by Information Technology Services
Updates to Canvas were released on Feb. 18. Canvas operates on a monthly release cycle, with features added or updated every three weeks.
To see all the new features and fixed bugs, view the complete February Release Notes. In addition to the Canvas release, Information Technology Services releases updates to services and integrations with K-State Online through the month as necessary.
The following updates have been made in K-State Online:
- Student Context Card — Instructors can now view more standardized interaction with student data in a course. Currently, when an instructor clicks the name of a student in a course, the link displays the student’s user details page. With the Student Context Card feature, instructors can click a student’s name in a course and view a sidebar-type overlay that shows quick insights and context about the student. Context cards are meant to be a simplified overview of a student’s progress. Students cannot view context cards in a course.
- Deleted-Reply Management — When instructors allow students to delete discussion replies, or when an instructor deletes a discussion reply for any user, the reply was previously shown to all users as being deleted. If there were multiple deleted replies in a discussion thread, the discussion could become difficult to navigate among the deleted replies. In discussions, deleted replies no longer display as part of the discussion thread for all users. However, if instructors need to view notices of deleted individual replies, they can view them using the Show icon located in the discussion bar.
- Add-Users Process — When adding a user to a course, instructors benefit from an improved workflow process. This change clarifies how to manually enroll a user in a course and avoid unintentional enrollments. Only users with appropriate permissions can manually add users to a course. The enhanced workflow asks instructors to specifically select how they are adding a user and provides examples relevant to each addition type.
- Canvas Icon Updates —Several Canvas areas have been updated for icon consistency or simplicity and do not affect Canvas functionality:
- Assignments: Student assignment submission sidebar and submission detail page
- Outcomes: Aligned Items & Outcome Artifacts (accessed by viewing an outcome in a course)
- Rubrics: Aligned outcome icon (displayed when an outcome is aligned within a rubric)
- People: User Details sidebar and User Access Report
