Documentation is care. It’s one of the ways we try to anticipate your needs and meet them as you enter our Community. Empowering Community Members with the information they need to use Instructure software successfully is how we show we care.
Canvas Credentials, formerly known as Badgr, joined the Instructure family in mid-2022. Becoming part of Instructure has provided opportunities for Badgr to grow. The long-awaited 1.3 Groups LTI moved out of beta to become available to all users. Now that the dust has settled on this transition, it’s time to welcome in the Canvas Credentials documentation by giving it some love and care. Sometimes, our documentation needs a little TLC too!
Why Overhaul the Existing Guides?
We have high standards for our Instructure Community. Our internal style guide is 58 pages long! Everything we publish is peer-reviewed by our team of documentation specialists before it goes live. Reworking the Canvas Credentials/Badges guides will add the accessibility, organization, and clarity that you’ve come to expect from us.
In conversation with our users and with the internal teams who work most closely with our users, we’ve identified some gaps in the existing documentation. Two of the most common areas of confusion where questions arose:
- Which features are available to free users? Which features require a Credentials/Badgr Pro subscription?
- What are the differences between the new and legacy versions of the Badgr LTI for Canvas? How do I transition my badging program from the legacy LTI to the new Groups LTI?
In addition to clarifying some major questions, our goal is to improve the organization of information to help you find the answers you need more easily.
What Does This Transition Mean for Me?
While we work on overhauling the Canvas Credentials/Badges documentation, everything currently published will remain live. We’re editing chapter-by-chapter, kicking off each chapter with a brainstorming and planning session to list off all of the guides necessary. Once we have a chapter plan, we dive right into editing existing lessons and writing new ones.
Once the chapter is complete, we ask a reviewer who’s unfamiliar with Canvas Credentials/Badges to review what we’ve written and point out any areas where we can add clarity. Nothing like a fresh pair of eyes to find what’s missing! After a final round of revisions, we publish the shiny new chapter in its entirety.
When Will the New Guides Go Live?
We’re working on the overhaul alongside all of our regular software update releases. In addition, it’s hard to know how much work each chapter will need until we get into the weeds. Our priority is to make the documentation as thorough and helpful as we can, so our timeline isn’t set in stone. We’ll be working on the final chapters well into 2023.
At the request of Badgr support, we’ve updated our guide to installing the new Groups LTI in Canvas to match our style guide first, so you can get a sneak peek at what’s coming for the rest of the Canvas Credentials/Badges documentation. Keep an eye out for more new and improved Canvas Credentials/Badges documentation!
