Improved Commons Favorites Import

[zsgoreczky]

With Monday’s Canvas Beta release, we released an improvement for importing favorite course objects from Commons to Canvas. 

Why have we built it? 

When our users find a great resource in Commons, they may not necessarily know which course they would like to import it to. Maybe the course doesn’t even exist in Canvas yet. So they can favorite the resource to import later. When editing a course in Canvas, those users may remember that previously they found a resource in Commons that could fit into their course perfectly and they would like to import that resource. Previously to get that resource, they needed to leave Canvas, open Commons, find the favorited resource, find the course they intended to import it into, import it, and then go back to Canvas. This process was tedious. 

From now on, our users can access all their favorited Commons resources within Canvas so they don’t need to stop editing their course and go to Commons to import a resource. 

Where is it available? 

Previously, embeddable Commons favorite resources could be imported only in the Rich Content Editor. From now this functionality is available on five other index pages as well for Canvas learning objects (quizzes, discussions, modules, pages or assignments). Now they can find content they want to include in their course and add it directly where they would like it to land, without going to Commons. 

In case of modules, an entire module can be imported as a new module, or all the different resource types can be imported into existing modules. 

New year, new design! 

The favorites tray has also received a facelift and has a new, improved layout. We have increased the size of the resource cards and the resource titles, so they are more visible and easier to find. 

We hope you’ll like it! 

We are planning to release this improvement on production in February. You can find this feature information as part of our 2020-02-15 Canvas Release Notes.