Canvas Release Notes (2018-10-06)

Upcoming Canvas ChangesOctober 4–8: Analytics Beta LTI (Beta Environment)Beginning October 4, Analytics Beta will be added as an LTI tool in all Canvas beta accounts. Production availability will be part of the following Canvas release. For full details about this feature, please see Canvas Release: Analytics Beta (Course Grade).October 27: Developer Key Management and Scoping Feature Option EnforcementOn October 27, the Developer Key Management and Scoping Feature Option will be enabled for all Canvas institutions and applies to Canvas admins. For details about this feature, please see Canvas Production Release Notes (2018-07-14).

In this Canvas release (October 6), rubrics can be created without point values and Quizzes.Next supports restricting students from viewing their results. Section-specific discussions include an updated workflow. DocViewer supports manual image and document rotation.

For students, the List View Dashboard includes Peer Review assignments, and the Alerts tab displays both new and dismissed alerts.

For admins, the Moderate Grade permission has been removed as a Canvas permission.

For all users, right-to left language support is enabled by default for all supported languages. Various Canvas areas include non-functional interface updates.

LTI Tools

For institutions using Quizzes.Next, Quizzes.Next supports restricting students from viewing their results after submitting an assessment.

Feature Options

For institutions using Anonymous Grading, assignments that have enabled anonymous grading as part of the assignment settings do not display the SpeedGrader settings option to hide student names.
For institutions using the Learning Mastery Gradebook, improvements have been made for a simplified user experience. As part of the rubric creation process, results can be set to be hidden from the Learning Mastery Gradebook. Additionally, admins can create custom ratings for all courses using the Learning Mastery Gradebook.
For institutions using the Student Learning Mastery Gradebook, the Gradebook includes an improved interface. When students view the rubric from their Grades page or from the Submission Details page, they can view the instructor’s selected ratings for each criterion. Additionally, all aligned items are displayed in an outcome, both assessed and unassessed.

Release notes describe upcoming Canvas functionality and are subject to change.
Follow the Canvas release notes space to be notified of updates
For all release changes, view the Release Notes Change Log
If you notice any contrary functionality compared to the outlined behavior in these notes, please file a Canvas support case according to your institution's support protocol
Other questions? View the Canvas Release Notes FAQ
Feature Options
The following feature options are addressed in this release:
Account: Allow RTL users to see RTL interface (enforced), Non-Scoring Rubrics (enforced)
Course: Anonymous Grading, Anonymous Instructor Annotations (added), Learning Mastery Gradebook, Student Learning Mastery Gradebook

Release Notes Change Log

Updated Features

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Account Settings

Anonymous Instructor Annotations Feature Option

This feature can be enabled in Canvas through a feature option in Account Settings. Please view the content below for additional details. For more information about feature options, please see the Canvas Release Notes FAQ.

Location to Enable Feature	Account Settings, Assignments
Configuration Details	Anonymous Instructor Annotations Feature Option
Affected Canvas Areas	SpeedGrader (DocViewer)
Beta/Test Environment Support	Not Supported
Affects User Interface	Yes
Affected User Roles	Instructors, Students

Summary

In Assignments, the Anonymous Instructor Annotations option is enabled by a course-level feature option. This assignments-based feature was introduced in a previous release.

Change Benefit

This change enables the Anonymous Instructor Annotations option for instructors who want to create anonymous instructor annotations in their course assignments.

Affected User Roles & Behaviors

Instructors

When this feature option is enabled, instructors can view the option in assignments to create anonymous annotations and comments in DocViewer-supported submissions`.

The Anonymous Instructor Annotations option only affects DocViewer in the SpeedGrader submission window. When Anonymous Instructor Annotations is enabled, DocViewer comments do not display an instructor's name.

Anonymous Instructor Annotations checkbox in assignment settings

Students
When the Anonymous Instructor Annotations option is enabled in an assignment, annotations and comments in a student’s submission do not display the name of the instructor or grader.

Anonymous Instructor Annotations Student View

Feature Idea Contributions
https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/4643-hide-names-of-graders-aka-anonymous-graders
Canvas features are always welcome to feedback. Product teams may make adjustments at any time via the Canvas Feature Idea process.
View existing Anonymous Instructor Annotations feature ideas
For new ideas, please tag the idea with annotations_anonymous

Dashboard

List View Dashboard Dismissed Alerts

Location to Enable Feature	Card View Dashboard
Configuration Details	N/A
Affected Canvas Areas	Card View Dashboard
Affects User Interface	Yes
Affected User Roles	All Users

Summary

In the List View Dashboard, the Alerts Menu displays both new and dismissed opportunities.

