Canvas User Interface Conveniences
Content
- Introduction
- Gradebook Assignment Search
- SpeedGrader Submission Status
- Automatic Accessibility Checker
- Course Notification Customization
- Sticky Navigation Menus
Canvas User Interface Conveniences
Canvas gained some convenient user interface upgrades with its Oct. 16, release. While none of these updates greatly impact the functioning of Canvas, they should help instructors to use of some features already present more conveniently and to save valuable time. These features are previewed below.
If you would like, you can go to the Canvas release notes page to see the details from the vendor.
Gradebook Assignment Search
This much-desired feature is adding the ability to search for an assignment name from the gradebook. You previously could filter assignments by assignment group (category), and search and filter students by name and group membership. Now you can also search for the assignment. This will be a big time-saver for many instructors.
We’d also like to remind you that this feature already exists at the top left of the assignments and quizzes pages, but is often overlooked. Look for it there, too!
Screenshot
Related article
How do I filter columns and rows in the gradebook?
SpeedGrader Submission Status Labels
This change allows graders to change the submission status (late, missing, excused) for a student’s assignment directly in SpeedGrader rather than needing to switch to the gradebook to make this change. Click the pencil icon in the top right corner of a SpeedGrader page to access this menu.
This will allow you to use these submission statuses more easily for clarity with your students. It will also allow you more easily to utilize the automatic missing submission grade and automatic late grade deduction policies if you use them in your course.
Screenshot
Related articles
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How do I apply a Missing Submission policy in the Gradebook?
How do I apply a Late Submission policy in the Gradebook?
Automatic Accessibility Checker (Rich Content Editor)
The Canvas Rich Content Editor (RCE) includes an accessibility checker to look over your content (page, announcement, etc) for common accessibility issues, such as low-contrast colors or missing image captions. The new feature will run that checker automatically and display a badge under the editor alerting you that issues were found. You can click this icon for more details and to get suggestions for how to fix your content.
When the new accessibility checker notification setting is enabled for a course, any accessibility issues detected within the RCE display an indicator automatically under the RCE. This setting can be toggled in your course from your course settings page, under the feature previews tab. It will be enabled on by default for all courses at a later date.
Screenshot
Related Article
How do I use the Accessibility Checker in the Rich Content Editor as an instructor?
Course Notification Customization
This change allows course notifications to be adjusted without having to access the course-level notifications page for each course. You can now make these changes from your account notifications settings page.
While you’ve been able to set per-course notification settings since last year, it’s required going into each course to change them. With this update, the user notifications page displays all notification options for a user’s entire account. However, if a user has any active course enrollments, the menu displays the name of each course. Users can navigate between their courses and set specific notification options for each course, if preferred.
Any updated notifications also sync to the course-level notifications page.
Screenshot
Related article
How do I set my Canvas notification preferences as an instructor?
Sticky Navigation Menus
The account, course, and user navigation menus remain sticky and are always visible on their respective pages. When a long page is scrolled, the respective menu is retained in the sidebar. If the navigation menu is longer than the height of the screen, the menu can also be scrolled to view all menu links.
You’ll no longer need to scroll back up to click on the course navigation menu.