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By Barb Stephens, September 18, 2019 8:16 pm

Canvas, the application better known as BlueLine, operates on a monthly release cycle through which features are added or updated. Some highlights from the most recent release notes follow. For further clarification, check out the full release notes site.

New Gradebook: Student Group Filter

SpeedGrader can be filtered by student group via an option in course settings. When this feature is enabled, SpeedGrader will only load submissions from a selected group when the submission is accessed via the New Gradebook or the assignment details page. Note this feature is currently not supported when a submission is accessed from the Dashboard, or a discussion or quiz details page (old quizzes). This feature is designed for large courses and helps manage submissions for an instructor or TA. Filtering submissions by student group also improves SpeedGrader loading times more efficiently than filtering submissions by section.

New Quizzes: Multiple Choice Individual Level Feedback

Multiple Choice Questions support individual feedback for each answer. This change allows students to receive specific feedback relating to each individual answer choice. If students are allowed to view their quiz results, students can view the custom feedback for each of their answers.

Navigation: Menu Visibility     ON HOLD UNTIL OCTOBER UPDATE!

The Admin, Course, and User Navigation Menus have been updated to include color and visual indicators to define active menu items. Additionally, the Course Navigation Menu includes tooltip indicators to clarify inactive menu items. No functionality has been affected. This change helps improve accessibility in Canvas. Previously the inactive links displayed in light gray text with a light border, which did not fulfill contrast ratios. Additionally, active and inactive links only relied on color to convey information.

Note: No existing functionality has been affected with this change. Third party LTI tools are not included in the course sidebar unless they are visible in the course.

For a complete production release update, please see: Canvas Productions Release Notes: Sept. 21, 2019.

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By Barb Stephens, August 19, 2019 2:03 pm

Mobile Apps

You can access BlueLine (aka Canvas) from any browser on your Android or iOS device. However, for the best user experience, you should access Canvas via the mobile app.

To access Canvas mobile apps, you need to know Creighton’s URL: blueline.instructure.com

Mobile Guides

The Teacher app provides quick access to grading, communicating, and updating – three of the most frequent course facilitation tasks for teachers through Announcements, Assignments, Discussions and Quizzes.

Canvas Teacher Android Guide

Canvas Teacher iOS Guide

The Canvas by Instructure app is the mobile version of Canvas that helps you stay current with your courses anywhere you go.

Canvas Student Android Guide

Canvas Student iOS Guide

You may access the latest release notes for all of the mobile apps, as well.

For assistance with any of these apps or documentation, please contact Canvas Support.

Canvas Release August 17, 2019

Canvas, the application better known as BlueLine, operates on a three-week release cycle through which features are added or updated. Some highlights from the most recent release notes follow. For further clarification, check out the full release notes site.

Course Settings: Unsplash Course Card Image Search

The Flickr image search has been replaced by Unsplash. This change replaces Flickr with Unsplash, which offers high-quality, safe images for use as course card images.

Discussions: File Attachment Default

In Discussions, the option for students to add file attachments is enabled by default in new courses. This behavior aligns consistency with other Canvas features that allow attachments by default and resolves the common expectation by instructors that students can attach files to discussion posts.

New Quizzes:

Quizzes.Next will be known as New Quizzes. Updates to documentation, Community resources, and the Canvas user interface will take place over the next few months. This change aligns New Quizzes with the terminology used to name other features in Canvas and will create a more seamless transition when New Quizzes eventually replaces the classic Canvas Quizzes feature.

New Quizzes: Assessment Preview

The Build page supports previewing New Quizzes assessments in the student’s perspective. This change allows instructors to view and test assessment questions and settings by viewing an assessment the way students see it.

New Quizzes: Item Bank Sharing

The Item Banks page supports sharing item banks with other users. This change allows a user to gain access to another user’s item bank and use those items in their assessments.

