Canvas Production Release: August 6, 2016

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.

8/6/16 Production Release Highlights:

Final Grade Exclusion: As part of creating or editing an assignment, instructors can choose whether or not assignments count toward the final grade. This feature allows instructors to provide feedback without an assignment counting toward Gradebook calculations. The option to remove assignments from the final grade can be changed at any time on a per-assignment basis. This feature is only available in assignments; it does not apply to graded discussions or quizzes. When an assignment is removed from total grade calculations, the assignment displays a banner in the assignments page and assignment details page indicating that the assignment does not apply to the final grade. The Gradebook and the student “Grades” page also display a warning icon for assignments that do not apply to the final grade.

Remote Version of Rich Content Editor and Sidebar: The Rich Content Editor sidebar has been updated with backend improvements, resulting in small interface changes. The sidebar includes a visual style update, and each content section supports pagination. Currently, the Rich Content Editor sidebar update only affects Pages and the Syllabus. Additional feature area updates will be available in a future release.

SpeedGrader UI Updates: The primary navigation buttons have been moved to the right side of the menu bar to be more closely associated with the most frequently used features in SpeedGrader. Navigating from student to student is now located directly above the sidebar. The less frequently used navigation buttons have been moved to the left side of the menu bar: return to the Gradebook, mute the assignment, view keyboard shortcuts, view the help menu, and change Gradebook settings. Assignment details (assignment name, due date, and course name) and grading statistics are in the middle of the menu bar).

Comment Drafts in SpeedGrader: If an instructor creates a comment in SpeedGrader and navigates to another submission without submitting the comment, or refreshes the page, SpeedGrader auto-saves the comment and notifies the instructor it has been saved as a draft. The instructor can go back to the student’s submission and submit the comment at a later time. Comments cannot be viewed by students when in draft. Currently, draft comments cannot be edited, but they can be deleted or submitted at any time.