Order Discussion Posts from Newest to Oldest

[canvas_admin]

Currently, the discussion posts are ordered from oldest to newest.  A student/professor has to scroll or go to the last page and then scroll to get to the latest post.

Canvas REALLY needs to re-order this so that newest discussion posts appear at the top of the first page so that it is easy to find current conversations.

This topic had 100+ likes in the old community and I was really surprised not to see it on here already (I searched for this using several different search terms).   I sure hope we don't have to go through and re-idea every single feature request that had at least 30 likes and was years old with no action or response from Instructure.

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

For more information, please read through the  Canvas Release Notes (2021-06-19).

[amacleod]

Needs to be more like Facebook or Twitter SOON

[bryan_biggers]

I voted it up based on the OPTION to put newest or oldest on top. Thank you, Peyton at Instructure for going that way with it.

[adityapatile]

I was checking one of Discussion threads. I thought its an old thread and not used anymore just because I saw the post dated in 2017. After some time I realised the sort is from Old to New. 

This is a very important feature and it should be there in canvas. I hope your team will build this soon.

[victoria_richar]

I honestly think that the Discussions page should have the drag and drop/"move to" feature. My instructors are going in and creating their discussions for the course, and as expected, they start at the beginning of the course and create the discussions that will happen throughout the year. When they go to their discussion board, their first discussion is at the bottom of the page. It's just difficult to navigate.

[scottdennis]

Hi Victoria,

Just FYI; instructors can manually reorder discussions if they are pinned.  Only discussions in the Pinned Discussions section can be reordered manually. Other sections are automatically ordered by recent activity date.

[ksmothers]

Scott,

The problem, IMO, is the replies within a discussion thread.  When you have a large class posting replies within a discussion board, you have to scroll and scroll and scroll to the bottom of the replies to view any new comments.  We use discussions for our virtual student union, which has about 17,000 students able to access one discussion.  When they interact with one another in a General Chat Discussion, for instance, the old stuff dominates a discussion and becomes a hindrance.

[esommer]

I totally agree. Comments and Posts should be flexible and should have options for sorting. Instructors and managers of Canvas pages should have the discretion to decided order!

-Ellie

Eleanor K. Sommer, M.Sc.

Graduate Programs Advisor & Adjunct Lecturer

Center for Arts in Medicine

University of Florida College of the Arts

[kbeachy]

I want to be able to move the discussions the way I can modules and assignments.  I am not sure why Canvas ignored this. 

[cwoodwar1]

Yes, one should be able to sort Discussion posts in various ways, by date, by student, by # of likes.  I also think that there needs to be an ability to PIN A PARTICULAR DISCUSSION POST OR REPLY TO THE TOP!   As an instructor, I often have feedback on the discussion replies that I want all students to see, but there's no way to make my reply stand out from everyone else's.  Please add a pin to top feature on the discussion board.

[tdelillo]

Apparently there is a workaround for this particular idea - using "likes" to push the post to the top. See this discussion: Pinning discussion replies  

Also, there are numerous archived feature requests for this idea. I didn't find any newer ones, maybe it's time to bring it back  https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-1330-how-do-i-create-a-new-feature-idea