Feature Q&A: Canvas Release Notes (2024-10-19)

[InstContentTeam]

Looking to discuss these features from the 2024-10-19 Release Notes? Post a reply and start a conversation!

New Features

• Canvas Help Menu: Training Services Portal in Canvas Instance (EMEA and APAC) [Added 2024-10-22]
• Grading: Account Level Default Grading Scheme [Delayed as of 2024-10-21]

Feature Options

• Authentication: OpenID Connect RP Initiated Logout
• Authentication: Implement Token Validation in OpenID Connect
• New Quizzes: Add Time to Existing Quiz Sessions
• New Quizzes: Manage Student Result View

Other Updates

• Navigation: Removal of Legacy Account Analytics

ADD FEEDBACK FOR THESE FEATURES IN Q&A TOPIC

• This topic is for feature discussion only—Please share use cases, best practices, questions, clarifications, etc. regarding this feature.
• Please thread replies as possible to keep posts organized. This will help everyone to track discussions and to participate.

ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK—WHERE TO POST IDEA SUGGESTIONS AND SUBMIT BUG REPORTS

• Idea requests for the Product Team to consider should be submitted in ideas.canvaslms.com . This is the best way to ask for additional or alternative functionality than what is included in the release. Linking to the related idea here so others can find it is encouraged!
• Bug reports should be submitted to Canvas Support. This way, cases can be connected and uniform updates can be provided to those involved. Bugs will not be triaged in this thread

[Chris_Hofer]

Hello.  Re: Account Level Default Grading Scheme... this sounds great for our use, as we currently us a "template" course that has some basic content for our faculty to use to get started building their courses.  Part of this template is that we have a grading scheme selected in this "template" course, and when new course shells are created before the start of the semester, this entire template (and the grading scheme setting) is copied out to those courses.

Currently we have two main grading schemes (grading scales) at our school.  One is for our Undergrad courses, and the other is for our Graduate courses.  Since most of our courses are Undergrad, this is the one we set in our "template" course, and then we manually change our Graduate courses to use the Graduate grading scheme.

With the new Account Level Default Grading Scheme option, at our main account level, if we set the "default" to use our Undergrad grading scheme, will all of our Graduate courses that already are using the Graduate grading scheme change to use the Undergrad grading scheme?  In short, if we set this "default" at the account level, will it over-write grading schemes that have already been set at the course level?  I would hope this would not be the case, but I wanted to be sure.

[leward]

Very excited to see  "Manage Student Results View" for New Quizzes in the upcoming release.   This absence of this feature of this feature has been a significant barrier to adoption.  I will say, however, that I find the implementation to be rather counterintuitive.  Instructors shouldn't need to do anything to keep all feedback hidden--that should be the default status for all new quizzes. Otherwise, as has been the case with the current feedback options on NQ, instructors won't realize that feedback was shown until after the fact, and by that time its too late. 

So, at least to me, it would make sense to change the label for the top-level toggle "Show feedback to students".  In the off state (which would be the default), no feedback is shown.  When toggled to on, all sub options would be off by default, allowing the instructor to choose the options to enable.

The current implementation seems backwards.  Also, the fact that main verb in the top-level option is "hide" while the verb for the suboptions is "show" makes my head hurt.  

[pratheryuka]

Agreed. The labeing of the option should be better and feedback should be hidden by default and turned on with an option.

[rmartini]

Thanks, @leward , for pointing this out! I also lean toward this language being a bit confusing. While I don't love the current language ("Restrict student result view"), it makes more sense to me than "Hide results from students." With the disabled toggle next to "Hide results from students," my initial reaction made me do a double take and have to think critically about what that actually meant. The disabled toggle seems to suggest that I don't want to hide results from students (and toggling on would mean yes, I want to hide results from students). The release notes seem to describe, though, that my initial reaction isn't correct...saying yes to "Hide results from students" opens all of the settings to customize how I do actually want to share results with students. Is there a reason that language has to be changed from "Restrict student result view"?

