Looking to discuss this feature from the 2021-05-15 Release Notes? Post a reply and start a conversation!
POSTING GUIDELINES This topic is for feature discussion only—please share use cases, best practices, etc. regarding this feature Please thread replies as much as possible to keep posts organized Feedback to product managers about idea enhancements should be submitted in ideas.canvaslms.com (though linking to the idea here so others can find it is welcome) Bug reports should be submitted to Canvas Support—bugs will not be triaged in this thread
Very excited about this annotation assignment feature. How well will this work with screen readers? In other words, if a low vision or blind student is using screen reader software, how will the software describe the annotation tools and help students choose where to insert their annotations? I understand that the documents uploaded for annotation are themselves screen readable; I'm more interested in the accessibility of the annotation tools
I just checked this out on beta and it looks nice, but it doesn't work with peer review. You can enable it and it goes out, but the peer reviewers do not see the original submitter's annotations. It's an exciting feature to be sure!
I am also very interested in the accessibility and peer review features.
Excited to pilot this! Where do I turn this on in beta? I cannot find the place where I should turn it on in Feature Options. Did I miss something?
This is such a huge addition, I can't wait to share this with our fellow teachers and use it next semester.
Upon trying this feature, there are a few things that I thought this already great annotation tool could improve:
It would be a missed opportunity if such features were missing, I certainly hope we can see some of these improvements real soon
@Stef_retired, @erinhmcmillan: Loving the new student annotation submission type! It's a brilliant idea and works really well. There are a couple of things I'd like changed before it comes out of beta
I've been looking at this feature and have a couple of questions / observations
Is there a way of locking the student comments? When I tested this and went in under a Teacher Role I discovered if I click on the comment made by the student it allows me to edit, delete it etc.
Ideally it would be useful for the Teacher to be tagged /coloured differently to make it more distinguished form student comments.
I have not been able to get this to work via the Canvas Student App. has anyone been successful with this?
thanks
We noticed that the online assignment file selection required usage rights. We currently do not have this enabled for other file uploads. This function should respect that setting. Additionally, the mixed use of need to "check" to save pen annotations may be confusing for students since that is not required for all annotation tools. Otherwise, this seems like a great addition.
Does student view work on this yet? I was testing in beta and made the assignment without issue, but when I used student view, I didn't see the document or where to annotate.
I know the origin of this feature was for students to be able to annotate via web browser/desktop, however what does it look like for students accessing this assignment via app on iOS? Tried to see with a demo student account we use but getting errors and "Students are not allowed to access test installations." when signed in via web.
This looks interesting. What is the plan for re-submitted assignments? As a student, when I tried to resubmit an assignment that I had just annotated, I cannot see my recent work and have to start over. Is that expected?
I agree that the requirement to check pen annotations is a bit confusing too. I was able to submit an assignment without checking the pen annotation and the annotation did not appear in the submission. I wouldn't want this to trip up students. Is there a way to make it clearer, or remove the requirement to check for pen annotations so it is consistent with the other types of annotations?
It would be good to get an update when those usage rights are sorted. That default setting may confuse our teaching staff.
I thought it might be worth summarising some of the points made about "checking" pen annotations.
I had a further thought that it would be good to remove this requirement for teachers / instructors as well. My expectation would be to not have to "check" any of my pen annotations. I've created a feature idea about this:
Removing the requirement to "check" pen annotations.
It seems a mistake to turn on student annotation assignments by default.
Our university uses new assignment enhancements. Even if a teacher creates a student annotation assignment, the students will not be able to view the document, annotate or hand in the assignment. In beta, there is no warning to let teachers know that this is the case.
Has anyone been able to test this with Turnitin?I am concerned that their maybe high matches shown as all students are effectively submitting the same document.
Secondly would students annotations be screened by turnitin ? I am guessing not but would like to know.
Is this beta feature rolling out in waves to users? From my understanding, there shouldn't be any admin intervention needed for this feature to appear for teachers when creating assignments. However, we are not having any luck seeing the annotation option when creating an assignment. Am I missing something? Are others encountering this issue?
Below is what we currently see when creating an assignment and selecting online.
whilst I like this tool there are a couple of things I am struggling with when testing
While this feature doesn't support annotations on group assignments, is annotation for group assignments on the roadmap? Thanks!
After I created a new assignment in my sandbox course using the new "Student Annotation" checkbox, I then viewed the assignment via "Student View". When clicked on the assignment name from the "Assignments" index page, I only saw the directions I had typed in to the RCE. I did not see the linked document that students would eventually be annotating. I had to click on the "Start Assignment" button to actually view the document I had linked when I created the assignment. It might be nice if students are able to preview the document when first accessing the assignment ... without having to also make a separate link to the file within the directions. It seems that instructors would need to provide additional directions to students that they will see the file to annotate when they click the button to begin the assignment. Just a thought.
If you try uploading the file with the assignment unpublished, the file technically uploads into course files, but does NOT load to the assignment if the assignment is unpublished when you try. Your students will get errors and can't access the file (because it's not there). If you add the document to the assignment with the assignment already published, it does work. Just FYI.
One week or so in and we are excited about the new Student Annotation feature! Thank You so much for adding this to Canvas!
Some feedback from one of our teachers that I would like to share with you is:
"I got an email notification every time a student made an annotation (so for a 20 question assignment, I got 20 “submission annotation"emails per student!) I checked my notification settings, and the only one I have on is student comments, which I don’t want to turn off because the emails let me know when a student replies to my comment in canvas. It appears that annotations now fall under this category. This might be a deal breaker for me.
Is there a way for students to unsubmit and edit their annotated assignments? I teach 4th grade and find great value in students going over their own work and learning from their mistakes. The only option now is "new attempt", but that clears the pdf and they have to start over. Perhaps this could be an assignment setting because I understand that sometimes the teacher doesn't want the student to be able to change answers after they have been given. I would just like the option. It also lets me know that they were following along while we went over the assignment. Thank you.
Our student laptops do not have a built in stylus but are touch screen. When students try to use the free draw tool with their finger or a stylus that is not paired with their screen, the annotation doesn't work. Am I missing something?
In the browser version of this feature, students cannot use a stylus (it simply scrolls like a finger). This is frustrating to students as drawing with their laptop trackpads is very challenging. Is there a way to add a stylus "button" or something that would allow them to toggle between using a stylus for drawing and for scrolling. I mostly use the pdf annotation feature in math with the idea that students could draw models, but they really struggle with it.
