[Course Settings] Control Conversations at a Course Level

[julopez]

We would like the ability to enable and disable Conversations/Messages and its features, like "Reply All", at a Course Level.

While these features can be edited at a role level, each course may have different messaging preferences and should be modifiable based off the course, not just the role. 

[may027]

I would like the option to disable the Canvas messaging system at the course level, or at least be able to disable the inbox for a specific course.

The Canvas messaging system is far from a full-featured email client and can be difficult to use efficiently especially in a large enrollment course. In short, it is clunky. I would much rather communicate with students using my preferred email client but be able to initiate the exchange from within Canvas (I submitted another "idea" that would include mailto: links for students with their institutional email address). The only advantage I see of the Canvas system is to send mass emails to the entire class (or a specific section). This would be cumbersome in an email client.

So I propose a setting to disable the Canvas inbox for individual courses. Messages sent through Canvas (so outgoing messages) would then essentially be "do not reply" messages.

[skindschuh]

This is definitely needed if Canvas is to be used at lower grades.

[mcmack]

I very much agree that it would be a valued feature to enable or disable inbox messages from student to student at a course level.  As Canvas grows in the K-12 market, the need will increase.

[cpoch]

I would like the ability to turn off messaging and commenting in my course completely. My school uses an external tool as our course forum, and in large courses, we require students to do all their communicating with us through the forum. Still, we get lots of messages from students - and frustrated students when we don't see or respond to their messages. We don't want to encourage breaking the rules but we also don't want their messages to go unread, so I'd rather completely disable students' ability to message anyone, so that we can keep all the messages in the right place.

At minimum, I'd like to be able to set up an auto response that reminds students how to contact us anytime they send a message or post a comment on an assignment.

[jimlohse]

We could also use this idea from cpoch above, we should be able to turn off messages, please.

[jfarber]

Two years later..  still wish to be able to do this. 

[klewis]

We've requested this feature for 5 years but have been constantly ignored by Canvas personnel. They ALWAYS make it a classroom management issue but the fact is your application allows for children to communicate directly with their peers and no way to restrict this ability following repeated abuse. This is nothing more than a complete failure to address security concerns brought about by the community.

[cpoch]

Canvas support sent me to this forum, but it appears to be a cop out on their part. Browsing through the forums, I see very little evidence of a significant number of these features ever being implemented.

@klewis, since you have actual abuse through this feature, I would suggest you do two things:

1. Talk to your district's Canvas administrator and make sure they know about the issue. Canvas is software-as-a-service, so your district has a contract with them. Maybe your district is willing to raise it through their Canvas rep and if it's still an issue at contract renegotiation time, refuse to re-sign with such a big problem. I've had much better success getting things addressed with our technology purchases through this channel than the ways they give us lowly users to complain

2. Since you said the magic word abuse, talk to your district's lawyer. A simple "cease and desist" letter from a lawyer could scare Canvas into action. Many districts live in constant fear of being sued for abuse, so I would think they would be willing to tell Canvas in an official capacity to stop. If Canvas can share some of that fear, maybe they'll do the right thing

[mroach2]

We have disabled the ability for students to use Canvas conversations to message one another or message the entire class. This decision was made at the Provost's office-level due to cheating concerns. I have just learned that having this permission disabled prevents students from seeing the option to message "All in Teachers." They must instead select each teachers' name individually. If the permissions controlling the ability for students to send messages cannot be made more granular,  then controlling messaging privileges at the course level would be an acceptable alternative.

[nicole_montgome]

HI all

I'm newish to this community although not new to Canvas. Even though I teach at a community college, I too (and i know my colleagues would) want the ability to control this at the course level. We have high schoolers in our classes in a variety of ways and we are concerned about cheating, bullying, misuse of school software, and all the other issues stated above.