Rutgers.eduIn an effort to continually improve Canvas, Instructure, the parent company of Canvas, releases Canvas upgrades every third Saturday of the month along with Release Notes. Pertinent features and upgrades are listed below. In this Canvas release (September 21), instructors may now add individual feedback for Multiple Choice questions in New Quizzes.
Feature Options
- For courses using the New Gradebook, SpeedGrader can be filtered by student group via an option in course settings. When this feature is enabled, SpeedGrader will only load submissions from a selected group.
External Tools (LTI)
- For courses using New Quizzes, Multiple Choice Questions support individual feedback for each answer.
Previously, Rutgers Canvas notified users of upcoming changes that will result in enforced Feature Options including the New Gradebook and Mastery Paths. The enforcement will take place on January 18, 2020.
Monthly Release Notes also include API updates. This announcement lists pertinent updates that affect instructors and students and omits features that are not applicable for Rutgers Canvas. You may view the full Production Release Notes (September 21), and its accompanying screencast. The next release will be on October 19, 2019.
Updated Features
New Gradebook
Student Group Filter
For courses using the New Gradebook, SpeedGrader can be filtered by student group via an option in course settings. When this feature is enabled, SpeedGrader will only load submissions from a selected group when the submission is accessed via the New Gradebook or the assignment details page. Note this feature is currently not supported when a submission is accessed from the Dashboard, or a discussion or quiz details page (old quizzes). This feature is designed for large courses and helps manage submissions for an instructor or TA. Filtering submissions by student group also improves SpeedGrader loading times more efficiently than filtering submissions by section.
The Course Settings page displays an option for large courses to require viewing SpeedGrader by student group. When this setting is enabled for the course, SpeedGrader requires a student group to be selected in the Gradebook filter before submissions can be viewed. The SpeedGrader link is grayed out until a student group has been set.
The Student Groups menu displays all groups that exist in the course. If no groups exist, groups can be created in the course People page.
Note: Selecting a student group does not apply to group assignments unless the assignment requires students to be graded individually.
The assignment page also allows a group to be selected. Once selected, the SpeedGrader link is no longer grayed out.
Notes:
- Once a student group is selected via an assignment or the New Gradebook filter, the same student group displays in all assignments.
- Note this feature is currently not supported when a submission is accessed from a discussion or quiz details page (old quizzes).
Please see Production Release Notes: Student Group Filter for images that show the workflows described above.
New Quizzes
Multiple Choice Individual Level Feedback
Multiple Choice Questions support individual feedback for each answer. This change allows students to receive specific feedback relating to each individual answer choice.
When creating a multiple choice question, instructors can click the comment box next to each answer in the quiz question. Feedback can be entered directly in the text field.
If students are allowed to view their quiz results, students can view the custom feedback for each of their answers.
Please see Production Release Notes: Multiple Choice Individual Level Feedback for images that show the workflows described above.
This announcement lists pertinent updates that affect instructors and students and omits features that are not applicable for Rutgers Canvas. You may view the full Canvas Deploy Notes (August 14). The next Deploy will be on August 28, 2019.
Canvas Deploy Notes (2019-09-11)
Canvas deploys contain code changes that are intended to fix bugs, improve performance, and prepare for new features, but they do not affect user workflows. These deploys take place every two weeks. Intended changes in workflow are noted in the Canvas Release Notes published monthly.
Deploy notes include notable fixed bugs and additional updates that do not affect user functionality. View the full Deploy Notes (2019-09-11).