Change Benefit

This change allows students to view opportunities that have been dismissed from the menu.

Affected User Roles & Behaviors

Students

In the List View Dashboard, students can view the Alerts Menu and view new opportunities and dismissed opportunities. New opportunities can be dismissed at any time. Dismissed opportunities are only removed if they are fulfilled according to the label in the opportunity, such as submitting an assignment.

List View Dashboard and Alerts tab with New and Dismissed Options

Feature Idea Contributions
Canvas features are always welcome to feedback. Product teams may make adjustments at any time via the Canvas Feature Idea process.
View existing Dashboard feature ideas
For new ideas, please tag the idea with dashboard

List View Dashboard Peer Review Items

Location to Enable Feature	Card View Dashboard
Configuration Details	N/A
Affected Canvas Areas	Card View Dashboard
Affects User Interface	Yes
Affected User Roles	All Users

Summary

Peer Review assignments are included as to-do items in the List View Dashboard.

Change Benefit

This change allows students to view and complete peer review assignments in the List View Dashboard.

Affected User Roles & Behaviors

Students
In the List View Dashboard, students can view and complete peer review assignments. Peer review assignments indicate the peer review that must be made by the student and display the peer review icon. Peer reviews can either be due on the same day as the initial assignment, or it can be due after the due date.

List View Dashboard Peer Review Due Date

Feature Idea Contributions
Canvas features are always welcome to feedback. Product teams may make adjustments at any time via the Canvas Feature Idea process.
View existing Dashboard feature ideas
For new ideas, please tag the idea with dashboard

Discussions

Section-Specific Discussions Workflow Update

Location to Enable Feature	Discussions
Configuration Details	Sections Menu and/or Graded Checkbox
Affected Canvas Areas	Discussions
Beta/Test Environment Support	Yes
Permissions	Assignments and Quizzes - add / edit / delete Discussions - view Discussions - moderate Discussions - create Discussions - post
Related APIs	Discussion Topics API
Affects User Interface	Yes
Affected User Roles	Instructors

Summary
The Discussion Details page includes an updated workflow for section-specific discussions.

Change Benefit
This change clarifies the workflow functionality of adding section-specific discussions.

Affected User Roles & Behaviors
Instructors
By default, the Discussion Details page includes all sections for the discussion. If all sections are selected, the discussion can be created as a graded discussion. The sections menu is removed, and individual sections and due dates can be added to the graded discussion.

Discussions with All Sections assigned and Graded checkbox selected

However, if the discussion is changed to include one or more specific sections, the Graded checkbox is grayed out and the discussion is not available for grading.

Discussions Selection Selection with Grading checkbox unavailable

Feature Idea Contributions
Canvas features are always welcome to feedback. Product teams may make adjustments at any time via the Canvas Feature Idea process.
View existing Discussions feature ideas
For new ideas, please tag the idea with discussions

DocViewer

Document Rotation

Location to Enable Feature	DocViewer
Configuration Details	N/A
Supported in Beta/Test Environment	No
Affected Canvas Areas	DocViewer
Affects User Interface	Yes
Affected User Roles	Instructor, Student

Summary
DocViewer supports manual image and document rotation. Files that are viewable in DocViewer can be manually rotated in DocViewer using the Rotation button. Rotation is available on a per-page basis in documents with multiple pages.

Change Benefit
This feature allows instructors and students to manually rotate images and documents in DocViewer to allow easier viewing of files that were uploaded with a different image orientation.

Affected User Roles & Behaviors
Instructors & Students
Instructors and Students viewing documents in DocViewer can manually rotate a single page of content from the DocViewer Toolbar. The Rotate button rotates the current page clockwise by 90 degrees.

