We Voted! What Now?

[KenzHughes]

We want to take a moment to thank the 2,896 Community members who participated in our bi-annual Ideas & Themes voting. Your votes and feedback are incredibly valuable to us in ensuring that we are fulfilling your biggest needs!

Here are the final rankings for both Canvas and Impact

Canvas Themes Final Ranking:

• Streamline the experience and reduce the cognitive load of modules: 741 votes
• Facilitate timely feedback for students: 520 votes
• Build dynamic question types: 509 votes
• Expand support for student-driven learning in Canvas: 487 votes
• Reduce friction for large courses with multiple instructors: 371 votes
• Automate and Streamline Group Membership: 335 votes
• Broaden support in Canvas for competency-based education initiatives: 291 votes
• Admin Data Management for Studio: 159 votes
• Improved flexibility in Catalog listing management and reporting: 134 votes

Impact Themes Final Ranking:

• Course Based and Term Based Messaging: 117 votes
• Improve Targeting Through Custom User Groups: 93 votes
• Report Filtering and Presentation Capabilities: 61 votes
• Improve Customizability and Access to Content: 54 votes
• Expose API Endpoints for Impact: 41 votes
• Refine Campaign Creation Process: 22 votes

I am sure you are wondering what to expect next...

Now that voting has closed, our team will come together to review all of the votes and assess which themes to move to a “Prioritized Theme.” Since most of our Community will be out on holiday through the end of December, we will announce which themes we plan to prioritize for discovery and development for the first half of 2024 within the first two weeks of January.

Why does it take that long to review? 

Selecting these themes requires us to be very thoughtful. When we move a theme into “Prioritized,” we at Instructure are committing to delivering that value to you within a 6-month timeframe. Our team must assess our initial findings from discovery to determine the complexity and capacity to deliver on the theme(s) and balance this with all the other avenues of feedback channels. 

How many themes will be selected?

Honestly, it fully depends on the above. As I am sure you saw from reviewing the themes during voting, the scope and size can vary by theme. How many we commit to will be determined based on other roadmap commitments plus the complexity and size of the given themes.

What happens to themes not selected?

We save all of the great comments and votes from this voting cycle and the theme moves back into “Identified”. With the chance of being selected for our next voting cycle in early 2024 (April - June timeframe). 

Will all referenced ideas be addressed in a Prioritized Theme?

No, not all ideas will be addressed. What we are committing to next for selected themes is that our teams will conduct the necessary discovery to determine the best solutions to solve for the value outlined in the theme. As we further assess and define those solutions, we will keep the Community informed on any ideas that may no longer work into that solution. But do not fear, those ideas are not lost - they will be mapped to a different theme (either existing or new). 

So what now?
We know that you all are eager to learn more about which themes will be Prioritized and the timing associated with those. Our team will provide you with an update in January 2024 to outline our findings, which themes have been selected, and what to expect next.