Rutgers.eduCanvas Discussions and Announcements have been updated for all courses for the Summer 2024 term. With this redesign, there will be no loss of functionality between the old and new experience. Users will still be able to set up discussions in the same way with the same requirements.
Redesign Overview:
Discussion and Announcement redesign includes an updated UI and new features:
- Improved search with highlighting
- Edit History
- Flexible viewing options: Inline and split view
- Role Labels
- Quoting
- Reply Reporting and notifications to Instructors
- Full and partial anonymous graded discussions
- Sort options (Newest to Oldest, Oldest to Newest)
- Filtering (All, Unread, Read)
Feature Comparison Chart:
| Feature Legacy | Discussions | Discussions Redesign |
| Users must post before seeing replies | ✓ | ✓ |
| Reply posts can be marked as read or unread | ✓ | ✓ |
| Discussion time stamp edit display | ✓ | ✓ |
| Previous/Next buttons for Modules | ✓ | ✓ |
| Group Discussions | ✓ | ✓ |
| Peer Review | ✓ | ✓ |
| Add to Student To-do List | ✓ | ✓ |
| View Deleted Posts | ✓ | ✓ |
| Rubrics | ✓ | ✓ |
| Full and Partial Anonymity for Graded Discussions | X | ✓ |
| Improved Accessibility | X | ✓ |
| Split View | X | ✓ |
| Reply Reporting | X | ✓ |
| Quoting and @ Mentions | X | ✓ |
| Search and Filtering | ✓ | ✓ |
Discussion/Announcement Redesign Enforcement:
On July 20, 2024, the Discussion and Announcement Redesign is enforced for all users by Instructure. At that time the default discussion and announcement experience will be that of the redesign and users will no longer be able to use the legacy experience. Until then, users will be able to switch off Discussions Redesign in their course settings.