Feature Idea Contributions
https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/8793-docviewer-rotate-pageimage
Canvas features are always welcome to feedback. Product teams may make adjustments at any time via the Canvas Feature Idea process.
View existing DocViewer feature ideas
For new ideas, please tag the idea with docviewer

Grades

Non-Scoring Rubrics Feature Option Enforcement

Location to Enable Feature	Assignments
Configuration Details	Add Rubric
Affected Canvas Areas	Rubrics, Grades, Student Learning Mastery Gradebook Learning Mastery Gradebook Feature Option Student Learning Mastery Gradebook Feature Option
Beta/Test Environment Support	Yes
Permissions	Rubrics - add / edit / delete
Related APIs	Proficiency Ratings API
Affects User Interface	Yes
Affected User Roles	Admins, Instructors, Students
Original Feature Introduction	Canvas Production Release Notes (2018-07-14)

Summary

The Non-Scoring Rubrics feature option has been enabled for all Canvas institutions and applies to all users. This feature allows rubrics to be created without point values. Additionally, improvements have been made to the Learning Mastery Gradebook and Student Learning Mastery Gradebook interfaces for a simplified user experience.

Change Benefit
These changes promote learning engagement by helping students focus on assignment feedback instead of point values.

Affected User Roles & Behaviors
Admins
Admins can create custom ratings that display in the Learning Mastery Gradebook and Student Learning Mastery Gradebook. This feature allows admins to specify specific proficiency ratings that display to all users in courses that have enabled these gradebooks.

Note: Custom learning mastery ratings do not affect ratings within individual outcomes at the account or course level.

The Learning Mastery tab is located in the account-level Rubrics page. Admins can manage the Proficiency Ratings, select the rating at which students display mastery, and customize Proficiency Rating names, points, and display colors.

Account-level Rubrics tab to create custom learning mastery ratings

Instructors

When adding a rubric to an assignment, instructors can choose to remove criterion point values to create a non-scoring rubric. This change allows instructors to help their students focus on the feedback for an assignment instead of the actual point value and improve learning engagement.

When non-scoring rubrics is enabled, instructors can select the Remove points from this rubric checkbox in the rubric details. Selecting this checkbox removes points from rubrics and instructors can no longer see the Use this rubric for assignment grading and Hide score total for assessment results checkboxes.

Additionally, instructors can choose to not display rubric results in the Learning Mastery Gradebook. By selecting this option, instructors can provide students with proficiency feedback, but the resulting score will not affect Learning Mastery Gradebook calculations. This option can be used for practice assignments or other types of assessments where outcome results should not be officially recorded in the Learning Mastery Gradebook.

Assignment Rubrics options to remove points and not post results to learning mastery gradebook

Note: This option is not retroactive once a submission has been graded and should always be selected before grading takes place. Any submissions that are assessed using the rubric before this option is selected will not have outcome results hidden in the Learning Mastery Gradebook.

When grading an assignment with a non-scoring rubric in SpeedGrader, instructors select ratings from the rubric for students to view, but points are not associated with each of the ratings.

Rubrics view in SpeedGrader for instructors

In the Learning Mastery Gradebook, improvements have been made for a simplified user experience. Additionally, sidebar ratings can be customized by a Canvas admin at the account level.

Outcomes view in Learning Mastery Gradebook

Students

When students view the rubric from their Grades page or from the Submission Details page, they can view the instructor’s selected ratings for each criterion.

When enabled for a course, the Student Learning Mastery Gradebook also displays an improved interface. The name of the outcome group displays the associated number of mastered outcomes. Expanding the page shows each outcome in the course and the number of aligned assignments. For each associated outcome in an outcome group, students can view their outcome results. Non-scoring rubrics do not display the point value associated with the rubric.

New view for student learning mastery gradebook

Feature Idea Contributions
Canvas features are always welcome to feedback. Product teams may make adjustments at any tim

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Comments

victoria-maloy

While I am thrilled to see Analytics Beta to be released - WHY is it being released in the Production environment only?

WHY are the Beta and Test environment support being added after the production release?

This seems to be a backwards way of releasing a very important feature to our constituents.

heatherlbrown77

I'm confused by the Discussions change. Does it mean that Discussions created for one or more specific sections cannot be graded at all?

kblack

That is EXACTLY what I was wondering, @heatherlbrown77 ‌! I believe it is a question of Canvas semantics. I tested this in Beta, and you can still assign a discussion to just one section and not another. I believe the issue is that "Post to" can be confused with "Assign to." When a discussion is graded, down in the due date field you can still specify a specific section to assign it to, dumping the default setting of "Everyone." Graded discussions use the "Assign to" area; non-graded discussions do not. But I agree, that may need to be worded a bit differently!

