Top 40 of Buried Feature Ideas

mjennings · ‎07-06-2015

So one of my favorite things about being a Canvas user is that we can create and vote on changes we would like to see the company implement into the system. However as I was looking today at the current list available to vote on, I was discouraged by the sheer volume of feature requests. There was over 30 pages of requests! How in the world are people going to ever find things? There is search functionality, but it's still a lot to sift through if you are just looking for other ideas. Well I decided to make a "Top 40 of Buried Feature Ideas" to help out some of the ideas that I think have some merit but are buried under a few other pages of other good ideas. So in order of least votes at the time of making this list, here they are. If you are a Canvas user, log in to the community and go vote on these.

#	Title	Votes*
1	Editable Faculty Journal	1
2	Add "Groups" filtering feature to Assignments/Grading	1
3	Create If - Then Statements in Assignments Groups	2
4	Offline Testing	2
5	Allow resize of question bank windows	2
6	Check box next to the until date	3
7	Survey Functionality- Questions Appear Only When Specific Answers Are Given to Previous Question	3
8	Update ALL links when Page name changes	5
9	Open date for Quizzes	5
10	Peer Review Assigned within the Group	7
11	Add functionality to print the calendar from within Canvas	7
12	accept course invites in mobile app	7
13	Shuffle all questions	8
14	PDF export for Wiki Pages	8
15	Differentiate between the two different uses of "Assignment"	8
16	Provide option to hide some features in group areas	10
17	Assign a Total Quiz Value and Automatically Distribute the Points to Questions	11
18	Mute assignment by section for cross-listed courses	11
19	Create Option for Extra Credit Question in Quiz	12
20	Edit Calendar Assignment	13
21	Make an announcement that all students in class are forced to acknowledge.	13
22	Make "Let Students See Their Quiz Responses" Setting Do What It Says (or Say What It Does)	13
23	Back and Next buttons at top of module items	14
24	Include "Mute" in the Quiz Settings	14
25	Form-based assignments (e.g. worksheets or guided reflections)	15
26	Add needed css and js for style guide items to core code	15
27	The link icon	16
28	TinyMCE - Allow admins to add additional allowed tags	16
29	Quiz Statistics PDF	17
30	Question Randomizer in Canvas	20
31	Mute assignment as a option at assignment creation	22
32	Increase the number of questions supported by the Quiz Statistics function	25
33	Course Analytics for high-enrollment courses	25
34	Hot spot question type	25
35	Course Level Analytics that can be refined to show Sections	26
36	Option to set or turn off shuffle answers at question level in a quiz	26
37	Multiple Response Statistical Data Needed For Testing Validity	30
38	Add Option to Hide Old Groups From Dropdown	30
39	Quiz Question Numbering in Edit Mode	31
40	Allow regrade after changing quiz question points	47

* Votes as of 12pm Central Time on 07/02/2015

Originally post on my blog A Story to Tell on July 2, 2015

jordan · ‎07-06-2015

This is great @mjennings ! One thing I really encourage people to think about when it comes to feature ideas, is to really consider what's most important to you and your institution. And with that in mind... don't just go vote up all feature ideas that "sound good." I'd say about 90+% of the feature ideas that have been submitted are GREAT ideas. But its likely that not all of them are a real priority to you and your institution.

So here's my challenge...

Don't be so quick to pull the :smileyplus: vote trigger! And don't be scared to :smileyminus: vote if you think Instructure should not spend their time developing an idea. Rationale for your downvote is commonly appreciated, but not required. Consider this paradigm by @dhulsey regarding voting for feature ideas:

"Instructure... has limited resources and must make decisions about what new features to implement and prioritize. If I down vote, I often don't mind the idea, but I am down voting as a way to lessen the priority of that idea and to boost the ideas I want Instructure to focus on right now. in other words, I can champion the features I want by voting for them and by voting against other, competing features." (see full thread)

As you acknowledge the finite resources that Instructure has and the seemingly infinite number of feature ideas that continue to pour in, please weigh in on and vote for the feature ideas that are of highest priority to you and your institution. Imagine that you were the one that had to sift through over 1,000 ideas, and you could not develop them all. Which ones would you and your institution spend your efforts developing? These are the ideas you should vote up emphatically! (how does one vote emphatically?? 😉 You know... click the ^ vote and then add a constructive comment with an explicit description of why it's important to you... maybe include some use-cases... some suggestions on how you'd like to see the feature functioning... a mockup screenshot, etc.)

