and student “what if” grades.
Look and Feel
Monthly calendar updated
Resolved by Instructure
Event and assignment titles that are longer than a single line are now completely displayed within the monthly calendar.
For more information, please see
How do I use the Calendar?
Account menu updated
Provided by Instructure
The menu that appears when you click your name in the upper left corner has now been updated. Your avatar appears at the top of this menu, and the logout button appears directly below your avatar.
Courses listing updated
Provided by Instructure
You can see a listing of all your EEE Canvas courses by clicking ‘Courses’ on the left side of the page, then selecting ‘All Courses.’ The listing of your courses has been updated, so that all the relevant information is now presented in a table.
For more information, please see
How do I view my Canvas courses?
How do I customize my Course list?
Support for Large Course Spaces
Inbox / Conversations
Resolved by Instructure
When creating a message through the Canvas inbox, instructors and TAs can now search for individual students within a course in the ‘To’ box.
For more information, please see
How do I compose and send a message?
Gradebook load times
Resolved by Instructure
The infrastructure below Canvas gradebook has been updated, so that the system should load faster for large courses.
Conversation Replies via Email
Resolved by Instructure
If a Canvas user replies from an email address that is not recognized by Canvas (i.e. not included in the notification settings for a user), the system will provide instructions for adding that email address.
For more information, see
How do I add an additional email address as a contact method in Canvas?
Discussions
Analytics for group discussions
Resolved by Instructure
When a user participates in a group discussion, participation is shown in the user access report and the course activities analytics page.
Restoring discussions
Resolved by Instructure
EEE Canvas staff should now be able to restore a complete discussion and all posts, if it was deleted by mistake.
SpeedGrader
Graded survey labels updated
Resolved by Instructure
When an instructor or TA accesses a graded survey in SpeedGrader, they will see only the answer provided by the student. There will be no indication of correct or incorrect.
Group assignment feedback provided to all members of a group
Resolved by Instructure
Instructor provided feedback via SpeedGrader on a group assignment can now be accessed directly by all members of the group.
Course link validator updated
Provided by Instructure
The system used to check all course links has been updated, to more accurately identify broken links and reduce false positives.
For more information, please see
How do I validate links in a course?
Course imports updated
Resolved by Instructure
There were a number of updates to the process of importing a Canvas course, including the following:
- The process of importing multiple courses has been updated, which should resolve a number of conflicts that occurred previously.
- If a discussion is set to allow liking, this option will now be included in the course copy.
- If a course is copied into itself once, the content will be duplicated. In subsequent copies, all content will be overwritten. The messaging within Canvas has been updated to reflect this situation.
- The course copy queue has been updated to more accurately reflect the current status of course imports.
- The import process has been updated so that when quizzes are copied, then modified, then re-copied, the system will more accurately reflect the most current state of the quiz.
“What If” grades updated
Provided by Instructure
When a student uses the “What If” feature within Canvas grades, the system will automatically ignore any assignment scores that have been excused by the instructor.
For more information, please see
How do I approximate my assignment scores using the What-If grades feature?
How do I excuse an assignment for a student in the Gradebook?
Please let us know if you have any questions regarding these updates, Canvas, or EEE.