Chris

I agree. The discussion creation workflow seems overly complex and confusing for faculty... If "post to" is meant for ungraded discussions and "assign to" is for graded discussions, it would make much more sense (in my opinion) to have "post to" come at the bottom if graded is not checked, just like assign to does if graded is checked. With the current method, the workflow for creating a graded discussion for just one section of the course makes no sense to faculty (they're naturally going to select the section first, which removed the grading option. Updating the workflow to be more consistent for graded vs non-graded shouldn't really take much more effort (just reordering UI elements and when they are displayed), but would really be a welcome improvement over what's happening now.

-Chris

JamesAshby

I don't see an entry for this update in the API Change Log for my beta or prod instance. Has it just not been added yet to environments? Or can someone provide a link to a master API Change Log?

erinhmcmillan

Hi, James,

We had a small delay getting that out and our team is working on it.

Thanks!

Erin

erinhmcmillan

Hi, Victoria,

Analytics Beta is an LTI tool. Just a reminder that most LTI tools are not designed to be in the beta environment as they always point to production data. Our teams are finalizing support for those other environments because they felt it was important to offer them for this tool.

Thanks,

Erin

cjr201

The ability to rotate documents in Speedgrader is great for some of us folks that somehow end up uploading sideways documents.

straussi

Maybe this is the tail end of a long Monday ... but what will exactly be happening with Non-Scoring Rubrics Feature Option Enforcement being implemented? Unless this is actually happening differently from what is currently in BETA? We plan on implementing this anyway, but currently the Feature Option shows exactly the same in BETA and PROD. Originally, the non-scoring rubrics did not include Learning Mastery?

Okay, I know today is actually Tuesday ...

erinhmcmillan

Hi, Ira,

The feature option should be enforced in beta so it cannot be turned off, and today we confirmed that was not the case, so one of our engineers is working to correct that behavior. As long as the feature option is on in a course in your best environment, you can view the rest of the course as you will see it when the feature option is enforced in production.

Thanks,

Erin

natalie_norton1

Hi - understand it is difficult when new features are LTIs, but would really appreciate being able to look at them in test/beta first so we can assess any implications and also have time to prepare comms, update guides etc as needed. I feel really uncomfortable when things go straight into production. For example, it has been difficult with docviewer not being fully available in beta, and this has led to issues going into the live environment. If at all possible it would be really appreciated if we could get things in beta first before they go live. Thank you!

millerjm

How will the system determine what initials to use for the profile image placeholder? We are a very diverse institution and we have many students who have more than just a first and last name - legally their last name is several different "words." Many times these names show up incorrectly sorted in the People and gradebook despite bringing in a separate first and last name. Can you please explain how these initials are being generated by these more complex names?

Thank you!

Joni

cwhermsen

The change in initials is problematic for us: a lot of our users have many initials in their name, or their first initial doesn't match the first name they're commonly known as (think "Richard" as their official name and "Dick" as their general name). So we allow them to add their general name in parentheses behind their Full name, Display name etc:

This unfortunately gives us the following result, many users with one initial and a parenthesis:

I don't think we're the only institution that works this way, as these names and this practice are quite common here. I am also curious if the logic that selects the first initial and first letter of the last name will always work well across cultural borders as different countries see first and last name quite differently.

Edit: after posting this, I saw @millerjm ‌'s post, so I know we're not the only one with this issue.

curtain

I keep re-reading the notes and comments hoping to understand this change, the need for it and what is specifically correcting/addressing/making better. Does not seem to make sense to me.

Chris

Hi @curtain ‌,

I admit I was confused by the wording in the document here, so I had to go so some side-by-side comparisons with beta/prod Canvas. In my testing, I've found that the change being made here *removes* the "assign to" menu instead of just disabling it when the "graded" option is checked.

While this isn't a huge change, I still think the workflow here is backwards. Things selected further down on a page shouldn't have an affect on things higher up on the page (in my opinion), which is why I think the "post to" box should be moved to the bottom, just like "assign to" is for graded discussions. In this case, the "graded" option seems to be the variable that decides whether "post to" is relevant or not as far as I can tell, so "post to" should come somewhere below the graded option to reduce confusion. My feeling is that small additional change would prevent a lot of confusion for anyone who creates a discussion.

