Rutgers.eduIn an effort to continually improve Canvas, Instructure, the parent company of Canvas, releases Canvas upgrades every three weeks along with Production Release Notes. Pertinent features and upgrades are listed below. You may view the full Canvas Production Release Notes for April 1, 2017 and its accompanying screencast.
The next release will be on April 22.
Updated Feature
Scheduler Workflow (Calendar) – The Scheduler available in Calendar has been updated to reflect Canvas workflow. Instructors can create a Scheduler appointment group by clicking the Add Event (“+”) then selecting the “Appointment Group” tab. Appointments will display as a solid color and unclaimed slots are slightly faded. Instructors can click each appointment to view individual signups, student comments, or remaining slots available. Instructors can also edit the number of users who can sign up for an individual appointment slot. See Group Details button to access additional functionality.
Students can find appointments with the Find Appointments button in the Calendar sidebar and display an appointments window. Any available appointment group in any calendar will be displayed for the students to select. Previously students could only view appointment groups for courses being displayed in their Calendar sidebar. Students will select the appointment on their calendar.
Chat – Chat has been modified to an LTI tool to allow for functionality enhancements (interface, chat management, and chat history). Users will see the total number of users who are online. When users leave the chat, the user count and list update automatically. Users are displayed with their profile picture, Full Name and instructor, TAs, and Admins are identified with an instructor label. Times stamps are also listed. Instructors can delete any chat message if necessary. Chat History may be viewed any time.
Course End Date and Past Enrollments – In the Courses list, the Past Enrollment section displays courses that include a course end date in Course Settings. This update applies to all user roles and helps resolve past courses that Canvas never considered to be concluded unless they were concluded by term dates or the course override participation checkbox. Previously, courses were only designated as concluded if the course was concluded by term or included an override date. However, if a course did include a course override date, the course was only considered to be concluded if the course end date accompanied the users can only participate in the course between these dates checkbox. Now, if a course includes a course end date, the end date applies to course enrollment status regardless of the participation checkbox setting. Therefore, when a course end date is included in Course Settings, the course displays in the Past Enrollments section once the end date has passed.
For clarification, the users can only participate checkbox restricts users from participating in the course, such as replying to discussions, submitting assignments, etc. If an instructor is using course dates to override term dates and prefers the course be placed in a read-only state after the course has ended, the users can only participate checkbox should be selected. Otherwise, students can still participate in the course after the course end date.
Graded Item Assignment Names (Student Context Card) – When an instructor views a student context card and hovers over the name of a graded item, the name of the assignment displays as part of the card details. Assignment names can also be read by screen readers.