Canvas Production Release: April 22, 2017 4/18/17

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.

4/22/17 Production Release Highlights:

  • Dashboard View Menu: To switch between Recent Activity and Course Cards, the Dashboard toggle has been updated to a settings drop-down menu. This change helps clarify Dashboard customization and aligns design consistency throughout Canvas.
  • Pending Enrollments View: When a user is manually added to a course, the pending enrollment only shows the name of the user, the user’s section, and role. Once the user accepts the enrollment, the enrollment displays the enrollment information for the user (email address, login ID, or SIS ID). Previously the enrollment information was also displayed in the pending state.
  • Student-Performance Texts:  Canvas engineering and research teams are collaborating on a new feature designed to help students improve their ability to manage coursework. Students who have opted into receiving text messages may see a new type of notification in the coming weeks. Opting in means that students have provided their phone number as a communication channel in their profile. Students can opt-out of these notifications at any time.
    • The new text notifications include the following:
      • A reminder to turn in any unsubmitted online assignments that are still available after the due date
      • A reminder to retry a quiz if a quiz contains multiple attempts and the highest score received was less than an A or 95%

    These notifications will be sent once daily to students who meet the above criteria. No notification will be sent for assignments with due dates farther in the past than the previous 24 hours, and only one notification will be sent for each assignment. Approximately 0.0001% of active enrollments in Canvas this semester will receive one of these messages.

For a complete production release update, please see:

Canvas Production Release Notes: April 22, 2017

2017-04-22 New Feature Screencast from Canvas LMS on Vimeo.

View the script for this video.

Last Updated: 17 Sep 2021