Several updates were made to Canvas during the summer months. Highlights from the summer are listed below. To see all the new features and fixed bugs in Canvas, view the Canvas Release Notes.
The following updates have been made in Canvas:
- SpeedGrader Comment Library — Comments can be added and saved for reuse within SpeedGrader. This change allows graders to save frequently used comments in SpeedGrader and be reused across multiple students and assignments.
- New Quizzes Item Bank Management — Item banks can be shared with the entire account and one or more courses. Additionally, item banks can be shared as a view only. This change allows item bank editors to collaborate and disseminate quiz content in a view-only or edit permission state.
- Student Annotation Submissions — Instructors can use an annotated assignment type to upload a file for students to annotate and submit directly in Canvas. This change allows instructors to provide a file as an assignment and allow students to annotate the file directly in Canvas. Students have to either print the file and take a photo to submit or use a third-party tool to complete the submission.
- Discussions/Announcements Redesign — Discussion and announcement topics display an updated design with small usability enhancements. These changes ensure page responsiveness and prepare the interface for feature functionality improvements.
- Save and Build Button Workflow — The New Quiz creation page includes a Save button and a Build button. This change aligns the Save button behavior with other areas of Canvas, and the Build button distinctively separates the workflow for building a quiz.
- The Save button saves the content in the existing page and returns the user to the area where the quiz was accessed. . This change to the Save button mimics similar behavior throughout Canvas regarding saving page content.
- The Build button saves the existing page and launches the New Quiz editor.
- OneDrive LTI app — The OneDrive LTI app will help educators and students have a more modern OneDrive experience, including:
- Integrates with Canvas assignment, collaboration, and grading workflows
- Modern OneDrive file picker UX
- Multiple OneDrive account support (personal, organizational)
- OneNote Class Notebooks and Flipgrid with LTI support available
- Class Teams LTI app — With the new Class Teams LTI app, educators and students will navigate seamlessly between Teams and their course in Canvas. Initial capabilities will include:
- Allow an educator to create a Class Team with the proper user roles within a Canvas course based on the enrollment roster of the course in Canvas
- Respect Teams admin & Canvas privacy policies during Class Team creation
- After creating the Class Team, educators and students can access the Team from within the Canvas course or Teams
- Support across desktop, mobile, and web platforms
- Release Notes Interface — Users can view feature release information directly in Canvas. This change helps users know when a new feature is available in Canvas for their user role and promotes self-training for Canvas features. In addition, the Help Menu always displays the last 10 release notes posted for the user’s role.
- Maintenance Windows — To better manage required maintenance across all customer instances, regular maintenance windows have been implemented. Most maintenance windows will occur sometime between 12:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. local time on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month.
To keep up-to-date on the latest news, view the Canvas information webpage.
