Canvas Production Release: February 21, 2015

Canvas operates on a three-week release cycle through which features are added or updated. Courseware Support posts highlights from Canvas’s production release notes, a link to these notes, and other relevant content to the Canvas at Penn blog a few days before the production release, which usually occurs on Saturdays. Please contact Courseware Support at canvas@pobox.upenn.edu if you have any questions about an upcoming production release.

2/21/15 Production Release Highlights:

Usage Rights: As part of the new Files design, institutions can require their instructors to indicate usage rights for all course files before publishing the file to a course. Usage Rights is a course-level feature option called “Require Usage Rights for Uploaded Files.” A course-level feature option means that once the feature is enabled by the institutional admin, the feature can be enabled by instructors on a course-to-course basis. If there is interest in enabling this feature, please contact us at canvas@pobox.upenn.edu.

Notifications and Unconfirmed Channels: Previously, when a user added a communication channel but the channel was never confirmed, the user was still receiving notifications through the unconfirmed channel. Canvas code has been updated to verify the confirmation of the channel before sending notifications.

Publish Button: As part of our interface redesign, Canvas Publish buttons include a flatter design with no shading. No functionality has been affected by this change.

Calendar New Event Window: Users can now view all options when creating a new event in the Calendar. Previously,when a user created a new event in the Calendar, the height of the New Event window had been too short, restricting the course options at the bottom of the window. With the 2/21/2015 production release, Canvas code has been updated to correct the height of the window.