More on Item Bank Sharing, offered by Instructure, in the Canvas Release Comments:

• This first iteration of item bank sharing was designed with the intention to watch the use cases that evolve as adoption increases. For now, everyone is an equal owner when an item bank is shared, which is why the delete functionality is available as well. The team appreciates your feedback and can consider modifications if necessary—such as if item banks are too frequently deleted in error. The intent is that instructors would be able to trust other instructors enough without worry,
• Item banks allow users to share content with others to help curate the needs of each student. The future of student support is through outcomes, which allows instructors to learn from and promote individualized learning. Content should not be relegated to a course, as the best learning for a student may be curated from various courses. Quizzes has set the foundation of achieving success through outcomes, and more improvements are coming in the future to further strengthen this concept of individualized learning.

For a complete production release update, please see: Canvas Productions Release Notes.

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By Barb Stephens, July 11, 2019 2:03 pm

Canvas, the application better known as BlueLine, operates on a three-week release cycle through which features are added or updated. Some highlights from the most recent release notes follow. For further clarification, check out the full release notes site.

Please note: Starting August 17, Canvas will have monthly releases every third Saturday of the month.

NOTE: On August 3, Internet Explorer 11 will no longer be supported as a Canvas browser. This does not mean the browser won’t work; just that performance cannot be guaranteed. Many users on Windows 7 machines rely on Internet Explorer. If this includes you, please reach out to the Service Desk.

New Gradebook – Grade Post Policies

Creighton’s BlueLine is now using the New Gradebook. This New Gradebook includes a grade posting policy, which sets how grades and comments are released to students. This change redefines assignment-wide muting to an individual assignment level, making grades visible down to individual sections of a course, or hide previously posted grades if needed.

Assignment grades may be manually or automatically posted. Automatically posted grades for an assignment are the equivalent of an unmuted assignment where grades and comments are immediately posted. Manually posted grades allows an instructor to hide all grades and comments until the instructor chooses to post the grades.

A posting policy for the entire course can be set in the settings, which will be set for all current and future assignments. By default, the policy is for grades to be posted automatically.

Anonymous assignments must always be manually posted regardless of the course-level grade policy. This behavior protects student anonymity. Anonymous assignments must be posted or hidden for all students in the assignment and cannot be managed by section.

Account Course & User Search – Sort Arrow

The sort arrow in the account-level People and Courses pages has been inverted to display the correct sorting for a specified column. This change aligns consistency with other sortable tables in Canvas.

Quizzes.Next – Assessment Level Accommodations

Instructors can provide accommodations to students in an individual assessment. This change allows instructors to give students extra time or attempts for a specific assessment without applying the accommodation to all assessments in a course.

Discussions – Reply Settings Interface Change 

When students are not allowed to edit or delete their own discussion posts, the Settings menu for a discussion shows those functions have been disabled. This change more clearly informs students if they are allowed to edit or delete their own discussion posts. Previously when this feature was disabled, the Settings menu was removed, causing students to think there was a bug with being able to edit or delete their posts.

Notifications – Locked Modules and Updated Page Content

Content published within locked modules are not included in Updated Page notifications. When a page was published in a published, locked module, users who received Updated Page notifications were able to view the content of the page. Canvas code has been updated to respect content updated within locked modules.

For a complete production release updates, please see:

July 13 – Canvas Productions Release Notes: July 13, 2019.

June 22 – Canvas Productions Release Notes: June 22, 2019.

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By Barb Stephens, June 5, 2019 7:14 pm

Learn about two new tools in BlueLine: the New Gradebook and Zoom integration. Then catch up on the latest updates in the Canvas Release Notes excerpt.

NOTE: On August 3, 2019 Internet Explorer 11 will no longer be supported as a Canvas browser.

New Gradebook

It’s here! The New Gradebook has been implemented across BlueLine. It’s an improved version of the Gradebook that makes grading more flexible and intuitive and elevates the Gradebook user experience.

When you click on “Grades” in the course navigation bar, you will see the New Gradebook, with a header area that looks like this:                   

The features include:

• The Gradebook menu displays the various Gradebooks that may be available in a course: Learning Mastery (if enabled), Individual View, and Gradebook History. These Gradebook types have been consolidated in one location.
• The View menu includes multiple options to sort and filter assignments.
• The Actions menu displays options to import a Gradebook CSV, or export the Gradebook CSV.

