Update on Discussion Redesign: Reported Replies as a Feature Option

[SamGarza1]

At Canvas, we continuously listen to your feedback to ensure that our tools meet your needs effectively. Based on the valuable insights we've gathered, we're making a temporary adjustment to our discussion redesign.

Many of you have expressed that while the reported replies feature is valuable, it doesn't yet feel fully finished. We appreciate your candor and want to ensure that our features offer the best possible user experience. Therefore, we have decided to place the reported replies feature behind a separate feature option.

Our goal with this change is to focus on enhancing the functionality and support surrounding reported replies. While not significantly impacting the Discussion Redesign, we understand that individual instructors need robust tools to manage reported content efficiently. We are committed to delivering that.

What to Expect

While we work on these improvements, the following changes will take place starting on June 17th 2024:

• The reported replies feature will be temporarily put behind a separate feature option and will be On/Unlocked by default. Admins will be able to disable it for their account if they wish. 
  Screenshot of the Canvas Admin Settings Feature Option tab showing the Discussions Redesign - Reporting feature flag.
  
• For admins and instructors who do not wish to continue using the feature while we work on it, they'll be able to turn off the feature option at the root account level
  • The flag will be available in Beta on June 17th
  • The flag will be available in Prod on June 18th
• We are actively gathering more feedback and insights to ensure the enhanced feature will better support instructors.

Discussion Redesign Release

We want to reassure you that this change will not affect the overall release schedule of the discussion redesign. The redesign will proceed as planned, providing all users with an updated and improved discussion experience on July 20, 2024. Our commitment to delivering this redesign on time remains steadfast, and we are excited for you to explore the new features and improvements.

Next Steps

Our development team is already working on these enhancements, and we will keep you updated on our progress. We are aiming to release additional functionality in the reported replies feature that will make it easier for instructors to manage and address reported content effectively.

Stay Engaged

Your feedback is crucial to us. Please continue to share your thoughts and experiences with us as we make these improvements. We’re committed to making Canvas the best it can be for you.

Thank you for your patience and continued support.

[SarahBlanton]

Hello, @SamGarza1 , and thank you for this article and for listening to the community.

My question is how long do you think this new feature option will remain an option? Do you have a ballpark guess - weeks, months? That may determine if and how we communicate about it to our instructors and whether we turn it off for our instance or let users manage it themselves.

[cdoherty]

@SamGarza1 This feature option needs to be permanent, as this feature is not appropriate (and never will be) for institutions who use other channels for reporting problematic content/speech. It doesn't matter what enhancements are made to the feature. We will always need the option to turn it off.

[ThomasHolmes]

I want you guys to know that the recent changes that you have made to Canvas for our university are the worst!!! Who decided on these changing: esp, in the discussion forum and I do not like the term of using "teacher." I am a Professor. Teachers are in high schools or community colleges. CHANGE IT! These changes that they have made in canvas is a serious setbacks like going to the day of BlackBoard. The change was not a good move.

[JamesSekcienski]

@SamGarza1 

Can the anonymous discussion setting also be set as a feature flag?

[mistacal]

  Hello, Calvin Fountain here and i think this feature is great if the necessary changes can be made. i hope all works out for the best of the group.

[paul_fynn]

@SamGarza1  thanks for the update - late question to ask, but are there any changes in discussion such that graded discussions have more similarity to a typical Canvas assignment - simple things like 'Reply' rather than 'submit' tend to trip our students up ....

[dbrace]

The time for me is currently 8:45 AM ET.  I have looked in both beta and production.  The "Discussions Redesign - Reporting" feature flag is not available.  When will it be available?

[dbrace]

The day for me is currently Wednesday, June 19th and the time is currently 10:20 AM ET.  I see "Discussions Redesign - Reporting" feature flag in beta but it is not yet in production.

@SamGarza1, when will the feature flag be in production?

[Maeve_McCooey]

***Updated - Feature Flag now displaying and everything is working as intended. Thank you for listening and putting reporting posts behind a feature flag until it is developed further 😁 ***

Raised this yesterday with support. Today (20th June) the feature flag is still not available in our Canvas production environment and the report post option is now missing in all Discussions.

[LoraCohn]

Wow, I have been looking at recommendations from Chris Hofer (sorry if I spelled that wrong) and sorry Chris, they don't answer any of my questions.  I think July is pretty optimistic for a launch date-- maybe July of 2025.  This "upgrade" has made the discussions so hard to use I am probably not going to put discussions in future classes.  That is really sad because students can help each other learn, but it's not working in this version of the discussions.  I'll post my questions here again.  I've read the documentation in the canvas guides.  I've been using canvas since 2015 and I have never been as frustrated as I am now. 

1. Having to click on reply to see student replies to each other is a waste of time-- I just want every posting from every student to be exposed all the time. How do I make that happen?
2. In the past, I've been able to get to speed grader from the discussion thread itself-- can't seem to now in group discussions. How do I do that in the new design?
3. What does this mean (below)? How do I know when the post I am viewing was created? Is it the first day/time or the last day/time or some other day/time?
Student name
Jun 13 11:30pmLast reply Jun 16 3:37pm
4. When discussions are designated as a group discussion, how do I type in one response to everyone and one grade for everyone? I am pretty sure I was able to do this in the past but can't now.
5. How do I get out of a group discussion when I am ready to return to the other course items? I can get to the other groups easily but can't get back to the whole class with ease.