[pratheryuka]

For the Manage Student Result View change, is that replacing the current setting "Restrict student result view" with the new "Hide results from students"? If so, will it retain any settings instructors already chosen for "Restrict student result view"? For example, if they enabled to "Restrict student result view" would it retain that when you roll out "Hide results from students" and have that enabled on the same quiz? Same question for some of the common options between "Hide results from students" and "Restrict student result view" like "Show points awarded" and "Show points possible"? How does that also play out with settings already checked under "Show items and questions" vs the new "Show Questions" area? I would like to know what the impact would be making a change like this during a semester and close to our midterms.

[leward]

@pratheryuka , I share your concern about the timing of this change, especially given the recent "disallow threaded replies" debacle.  On the bright side, there's a 1-to-1 equivalent for each of the old feedback settings, so hopefully there will be no changes to the results settings, just additional options.  To keep the settings and behavior identical, here's what I would expect for existing quizzes after the update.  Hopefully, someone from Instructure will chime in if their plans are different.

If these settings are enabled in current version...	These should be the settings in the new version
Restrict student result view	Hide results from students enabled
Show points awarded (overall and per question)	Show points awarded enabled
Show points possible (overall and per question)	Show points possible enabled
Show items and questions	Show questions enabled
Show student response	Show student responses enabled for all attempts enabled show/hide dates left empty
Indicate response as correct/incorrect	Indicate response as correct or incorrect enabled
Show correct answer with incorrect response	Show correct answer enabled Only after their last attempt disabled Show/hide dates left empty
Show item feedback	Show feedback enabled

And, needless to say, of any of the settings in the left column are not enabled, the equivalent setting in the right column should be disabled.

[degensp28]

Canvas Support has been unable to answer my questions, so I am going to move them here, in the hopes for a complete response. The bolded responses in quotes are replies from Canvas Support to my initial questions. 

“The next level of support confirmed that adding a default grading scheme means that even if the grading scheme option is not enabled in the course, the default scheme will apply to it.”

1a. My understanding is that students do not see a letter grade if “Settings -> Grading Scheme -> Enable course grading scheme” is not enabled by the instructor at the course level. The response above gives the impression of “working as intended”, but I don’t understand the intent then. If that is true, what is the explicit intent that Instructure is hoping to accomplish with this feature?

No answer given yet

1b. Before this update, any course that did not have “Settings -> Grading Scheme -> Enable course grading scheme” could not utilize Grade Passback. Does this update interact with Grade Passback in any way?

No answer given yet

“If the option is enabled in the course, then the instructors can select any kind grading scheme and the default one you set up will not display first on the list. The new release does not affect the list of the grading schemes.”

               2a. Before this goes live, can it be adjusted so that the Sub Account level chosen Grade Scheme will be selected? The release not impacting the list of grading schemes is confusing to me, and administrator, so it seems likely to cause confusion for my instructors. Additionally, I have never had an instructor use the Default Canvas Grading Scheme on purpose. The fact that I can move to more common grade schemes is nice, but it appearing as the top listed/selected version when “Settings -> Grading Scheme -> Enable course grading scheme” would imply to instructors that I am recommending they use it. Which I would never do, due to its inconsistent point spread and unusual bias towards “minus” letter grades. Per the release notes “This feature simplifies grading scheme setup by allowing institutions to set a default grading scheme at the account or sub-account level, ensuring consistency across all courses.”, but based on what you said, I don’t see how that is true.

No answer given yet

A question that does not seem to be covered anywhere.

               3a. When set, which courses does this impact? Just active and future courses? Closed courses? Read-only courses?

On September 27 the claim was made that this will impact all active and future courses within the same sub-account. Not only was there a reassurance that it would not impact closed and/or read-only courses, the link provided did not back up this claim. I consider this question to still be outstanding.

               3b. If this impacts closed/read-only courses, is there anything being done to mitigate the impact to the historic record of old courses?