• The New Gradebook offers crosshairs and highlighting for improved orientation.
• Additionally, each row includes alternating colors to help with navigation.
• The Search field supports searching for users by user name.
• All options available in the Settings menu in the current Gradebook have been repurposed in the New Gradebook View menu.

To learn more, check the New Gradebook Users Group on the vendor site.

Zoom Integration

The Zoom LTI Pro app has been integrated into BlueLine and supports the ability to schedule/join/manage Zoom meetings.

Teachers can add the Zoom link to the Course Navigation bar:

1. Go to Course
2. Click Settings
3. Be on the Navigation tab
4. Drag/drop the Zoom button to the top “display these buttons” area
5. Click Save

NOTE:  Both BlueLine (Canvas) and Zoom operate off of your netid email, e.g. bbj12345@creighton.edu. You must use this netid email as your default email in both applications.

Release Notes June 1 & May 11, 2019

Compose Field Message Removal: The Compose Message window does not include an option to remove previously received messages. Individual messages can still be deleted from a conversation in the Conversations window by opening the message, selecting the Settings menu, and clicking the Delete link. This change improves accessibility within the Compose Message window.

DocViewer Enhancements:

Empty Rows and Columns: DocViewer previews of XLSX files render empty rows and columns to maintain formatting from the original document.

Excel Graph Rendering: Graphs created in spreadsheets and rendered in DocViewer display correct data and legend information.

Numbered Lists: Numbered lists are rendered correctly and display the correct information in the list in DocViewer.

Scatter Graph Trendlines: Scatter graphs in Word documents correctly display trendlines in DocViewer.

Grading and Quiz Logs Permissions: The Grades – Edit permission and the Quizzes – View Submission Log permission are required for a user to view quiz submission logs. Canvas code documentation has been updated to reflect these two associated permissions to view quiz submission logs.

For a complete production release updates, please see:

June 1 – Canvas Productions Release Notes: June 1, 2019.

May 11 – Canvas Productions Release Notes: May 11, 2019.

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By Barb Stephens, May 9, 2019 4:39 pm

You can access BlueLine (aka Canvas) from any browser on your Android or iOS device. However, for the best user experience, you should view Canvas via the mobile app.

To access Canvas mobile apps, you need to know Creighton’s URL: blueline.instructure.com

Canvas Student App Release Notes

View the Canvas Student Release Notes (Android 6.5)

In this update, the Canvas Student app supports a redesigned Syllabus page.

View the Canvas Student Release Notes (iOS 6.5)

In this update, the Canvas Student app supports redesigned Syllabus and Quizzes pages. Additionally, the app supports Siri shortcuts for course grades, opening augmented reality files, and double tapping to use the Apple Pencil eraser.

Canvas Teacher App Release Notes

View the Canvas Teacher Release Notes (Android 1.8)

In this update, the Canvas Teacher app supports viewing Modules.

View the Canvas Teacher Release Notes (iOS 1.8)

In this update, the Canvas Teacher app supports viewing Modules, opening augmented reality files, and double tapping the Apple Pencil to toggle between using the pencil and the eraser.

Mobile Guides

The Canvas by Instructure app is the mobile version of Canvas that helps you stay current with your courses anywhere you go.

Canvas Student Android Guide

Canvas Student iOS Guide

Canvas Teacher allows teachers to facilitate their courses on the go, both inside and outside the classroom. This app provides quick access to grading, communicating, and updating – three of the most frequent course facilitation tasks for teachers through Announcements, Assignments, Discussions and Quizzes.

Canvas Teacher Android Guide

Canvas Teacher iOS Guide

For assistance with any of these apps or documentation, please contact Canvas Support.

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By Barb Stephens, April 16, 2019 9:31 pm

Canvas, the application better known as BlueLine, operates on a three-week release cycle through which features are added or updated. Some highlights from the most recent release notes follow. For further clarification, check out the full release notes site.