[laura-harste]

@LoraCohn 

I have had faculty ask similar questions and will try to help with some!

1. Having to click on reply to see student replies to each other is a waste of time-- I just want every posting from every student to be exposed all the time. How do I make that happen?

When you enter discussions, click on Expand Threads and you will see all postings.  @SamGarza1, having an option to set that as a default would be greatly appreciated by many! (see big up arrow below)

2. In the past, I've been able to get to speed grader from the discussion thread itself-- can't seem to now in group discussions. How do I do that in the new design?

It's in the drop-down menu on the right, just further down! You can access this at each students post as well. (see arrows facing right below)

3. What does this mean (below)? How do I know when the post I am viewing was created? Is it the first day/time or the last day/time or some other day/time?Student name
Jun 13 11:30pmLast reply Jun 16 3:37pm

This indicates when the student posted the initial comment (Jun 13) and when the last reply to the thread was posted (June 16).  If you want to know when this particular student posted first and last, you can see that in Speedgrader where you would want to know that for grading purposes.

I need to spend more time playing with the Group functions to answer those questions, but getting back to a course from Groups has always been less than seamless.

Hope this helps!

[kailey]

@Maeve_McCooey @dbrace We needed to have our CSM turn on the option for us on production. It's behind a hidden feature flag that Instructure had to enable before we could see it. You will want to contact your CSM.

[dbrace]

Thank you, @kailey.  For what it is worth, and I do not know when and I did not submit a request to my CSM but I just looked again, the feature flag is now visible in production.

[Mary_W_W]

@laura-harste Thank you for providing this helpful info!

We enabled the discussions/announcement redesign ahead of our summer term, but gave instructors the option to revert if they wished to. 

Has anyone else in a similar situation thought through recommendations for faculty who chose to revert, but will still be teaching a course when enforcement hits? 

Working to create coms and would love to know if others have suggestions.

Thank you!

[hesspe]

@Mary_W_W   We made the redesign the default just prior to our summer session.  We let people know about this via a Canvas announcement and an email newsletter and noted that people who wanted to revert to the old format could do so, with the caveat that the new format would be enforced on July 20th.  We have a good number of summer session courses that will be concluded by July 20, so they could have reverted without encountering a mid-course change. 

Because most of our summer courses are taught remotely, discussions are heavily used.  

Here is some data from Admin Analytics for our summer term so far (some courses have not yet begun):

• 268 courses with active discussion participation
• 3589 discussions
• 39,035 Participations
• 310,888 page views 

To the best of my knowledge no one has requested to have their discussions reverted to the old format.  Although instructors could have made that change themselves in Feature Options, based on experience I think very few would be that proactive.  I looked at our top 10 courses for discussion participations and none of them had reverted to the old format.

[TrinaAltman]

@SamGarza1 Thank you for giving us the option to disable Discussions Redesign reporting until the feature is more fully developed, and thank you for encouraging us to share our thoughts about how it can be improved. Here is some feedback collected from several teaching/learning/support units at our institution:  

• When reporting is enabled in the account, make the overall discussion setting for 'Report replies' within courses off by default instead of on like it is now. This would allow instructors to opt in instead of suddenly receiving reports they aren't sure what to do with. 
• Provide a required text box for the person reporting to provide context as to why they think the post is Inappropriate, Offensive/abuse, or Other. This is particularly necessary for the "Other" option. 
• Enable multi-select for the reasons for reporting. The staff member who suggested this said, “Thinking of reporting features on social media, you can almost always select multiple reasons since a post can be inappropriate and offensive at the same time.” 
• Allow the person who reported to remove their report. 
• Allow the instructor to clear or 'resolve' the reports on individual posts. Otherwise, they will not be able to easily keep track of which ones they already decided how to handle if the reports continue to persist. If resolved, make it so the person who reported the post cannot re-report. 
• Mention in the documentation that the TA is also notified when a post is reported. (Our staff member who requested this discovered it in her testing but was not able to find any place that said that the TA is also notified.) 

Thank you for your consideration of these suggested improvements!

[MaryJaneMurphyB]

I am sorry to bring this up because I know the new adjustments were made to help and were based on user feedback.  However, I just spoke to an instructor I support as an instructional designer, and he is struggling with the new format. I told him I would pass on his concerns. 

These are his concerns. 

He prefers to have the oldest post to the newest post as the default so he can follow the progression. 

He does not like the automatically collapsed replies on a threaded post. 

He does not like that there are multiple pages for a discussion now. He feels students do not look at more than the first page. 

He does not like it when he moves from page to page; he has to re-set the defaults again. 

I suggested he consider smaller group discussions so students have less to sift through. Any other ideas? 

Ultimately, he would like the option to return to classic discussions (how it used to be.) 😢 

[rake_9]

@SamGarza1  - can you provide an update on how long this feature will remain an option? and on what future development on this looks like? 

I have a provost who's gotten (negative) comments from a faculty member and campus head.  I'd like to have some idea of future plans on your part so I can know how to make future plans on our part.

Some of the negativity is based on a misunderstanding of how the feature works, but I would still appreciate some insight.

[TamasBalogh]

Hi @rake_9,

I took over Discussions from Sam as a PM. As the reporting function would need some improvements, we are keeping it as a feature option until we accommodate those. Currently we are focusing on other functionalities, so I don't have a timeline for the reporting functionality.