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.
10/29/16 Production Release Highlights:
- Intra-Group Peer Reviews: Group assignments supports intra-group peer reviews. This option allows or prevents automatic peer review assignments from within a student’s own group. The intra-group peer review option is only available in group assignments when an instructor automatically assigns peer reviews. The default for the “Allow intra-group peer reviews” checkbox is always set to “off,” which means Canvas filters out members of the same group when automatically assigning the reviews. However, if the checkbox is selected, Canvas allows submission assignments to be truly random without any regard for group delegation.
- Global Navigation Menu Width: The Global Navigation Menu can be manually collapsed to hide the menu text. This update was originally implemented automatically for smaller screen resolutions. When users collapse the menu, the menu persists even if they log out of Canvas or switch browsers. When collapsed, the menu also displays text if a user hovers over an icon.
- Group Assignment Menu and New Group Button: In group assignments, the process of creating a new set of groups has been moved from the drop-down menu to an individual button. Once a group set is either created or selected, the name of the set displays in the assignment.
- “To Do” List Due Date Items: All items with a due date display in the “To Do” list. These items include ungraded quizzes and assignments that do not require a submission.
- Group Navigation Menu Course Link: In groups, the Group Navigation Menu no longer includes the name of the course as a link back to the course home page. Instead, users should access the breadcrumbs links for course access, or they can view the course through the Courses link in the Global Navigation Menu.
- Instructor Group Links: When instructors visit a group’s home page, the icon to switch to another group has been expanded to a full link. This change allows instructors to more intuitively access other groups within a group set.
- File Status Icons in Groups: The “Files” page within groups does not display the status icon for a file. File statuses could include published, unpublished, or restricted. This change simplifies the “Files” page since all students in a group can access group files regardless of their status.
- Rich Content Editor Feature Option and File Links: When the “Use remote version of Rich Content Editor and sidebar” feature option is enabled, page URLs in copied courses retain their association with the current course.
For a complete production release update, please see:
Canvas Production Release Notes: October 29, 2016
2016-10-29 New Feature Screencast from Canvas LMS on Vimeo.
Please click here to view the transcript for this video.
Last Updated: 25 Oct 2016