Content Link Error Notification: The Notifications page includes a new alert for instructors to be notified about broken links in a course. If instructors want to be notified of broken links in their course, instructors can visit their Notification Preferences page and select the Content Link Error notification. Instructors are notified with both the location and content of the link error. This notification is triggered in the following conditions: the link cannot be accessed by students because of a permission error, the link is broken, or the link is unpublished.

SMS Message Content: Cellular (SMS) Notifications have been shortened to distribute one message about the related content. Additionally, content no longer includes direct URLs to access the content within the course. Users who prefer accessing the content directly should consider accessing the Canvas apps and enabling push notifications.

FIXES:

Concluded Course User Enrollments: In the Courses page, the Add People button only displays for active courses.

Course Nickname Length on Dashboards: Course nicknames are limited to a maximum of 59 characters.

Anonymous Grading and Instructor Notifications: Anonymous Grading assignments that are still muted do not include student names in instructor notifications about submission comments, student submitting on time, and students who re-submitted an assignment.

Concluded Course Rubric Access: Instructors can view and add rubrics from concluded courses.

Criterion Decimal Scores in Rubrics: Rubric total scores are rounded to four decimal places.

Criterion Point Edits in Rubrics: Edited point values display the edited value in the rubric.

Save Comment Button and Peer Review Rubrics: Peer Review rubrics do not display the Save Comment button after the peer review rubric has been saved.

Submission Downloads and Concluded Courses: Submission comments can be downloaded in concluded courses.

For a complete production release update, please see: Canvas Productions Release Notes: March 30, 2019.

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By Barb Stephens, March 12, 2019 7:28 pm

Canvas, the application better known as BlueLine, operates on a three-week release cycle through which features are added or updated. Some highlights from the most recent release notes follow. For further clarification, check out the full release notes site.

Discussions: Author Search Functionality

Users can search discussion topics by author name in addition to title. Any discussions that have been copied from a previous course do not include an author.

Dashboard: Course Card Icon Size

Users who have enabled course cards in the Dashboard can view the course card icons in a slightly smaller size than previously displayed. No functionality has been affected.

Conversations: Media File Name

Conversation messages include the file name of any media file uploaded or recorded within a message.

External Apps: Assignment State and Plagiarism Detection LTI Platform

Changing an assignment workflow state does not affect the plagiarism platform association. When a published assignment was unpublished and included no submissions, the plagiarism review settings were not retained and set back to None. Canvas code has been updated to retain the tool associations if the workflow state of the assignment is changed.

SpeedGrader: Deleted Discussion Post Attachments

Attachments from deleted discussion posts do not display in SpeedGrader. When a discussion post was deleted that included an attached file, the file was not removed when the discussion was viewed in SpeedGrader. This behavior affected instructors as they could see the file but not the post where it belonged. Canvas code has been updated to remove attachments from deleted discussion posts.

For a complete production release update, please see: Canvas Productions Release Notes: Mar. 9, 2019.

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By Barb Stephens, March 12, 2019 7:25 pm

Canvas, the application better known as BlueLine, operates on a three-week release cycle through which features are added or updated. Some highlights from the most recent release notes follow. For further clarification, check out the full release notes site.

Rich Content Editor: Accessibility Checker Link-Formatting

When a user opens the information link in the Accessibility Checker, the “Learn More” text at the bottom of the menu window has been expanded to include more description about the linked reference.

Assignments: Muted Assignments and Peer-Review Comments

When a peer-review assignment is muted, students can view peer-review comments from other students. However, comments from instructors continue to be hidden until the assignment is unmuted.

Assignments: Anonymous Grading and Peer Reviews

When anonymous grading is enabled in a peer-review assignment, students can view peer reviews without error.

Notifications: Anonymous Late Submission Notifications

Notifications about late submissions in anonymous assignments do not display the names of the students with the late submission.

Quizzes: Fudge Points in Quizzes

Fudge points can be changed to zero after being assigned a non-zero value.