You don't need to down-vote the other ideas, necessarily, but just consider not voting up every good idea, just because it's a good idea.

Onward and upward!

mjennings · ‎07-06-2015

Thanks for the thoughtful response Deactivated user! I agree that not every idea request should be done. I was just hoping to expose some of the one that I thought had merit (not that I voted for them all) and seemed buried under many pages of other great requests. Knowing how busy lazy I can be, I would typically not dig through 30 pages of anything. :smileylaugh:

It seems like newer ideas are always going to get buried since they will inherently have less votes. Don't get me wrong, I really like Jive so far but finding things can be a bit tricky sometimes.

I truly value this community and the feedback. Keep being awesome!

jordan · ‎07-06-2015

Spot on Matt! I love that you took the time to do this. I think EVERY idea of which someone takes the time to identify and provide a thoughtful description, deserves to be in the limelight and validated, or not, by the community.

DaleDrees · ‎07-06-2015

Wow! – I had no idea there are so many Canvas Feature Ideas (1,025). Thanks Matthew for showing how involved everyone is in the community to improve Canvas! Made me realize that it can be a little overwhelming and hard to follow at times. I know you can filter by text but maybe it would help to categorize the ideas so you can quickly see what is trending on quizzes or modules, no matter what stage they are in? Might be there already and I am overlooking it?

jordan · ‎07-06-2015

You're not overlooking this Dale. We have been exploring different ways to leverage Categories, for feature ideas. Naturally, the ideas of our community always inspire us and we'd love to hear everyone's deeper thoughts on this. I extend the same explanation and invitation to you dreesd that I did to Deactivated user, over here - https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/2144#comment-11629 . (you're invited too @mjennings ) If you create a discussion, please be sure to come back and post a link here, there, and everywhere 😉

hensonj · ‎07-07-2015

I agree that there could be a better way to display Ideas. For instance, new Ideas, with 0 votes, are quickly (within hours) relegated to the very last pages of the default view (and buried deep in the other views) dooming them from their inception.

I could start a new feature request to fix this, but ...

no one would ever see it.

Stef_retired · ‎10-26-2015

According to my rough count, there are over 600 feature ideas currently open for voting. @mjennings , I'd love to see an update! Yes, I know I could figure out which ideas haven't garnered many votes, but what I'd really be interested in is which of these ideas you think deserve a closer look.

And I agree with @dhulsey --in consideration of a fair allocation of limited resources, downvotes are important too! Personally, I use downvotes sparingly, and only if I'm prepared to write a comment providing a rationale for my downvote.

mjennings · ‎10-27-2015

Thanks for the encouraging words stefaniesanders! I think the best think that sums up my initial thoughts on this is from one of my replied above:

"Knowing how busy lazy I can be, I would typically not dig through 30 pages of anything. "

That being said. I may just have to find some time in the near future, it may be interesting to see what is still on the list.

canvas_admin · ‎10-27-2015

Thanks for doing this Matthew, although I didn't see any of my ideas on your list. :smileysilly:

Every time I see a discussion like this, I always go back to one I started not long after Canvas made the transition to the new community: Limits on Feature Requests in Jive?

I still think there's some usefulness for a queue type idea, seeing as how this discussion is still going on 5 months later and I don't see any sign of feature ideas letting up (based on the number of new ones I see in my Jive inbox on a daily basis). Better sorting would be a start, but there's gotta be a way to lessen the inundation.