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 blog 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.
1/9/16 Production Release Highlights:
- Hide Assignment Group Totals with Final Grade: When an instructor chooses to hide the final grade from students in Course Settings, assignment group totals are also hidden from students.
- Percent Symbol in Percentage-based Assignments: When an instructor displays an assignment grade as a percentage, the percent sign appears in the Gradebook column. The percent sign is already included in the Student Grades page.
- Inactive Enrollment Type: Admins and instructors can specify users as an inactive enrollment. Inactive enrollments allow admins and instructors to view prior activity in a course but does not allow the student to access course content or participate in the course. However, their grades still display and can be edited in the Gradebook. Students cannot view inactive users.
- Edit Enrollment Type: Admins and instructors can edit the enrollment type for a user in the course through the People page. Unlike section edits, role edits do not require the user to accept a new course invitation. This feature allows instructors to make modifications to course enrollment types without having to delete the existing enrollment.
- Link Validator: The Link Validator find links to deleted and unpublished content. Instructors can choose to hide unpublished links. Additionally, the Link Validator provides a warning when links direct to different courses.
- Bounced Channels: If a user’s communication channel bounces once, Canvas displays a warning icon in User Settings. Bounces can occur from invalid addresses (caused by address typos, changed addresses, etc.) or blocked servers and does not allow the channel to attempt to generate or send a notification. Previously the channel had to bounce several times before the warning would appear.
- Custom Role Names: When admins create custom user roles, users receive course notifications with the name of the custom role. For instance, if a custom role called Student TA is created based on the TA role, the user invitation will show that the user has been invited to participate in the course as a Student TA.
- Grading Schemes: Instructors can edit the default grading scheme when editing an assignment. Canvas also retains edits made to a grading scheme in the Course Settings page.
- Muted Assignments and Assignment Group Totals: Muting an assignment does not factor the score into an assignment group.
- Course End Date Setting and Concluded Enrollments: Instructors can view quiz results in concluded courses.
- Maximum File Size: Media files larger than 500 MB display an error message.
In Upcoming Releases
- New Canvas User Interface (UI): On July 9, 2016, the New Canvas Interface will no longer be a Feature Option in Canvas and will be enabled for all Canvas users as a standard feature. Enabling the New UI affects the user interface for the entire Canvas account. We are working on a timeline for the rollout of this change at Penn, which will likely be ahead of this date and scheduled to minimize disruption to our users. We will share more information on our timeline as it develops.
For a complete production release update, please see:
Canvas Production Release Notes: January 9, 2016
2016-01-09 New Feature Screencast from Canvas LMS on Vimeo.
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Last Updated: 24 Jan 2019