Canvas Production Release: July 14, 2018

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 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.

7/14/18 Production Release Highlights

Anonymous Moderated Grading: The current anonymous and moderated grading features have been updated to provide improved assignment flexibility with fully anonymized, multiple grader anonymity, and moderated options. Additionally, moderated grading has been simplified for a better user experience. For more information about anonymous moderated grading, please see the Anonymous Moderated Grading document.
Non-Scoring Rubrics: Rubrics can be created without point values to create a non-scoring rubric. This feature promotes learning engagement by helping students focus on assignment feedback instead of point values. For more information about non-scoring rubrics, please see the Non-Scoring Rubrics document.
Single Page Comments in DocViewer: DocViewer comments have been updated to improve comment usability and management. Comments remain on the same page as the annotation. If there are too many comments to display, comments near the top or bottom of the page are automatically hidden, and comments become scrollable within the page. An indicator shows how many comments are hidden on the page.
New User Interface for Permissions: The Permissions page has been updated with a new interface for simplified permissions management. This change allows admins to learn about each permission directly in the interface and manage permissions by user role. Admins can search for individual permissions by name, or they can use the user drop-down menu to display all permissions assigned to one or multiple roles. Additionally, the Permissions column is static while allowing the rest of the table to scroll appropriately. Role order is assigned by base role. Permissions names have been adjusted and are grouped according to function. No permissions functionality has been affected. For a complete list of permissions name comparisons, please see Permissions Name Updates (2018-07-14 Canvas Release).
Wiki Terminology Update: To ensure additional consistency throughout Canvas, Pages terminology has been changed from wiki to page(s) in the following locations: Content menus (e.g. Modules), Page titles, Email notifications, Rich Content Editor sidebar.
Menu Icon Changes in SpeedGrader: In the SpeedGrader menu, the Keyboard shortcuts and Help links have been moved to the Settings menu. This change helps consolidate icons in the menu and provide more space for assignment information.
New Course Search Validity: At the account level, the Courses page displays a loading indicator when search results are still loading.