Canvas Production Release: January 5, 2019

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.

1/5/19 Production Release Highlights

Course Link Validator Design Enhancements: The Course Link Validator page includes design enhancements for link clarity, including identifying broken Course Card images. The page description content has been updated to clarify the validator searches course content for invalid or unreachable links and images. Invalid means the link or image is no longer valid and the content should be removed or replaced. Unreachable means the link or image could not be displayed because of a situation with the host server, which may be temporarily unavailable. Unpublished content in the course is also displayed in the validation results If the Show Links to Unpublished Content checkbox is selected. Once the link validation process has completed, the page displays the following design enhancements:
- Content is grouped by object type (e.g. assignment, discussion, page)
- The object type is displayed below the link to each content item
- Each broken content item displays its relevant object type icon
- Broken external URL items in Modules are grouped by module
- Broken content within an object is identified as either a link or an image, with the appropriate icon displaying next to the broken content
- Broken content displays the name of the item as it displays in the Rich Content Editor
- Course Cards are a supported object type, which displays any course images added from Flickr that have been deleted
Course Dates and Functionality Clarifications: The Course Details page and Sections tab have been updated to clarify term and course dates as well as the options to restrict students from viewing the course. No functionality has been affected.
- The course date explanation text has been updated to suggest instructors verify the term dates before modifying course dates.
- The checkbox to limit participation in the course includes clarification for how the checkbox affects the dates in the course.
- The checkboxes to restrict students from viewing the course also includes clarification about whether the course or term dates are considered to be the course start and end date, depending on the course date settings.
Due Date Calendar Display: Assignment due dates on or after 11:31 pm display the time in the assignment title.
Multiple Instructor Enrollments and Course Search: In large course enrollments, the Courses page displays up to 25 names in the Teacher column.
Event Date Order: Calendar events are displayed among all To Do items in chronological order.
Anonymous Grading and Submission Comments: When anonymous grading is enabled for an assignment, submission comment notifications do not display a student’s name.