Rich Content Editor: HTML5 Media Recorder Video Interface

When Canvas does not detect a webcam with a user’s device, the media recorder displays the video interface.

SpeedGrader: Anonymous Moderated Assignment Student Links

Student submission links for anonymous moderated assignments link to the correct submission in SpeedGrader.

SpeedGrader: Group Assignments and External Tool Submissions

Group assignments submitted through an external tool, such as Google Drive, Dropbox, or  Office 365, display in SpeedGrader.

For a complete production release update, please see: Canvas Productions Release Notes: Feb. 16, 2019.

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By Barb Stephens, January 29, 2019 7:05 pm

Canvas, the application better known as BlueLine, operates on a three-week release cycle through which features are added or updated. Some highlights from the most recent release notes follow. For further clarification, check out the full release notes site.

SpeedGrader: Rubric Additional Comments Text Field

When an instructor creates a rubric for an assignment and views the rubric in SpeedGrader, clicking the Additional Comments icon displays a comments field directly below the selected criterion. Instructors can add comments for the criterion, save the comment, and view the comment directly below the criterion. Previously, the comment would not display until the rubric was saved.

Course Settings: Link Validator Email Links

When the Link Validator was started in a course, the Link Validator generated an error when it encountered an email link, as individual email links cannot be validated. Canvas code has been updated to not include email links as part of the Link Validator.

Course Settings: Multiple Section Enrollment Statistics

When students with active enrollments were enrolled in multiple sections, the Statistics page Active Students and Unaccepted Students sections counted each student multiple times. Canvas code has been updated to count students in statistics by ID and not by section enrollment.

Files: Downloaded File Names and Spaces

When a file was downloaded from a course, the file was downloaded with the file name instead of the display name. Additionally, any spaces within the name were replaced with a plus symbol, which was inconsistent when uploading files. Canvas code has been updated to use display names and retain spaces in file downloads.

Files: Restored Files and Duplicate File Names

When a previously deleted file was restored in a course, duplicate file names could exist in the same folder. This behavior affected other Canvas features such as ePub exports and offline course content. Canvas code has been updated to amend the file name if a file with the same name already exists by adding a 1 at the end of the file.

Modules: Module Item Publish State

When a new module was published in a course, the publish icon for all items within the module did not update until the page was refreshed. Canvas code has been updated to accurately display icons according to the module item’s status.

SpeedGrader: Draft Comments and Grades Participation Count

When a draft comment was created in SpeedGrader, the draft comment was being counted as an update for the Grades page and was counted in the indicator within the Course Navigation Menu’s Grades link. When a student viewed the Grades link, the Grades page did not display any new activity for the affected assignment. Canvas code has been updated to disregard draft comments as new activity in the Grades page.

SpeedGrader: Student List Menu Icon

In the SpeedGrader sidebar, the student list menu icon was not visible for all browsers. Canvas code has been updated to always display the student list menu icon.

For a complete production release update, please see: Canvas Productions Release Notes: Jan. 26, 2019.

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By Barb Stephens, January 15, 2019 8:15 pm

You can access BlueLine (aka Canvas) from any browser on your Android or iOS device. However, for the best user experience, you should view Canvas via the mobile app.

To access Canvas mobile apps, you need to know Creighton’s URL: blueline.instructure.com

Mobile App Guides

The links include how to download the mobile app and guide you on using the mobile app:

Mobile Guides – Canvas Teacher

Canvas Teacher allows teachers to facilitate their courses on the go, both inside and outside the classroom. This app provides quick access to grading, communicating, and updating – three of the most frequent course facilitation tasks for teachers through Announcements, Assignments, Discussions and Quizzes.

Canvas Teacher Android Guide

Canvas Teacher iOS Guide

Mobile Guides – Canvas by Instructure

The Canvas by Instructure app is the mobile version of Canvas that helps you stay current with your courses anywhere you go.

Canvas Student Android Guide

Canvas Student iOS Guide

For assistance with any of these apps or documentation, please contact Canvas Support.