Assignment comments - Rich Text Editor?

[john_erickson1]

I have significantly been slowed while trying to plow through the 300 assignments I need to grade today. The assignment comments have changed - now it looks comments are left in a Rich Text Editor. This means my submit button doesn't fit on the screen any more so I need to scroll down for each assignment to submit a comment. There appears to be a lot of wasted, blank space on the grading screen.

And each new line in my comments is now double spaced - do we really need that much space around comments? I like information for my students to be succinct and easy to view/read.

I assume this is to allow a few special features to appear in the comments. Not sure my students will benefit from those, considering how few take the time to read comments anyway. I'd be happy just leaving a bit of text feedback so students know why they missed points and how to make those up.

Let's keep things simple and quick.

[James · Accepted solution]

John ( @john_erickson1 ),

The ability to leave formatted submission comments has long been a request of many people here in the Community and through their CSMs. In the grand scheme of things, it is a move forward for the majority of people. I don't see them going back. I do see them adding formatted text in other places -- such as the inbox messages -- at some point.

I am on the opposite end of the spectrum from you as far as how this affected me, though. I tend to leave copious notes for what the students need to do to fix their submissions. It was very difficult for students to follow because Canvas removed all my paragraph breaks in most places students viewed it. I would have to resort to numbering steps, putting multiple asterisks to separate items, etc. This is a huge benefit to my students because now they will be able to follow what I wrote.

I do agree with you on a couple of things. I've been doing a lot of double spacing today. I've trained myself over the last 12 years of using Canvas to use a double enter to start a new paragraph. I do that in email and documents as well, so it feels natural to me. This is more consistent with the way Canvas pages works, where you just hit enter once. It's something I'll have to train myself not to do. The second thing we agree on is that the box is too large -- except when it's too small. Since I like to type long notes, I have to scroll back through the box to see what I've already written. Allowing the comment box to be resizable would help both you and me.

[James · Accepted solution]

John ( @john_erickson1 ),

The ability to leave formatted submission comments has long been a request of many people here in the Community and through their CSMs. In the grand scheme of things, it is a move forward for the majority of people. I don't see them going back. I do see them adding formatted text in other places -- such as the inbox messages -- at some point.

I am on the opposite end of the spectrum from you as far as how this affected me, though. I tend to leave copious notes for what the students need to do to fix their submissions. It was very difficult for students to follow because Canvas removed all my paragraph breaks in most places students viewed it. I would have to resort to numbering steps, putting multiple asterisks to separate items, etc. This is a huge benefit to my students because now they will be able to follow what I wrote.

I do agree with you on a couple of things. I've been doing a lot of double spacing today. I've trained myself over the last 12 years of using Canvas to use a double enter to start a new paragraph. I do that in email and documents as well, so it feels natural to me. This is more consistent with the way Canvas pages works, where you just hit enter once. It's something I'll have to train myself not to do. The second thing we agree on is that the box is too large -- except when it's too small. Since I like to type long notes, I have to scroll back through the box to see what I've already written. Allowing the comment box to be resizable would help both you and me.

[PaulNagami · Accepted solution]

A slightly annoying workaround for the double-spaced lines: If you press SHIFT+ENTER, it gives a single space.

I like the rich-text feature, but I can see how it could be a screen real estate issue!

[Chris_Hofer]

@john_erickson1 ...

A partial Rich Content Editor (RCE) was added to the SpeedGrader yesterday as part of a new Canvas Deploy.  You can read more details here: Canvas Deploy Notes (2024-09-11) - Instructure Community - 613734 (canvaslms.com).

[john_erickson1]

Yes - I discovered the update when I began grading. And I immediately missed the simple comment box I grew so accustomed to. It would be nice if a Rich Content Editor were an option that could be turned off in our settings. Using formatted text, bullets etc. is not a useful tool for me. Not worth the extra clicks and time required to leave comments now.

[Chris_Hofer]

@john_erickson1 ...

I suppose what you could do is to create a new idea here in the Community requesting that the partial RCE become an option rather than just always "on" for everyone.  Here are some Guides to look through about how to create a new idea (refer to the "Ideas and Themes" section):

Instructure Community Guide - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com)

[bstone]

I also noticed that issue with the large text space, but something else is slowing me down even more. The new rich text editor doesn't play well with stored comments, which I use constantly. I have a large library of saved comments, and it used to be possible to type a word or two in the text box then select a stored comment from a list. That feature no longer works. The list appears, but mousing over it seems to reset the whole screen rather than allowing a selection. Sometimes it works on a second attempt, but it's a lot of scrolling and extra typing. This was a great feature (or should I say, a great feature), and I hope this is just a glitch that can be fixed.

[bmark]

I also use "Auto Text Expander" extension in Firefox and it is no longer working. This will cause additional time while grading which is not necessary. If we could turn of the editor feature so extensions can work that would be great.

[pattersonj]

I'm one of those who has wanted this for a long time, but it is causing some issues because I no longer need all my workarounds. 

A bigger concern is that I just noticed that while the feedback looks fine in Speedgrader, in the "Inbox" "Submission Comments" it appears to be displaying HTML code as well as the text. I'm not sure if this is what my students are seeing - I haven't gotten any responses from those I have asked, but this is what I'm seeing when I view "Submission Comments" using the Inbox. I'm attaching an image. Anyone else seeing this? 

[david_banyots]

YES! We are seeing HTML tags showing up when students are reading their comments in the Canvas Student app, and apparently those tags are also showing up in parent notification emails.