-Chris

straussi

Our CSM provided the following, "Analytics Beta will be configured as an LTI tool at the root account and hidden in course navigation by default. This version of Analytics is only for Instructor access with later versions being accessible to students. Please note that if the tool is made visible in navigational view via course settings and students click the link, they'll receive a message stating, "Student Analytics coming soon".

What will student's see when the student view is provided in Analytics 2.0? We would like to take that into consideration in the timetable to provide the LTI to instructors through the course navigation.

Jeff_F

The rubric change has created a few unexpected behaviors. For example, a very basic rubric having three performance levels and three criteria requires nearly 50% of the screen to display the entire rubric left to right at 100% zoom. And folks, this is a 32" monitor. Is this the intended behavior? Something seems amiss.

erinhmcmillan

Hi, Joni,

I've added clarification to the release notes:

Announcements and User Navigation display initials based on the first name and last name of the user’s display name.
Account-level People page displays initials are based on the first name and last name of users’ full name.

Hope that helps!

Erin

erinhmcmillan

Hi, Ira,

Our team is using feedback from the instructor view to develop future enhancements and reports. Students can continue to use the existing analytics information—Analytics Beta is displaying the same information but in a more simplified view with additional details. Because of this pending feedback need, we currently don't have a specific timeline as to when student analytics will be available but it will be in 2019.

Thanks,

Erin

erinhmcmillan

Hi, Jeff,

Support cases are always encouraged when you find any contrary behavior in Canvas so our teams can investigate for you.

Thanks!

Erin

erinhmcmillan

Hi, James,

The API change log has been updated so you can see all the updates now.

Thanks for the note!

Erin

erinhmcmillan

Hi, Victoria,

The release notes change log has been updated to indicate that Analytics Beta has been removed from this production release; however, the intended schedule to install the LTI tool in various regions will still apply to the beta environments only. The reasoning for the initial production plan was because instructors have been asking for Analytics Beta for some time, and our teams wanted to make it available as soon as possible. Additionally, our teams are looking for as much feedback as quickly as possible to be able to continue further enhancements to the tool, so as soon as it is available in production (which is now in our next release), we'd appreciate instructors being able to use the tool and contribute feedback.

Thanks,

Erin

Chris

Hi erinhallmark‌,

Can you tell us how the first and last name of the display name are figured out?

I know first name and last name for the official name can be defined by an SIS upload, but as far as I know, display name is just one field for first and last name. The first name may contain spaces, as well as the last name, so I'm not sure how Canvas would accurately determine the initials in that case.

Even for the official name, if the user is added via the UI, there's no way to accurately separate the first and last names. I think this is something that might need a revisit ASAP. The UI should probably prompt for first name and last name, and maybe display name even needs to be separated into a distinct first and last name too if initials are going to be used.

-Chris

Jeff_F

Hi! I opened this last evening: Canvas case 03599644. The support agent was great and we explored the behavior. He believes the observed behavior was 'how it is supposed to work'.

Kristin Lundstrum

A group of us participated in the Release Notes (2018-10-06) Collaborative Chat‌. Here are our Collaborative Notes and our Chat Archive. If you're interested in joining the next chat on October 19th, RSVP to Release Notes (2018-10-27) Collaborative Chat so you can receive updates! Smiley Happy

stevenwilliams

Hi Erin -- thanks for this update. As additional enhancements and features are added to Analytics 2.0, will these also be released to beta first?

millerjm

Erin,

From what I understand from your comment - a user could have a different set of initials depending on where in Canvas you are? That seems very inconsistent.

Joni

natalie_norton1

We currently have grade distribution graphs (in Grades) turned off in many courses - is this functionality likely to be impacted/phased out? We would want to hide any new analytics from students in many areas as comparative data can be very sensitive, so would appreciate plenty of notice if possible so we can manage as needed. Thank you!

cesbrandt

My apologies if this seems like a stupid question, but I've been trying to figure it out for a few hours with no results: what exactly does Embedded Assignment LTI Launch Points do to/for the user experience?

What it sounds like is that it embeds an external tool into all assignments within the context of where the tool is loaded, but assuming that's the case I'm not understanding the actual change to the user experience. We could already embed external tools to the bottom of an assignment.

mzucal

The bity url listed in the user specific release notes does not seem to be working. Is it just me?

Thanks

Melissa

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