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.
1/6/18 Production Release Highlights:
- New Gradebook Feature Option Change: New Gradebook is available as a feature option in all courses and can be enabled by any instructor on a course-by-course basis. This feature option change should be used with caution. Previous to this release, admins who had enabled the New Gradebook in a course could disable the New Gradebook for an instructor at any time. However, with this release, instructors can enable the New Gradebook on their own, and the New Gradebook cannot be disabled by any user when one or both of the following features are applied:
- Manually adjust a submission status to “None,” “Late,” “Missing,” or “Excused.”
- Enable late or missing policies in the “Settings” menu.
The above features are not compatible with the current Gradebook, so enabling their functionality will prevent an instructor from returning to the current Gradebook. For more information about the New Gradebook, please see the New Gradebook Users Group.
- Student Grades Page Menu Update: The student “Grades” page menus have been updated for improved accessibility. For courses associated with a grading period, the “Grading Period” menu displays first and includes a menu heading. Previously, the menu was always at the top of the page and did not contain a heading.
The “Course” menu allows students to view any of their other courses, both active and concluded. Previously, the menu only displayed active courses. Concluded courses display unless the students have been restricted from viewing the course after the course end date.
The page also includes an Apply button, which must be clicked to generate content selected within each menu. Previously, the page reloaded immediately once a menu was selected. If a menu or the Apply button is grayed out, the menu content already matches the selected content loaded in the page. All menus and the Apply button are responsive to browser-window size, so the placement of menus may vary.
- Excess Rubric Criterion Points: When an instructor grades a submission in SpeedGrader and uses a rubric for grading, the rubric supports excess points above the maximum point value for each criterion. This change allows instructors to provide extra credit through rubric criteria and aligns consistency with other Canvas features that support additional point values.
For a complete production release update, please see:
Canvas Production Release Notes: January 6, 2018
2018-01-06 New Feature Screencast from Canvas LMS on Vimeo.
View the script for this video.
Last Updated: 7 Dec 2018