On September 27 it was recommended that I submit an idea to ensure that the engineers have thought about this. It is in appropriate to request an idea be submitted to receive the answer to a question. Either this is already being addressed, and the submission of an idea is a waste of everyone’s time, or it has not been thought about and needs to be addressed before launch. Failure to do this correctly means that historic grade data will be modified. TO CLARIFY, I AM CONCERNED THAT EVERY ONE OF YOUR CUSTOMERS COULD BE IMPACTED BY SUDDEN UNWANTED GRADE CHANGES IN COURSES GOING BACK AS FAR AS THEY HAVE BEEN WITH YOU. I don’t believe the question of whether grades will be accurate CAN’T be left unanswered.

[ismail_orabi]

Do the OpenID changes impact LTI 1.3 tools? We do not have OpenID Connect as an Authentication Provider, but have several LTI 1.3 tools that utilize OpenID as part of the launch flow

[EmilyCottrell]

Bugs with “New Quizzes: Add Time to Existing Quiz Sessions”:

As a member of a team of folks who manage Canvas accounts for multiple professors, we were all looking forward to the opportunity to add additional time to an existing timed quiz session (meaning the students were to finish the assessment within a specific number of minutes/hours)—but, as with all things, we wanted to test it out before we presented it to faculty. Glad. We. Did…. There are so many bugs and issues with how this works that I wish Canvas would halt the push of it so that it can be remedied before it really causes issues.

THE GOOD NEWS:

In testing this MULTIPLE times on MULTIPLE days after the 10/30 launch, I have found only 3 possible ways for this feature to work:

1. If the time is added BEFORE the assessment has been launched, the time will add appropriately, and will correctly present itself in the assessment clock at the launch of the assessment.

NOTE: This is all well and good IF the issue that causes the need for additional time happens BEFORE the student has even launched the assessment.

2. If the time is removed COMPLETELY (aka: unlimited time), the clock is immediately removed from the assessment, even if it has already been launched

NOTE: This cannot be the only solution since there is a LARGE difference between adding a few minutes to a timed assessment and giving UNLIMITED access to a timed assessment.

3. If you DO NOT have anything set in the “Available Until” section of the Assign-To AND you add the time BEFORE the student reaches the 2 minute warning mark

NOTE: This is problematic because “Available Until” is use by individuals to ensure that students who are absent/late cannot access an assessment outside the testing window.

THE BAD NEWS:

Here are a few ways I tested that DO NOT work to add additional time to a timed New Quiz in Canvas:

AGAIN: THESE DO NOT WORK AND WILL NOT ACTUALLY ADD ADDITIONAL TIME (all of these are in the scenario that the assessment had a time-limit and had already been launched by the student when additional time was needed)

• Time is added to the assessment after the 2-minute warning has already shown on the student’s screen—assessment will auto-submit at the end of the original time amount (despite showing the additional time in the assessment launch screen)
• There is an “Available Until” time listed in the Assign To (I tested this in multiple scenarios, and every time an “Available Until” time was there, it would not add additional time)—assessment will auto-submit at the end of the original time amount (despite showing the additional time in the assessment launch screen)
• Creating a new “Assign To” for a specific student who needs additional time—especially if you add an “Available Until” time—assessment will auto-submit at the end of the original time amount (despite showing the additional time in the assessment launch screen)
• Adjusting the “Available Until” time for the entire class after adding time for a specific student (having the “Available Until” prevents the time from adding, no matter where it is or what the time is—EVEN if the student would finish the assessment before the “Available Until” time expires) assessment auto-submit at the ORIGINAL time (despite showing the additional time in the assessment launch screen)
• Exiting and re-launching the assessment—UNLESS it is option 2 or 3 listed above, it will still have the original clock time within the assessment AND auto-submit at the end of the original time (despite showing the additional time in the assessment launch screen)

Again—ALL of the above listed tests (those that worked AND those that did not) will still SHOW the additional time in the launch screen – for example: if I added 5 minutes to a student’s assessment in Moderate and the student opened (or re-opened) the assessment, they will SEE the new amount of time listed on the launch screen—but for all scenarios, except the 3 listed at the top, students will NOT see that time reflected in the assessment clock. In Scenario 3 listed above, the additional time will ONLY show in the assessment clock once the 2-minute warning has appeared on the screen.

Needless to say—there are a lot of issues with this new feature that should be addressed by Canvas. It is problematic, to say the least.