New Canvas Features Fall 2024

Text      New Canvas Features Fall 2024

Starting July 2024

What you should know:  New Canvas features have been enabled at Cuesta College. These include redesigned discussion boards/announcements, module and pages enhancements, assignment settings, gradebook and speedgrader, and New Analytics.  Although some of the changes are subtle, you may want to take a few moments to review the changes and if you are interested in using you should use the feature options to enable them for your course. 

Discussion / Announcement Redesign

Starting summer 2024, Discussions and Announcements in Canvas will look a bit different and include some new features. Functionality found in the legacy Discussions has been carried over into the redesigned Discussions, but the redesign adds a modern UI, improved peer-to-peer interaction, and more robust moderation tools for instructors.

What’s changing?

  • Coming Soon: Discussion Checkpoints
    This feature allows instructors to set separate due dates for initial posts and for replies to peers’ posts within the same discussion, which will help automate reminders for students by adding calendar and to-do list items for each “checkpoint.” Currently expected release in Q3 2024.

Discussions Feature Comparison (Legacy vs. Redesign)

Source of Feature Comparison Links to an external site.

Quick Guides

Links to an external site.

ks to an external site.

In this short but informative video, we'll walk you through all the exciting changes and highlight the new features that come with the Discussion Redesign. Whether you're a teacher, student, or admin, this overview will help you navigate and make the most of the redesigned experience.

We hope this video provides a better understanding of what the Discussion Redesign is and what changes to expect with the enforcement on July 20, 2024. More information on the Discussion Redesign can be found in the feature user group Links to an external site.. Users can also check out our two-page overview which can be accessed here Links to an external site.. 

Written Guides

Links to an external site.Student Interface Discussions Redesign

Written Guides

Assignments

The “Assign To” option appears for instructors, TAs, designers and other roles that can create learning activities. Canvas is also adding the “Assign to” functionality in areas of a course where it was previously not available (Modules, Pages, and ungraded Discussions). The “Assign to” settings are used to assign learning activities in a course to everyone, specific students or sections, and control things like a due date, availability date, and until date.

Submit Assignment on Behalf of Student Links to an external site. is now available. Instructors can submit a file to Canvas Assignments that are set to allow file uploads on behalf of a student in their course’s Gradebook. The submission will include a timestamp as well as the teachers name who submitted the file on behalf of the student. The instructor can also submit multiple files at a time for a single student, and submit beyond the availability date of a Canvas Assignment.

This feature will only work for newly created assignments. It does not retroactively work on past assignments. Also, it will not work with third-party assignment tools (Turnitin External App) that do not use the native Canvas Assignment file upload function and process.

Gradebook / Speedgrader

SpeedGrader

Randomize list of students in SpeedGrader Links to an external site.. By default, the SpeedGrader student list arranges student names alphabetically by last name. For easier grading, you can sort the student list by student name (alphabetically), submission date, by submission status, and now you can view the students in a random order.

Record a webcam video, screen capture, or audio recording as a feedback comment in SpeedGrader Links to an external site.. If you access Canvas using Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge as your web browser, you can record a webcam video, audio, or screen capture as a comment on student submissions in SpeedGrader.

After drafting a comment and moving on to another student, a Draft pill displays indicating that the comment has not been submitted Links to an external site.. 

Instructors can randomize the order of students Links to an external site.. This update improves prevention of grading fatigue and biases when grading students.

Gradebook

Multi-Select Gradebook Filters are now available for teachers and TAs and can display graded activities by module, assignment group, status, submission, start/end dates or any combination of these options. Multiple filters can be applied at the same time. Check out our support article on how toFilter and Arrange Grade Columns in the Canvas Gradebook Links to an external site. for more information.

When selecting roles using the Message Students Who feature in the Gradebook and modifying the Send Message To list, the displayed numbers update to reflect the current number of selected users Links to an external site..  For students who have not submitted, the Message Students Who feature in the Gradebook is updated to include a checkbox allowing instructors to exclude excused students from the message Links to an external site.. 

Modules / Pages

On the Modules page, instructors can assign students to an entire module and individual module items from the Modules page Links to an external site.. Additionally, the Add Module and Edit Module Settings pages are redesigned as trays. 

In the Rich Content Editor, a Find and Replace plugin is available Links to an external site., which allows for efficient data extraction, transformation, and manipulation. The Rich Content Editor font options are updated to only include web-safe fonts available on all systems. See deploy notes for list of fonts. Links to an external site. 

When viewing a page, instructors can use the  Links to an external site.Assign To Links to an external site. button Links to an external site. to quickly manage availability dates and assign them to students.

New Analytics

What you should know: 

You can now download participant emails by using the New Analytics (located on the navigation menu), and them use your Cuesta email account to email students outside of Canvas.

You can use the new online attendance feature to track student clicks in your course to determine participation. 

New Analytics also has more helpful tools you may want to familiarize yourself with.  View the Feature Notes Links to an external site. for additional details. 

Video overviews reflect current feature functionality in Canvas; they are updated based on workflow changes, not on minor or non-functional interface enhancements. Depending on your institution's Canvas theme, the Canvas interface may display differently than shown in this video, but the functionality is the same.

Overview video - 6 min.

Written Guides

New Analytics

Course Settings / Sections

In the Sections tab of course settings, the Add a New Section field is relocated above the list of sections Links to an external site.. Additionally, new sections are added to the top of the list, previously they were added at the bottom. 

In the Course Section tab, the course dates, term dates and section dates display Links to an external site.. This update allows instructors to quickly view all important dates related to a course. 

The “Student View” button text is changed to “View as Student.” Links to an external site. 

In Account Settings and Course Settings, the footer remains fixed on the page Links to an external site.. 

On the Account-level Courses page, status icons indicate whether a course is published, unpublished, or concluded Links to an external site.. 

On the Home page and Course Settings page, the Publish and Unpublish buttons are redesigned as a drop-down menu Links to an external site..