New Canvas features from 16 September 2017 will include:
- Notifications – Course sender name
- Conferences updates
- Student Assignments filter buttons
Below you can find some extracts from the Notes.
Notifications
Course sender name
When users view course notifications in their email, all notifications are sent from the course name. This change helps students more easily identify notifications from a specific course. Previously course notifications were also sent from Instructure Canvas or the institution’s name.
This update ensures sender notifications display according to their appropriate context.
- Notifications in a user context always display the user name (e.g. Conversation messages).
- Notifications in a course context always display the course name. However, if a nickname has been set by a user in the Dashboard, the nickname overrides the default course name.
- Notifications in an account context display the default account name. However, if a custom account name has been set in Account Settings, the custom name overrides the default account name. Account notifications are used for daily and weekly course notification summaries.
Conferences updates
There are quite a few updates being released for conferences. An interesting one is the use of multiuser whiteboard.
The multiuser whiteboard feature helps users engage in the presentation. This feature can also benefit users participating in a tutoring session or study group.
The presenter can enable the multiuser whiteboard at the bottom of the presentation toolbar. When enabled, users can view the toolbar options and contribute to the whiteboard. The name of each user displays next to the user’s cursor. Additionally, each user has a separate layer in the whiteboard and cannot affect another user’s whiteboard (including clearing annotations).
The presenter can disable the multiuser whiteboard at any time. Once the multiuser whiteboard is disabled, the presenter can click the Clear button to remove all annotations from the whiteboard.
As an additional enhancement to the whiteboard, shapes drawn with the pen tool are smoothed automatically.
Student Assignments filter buttons
When assignments are organized by assignment group, the student Assignments page displays buttons to filter by date and by type. The buttons have been updated to read as Show by Date and Show by Type, respectively.
When focus was placed on the Date and Type buttons in the student Assignments page, the buttons contained no labels for screen readers. Canvas code has been updated to replace the existing buttons with updated Canvas styling and screen reader functionality.
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