Canvas Production Release: September 15, 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.

9/15/18 Production Release Highlights

WebRTC Web Screen Share in Conferences: Conferences supports WebRTC (web real-time communication) screen sharing for presenters in Chrome and Firefox desktop browsers. Internet Explorer and Edge browsers are currently not supported. This change promotes an easier screen sharing experience for presenters using Chrome and Firefox desktop web browsers without enabling Flash.
HTML5 Mobile Browser Support in Conferences: Conferences supports HTML5 sessions for participants in mobile browsers. This functionality is not currently supported via Canvas mobile apps and must be viewed using a mobile browser. Additionally, HTML5 support is only currently provided for participants and will be incorporated for presenters/moderators in a future release. This change helps conference participants view web conferences on their mobile devices.
CSV Import Custom Column Support: Gradebook CSV import files support updates for custom columns, including the Notes column.
Anonymous Grading Annotated Comments in DocViewer: DocViewer supports annotated comments in anonymously graded assignments. This change allows instructors to leave annotations and feedback in SpeedGrader assignment submissions while the assignment is muted and student names are hidden. If the assignment does not allow instructors to view each other’s names, the name of the instructor is also hidden.
Profiles Last Attended Date: In a student’s Profile page, instructors can note the date that a student last attended in the course. Dates can only be entered in Canvas individually on a per-student basis. Additionally, once a date is entered, it cannot be removed.
Role Name Formatting in Permissions: In the user role table headers, long role names include a tooltip for viewing the entire role name. Additionally, the permissions sidebar displays the full name of the user role. These changes helps admins more easily view the entire name of a long user role.
Create Discussions Permission: The Permissions page includes a new permission for creating discussions in a course. This change allows admins to specify user roles that are allowed to create discussions in a course but not create announcements.
Submission Comments PDF Export in SpeedGrader: The SpeedGrader sidebar includes a link to export submission comments as a PDF when the assignment is visible to students. This functionality is not supported for anonymous assignments until the assignment is unmuted.
Section Order in Announcements and Discussions: Sections are listed alphabetically in the sections menu for both Announcements and Discussions.
Multiple Subfolders and Folder Sidebar in Rich Text Editor: If a course contains more than 50 subfolders at the same level, a user who wants to upload a file using the content selector sidebar cannot upload a file until all subfolders have been loaded.