Recent Updates to Canvas – March 2016

There are some useful updates and new features in Canvas that were recently deployed.  Check out some of these new features in the screencast or read the details in the release notes.  Some highlights for faculty include:

• Course analytics are now viewable as a table or a chart.
• Group assignments and group discussions can now be assigned via the differentiated assignments feature with unique due dates for each group.  Now faculty can appoint different assignments to separate groups, and only the proper group receives the selected assignment. This will make grading much easier and allow for the gradebook to reflect the proper score for students.
• The “To Do” list indicates the number of submissions that require grading. The indicator supports up to three digits. This update fixes the less than helpful 9+ icon that we were seeing in recent weeks.
• Quiz Log Essay Questions Bug Fix – When a student completes an essay question in a quiz, the quiz log will no longer show that the student left the page. Previously, when a quiz included an essay question and the student clicked outside the Rich Content Editor but remained in the quiz, the quiz log showed that the student stopped viewing the Canvas quiz-taking page. Now, the quiz log will only note as navigating away from the page if the student leaves the quiz completely by opening another browser tab or window or views another area of Canvas. However, the quiz log may show that the user focused back onto the page, which is not the same as leaving the quiz page.