The April 22, 2017 release notes introduces several new features and bug fixes. If you would like to learn more about the items listed, please continue reading below.

New Feature Screencast

2017-04-22 New Feature Screencast from Canvas LMS on Vimeo.

New Instructor Tutorials

Instructors using Canvas for the first time can use two new tutorial features to become familiar with Canvas and create a module-based course. When enabled for an account, these features apply to newly created courses.

This feature requires the Modules Home Page and New User Tutorial feature options, which apply to an entire account. Canvas admins can enable these feature options in Account Settings.

Enabling this feature currently affects the Dashboard, where all course cards are responsive to the full width of the browser. Depending on a user’s browser’s resolution, the Dashboard could display more than three course cards in a single row.

New Modules Home Page Default
In new courses, the Course Home Page defaults to the Modules layout. Instructors can still choose any home page for the course, but this change replaces the Recent Activity Stream as the Home page default. The Modules page includes two links to help new instructors either create a new module or add existing content through a course import.

If Modules is set to the Home page but no modules content exists, Canvas will prompt the instructor to either publish a module or choose a different home page layout.

Course Setup Tutorial

When viewing the main Canvas index pages, instructors can view a course setup tutorial, which shows the purpose of the page and what to do next. This course setup tutorial replaces the existing Course Setup Checklist.

The course setup tutorial is shown to new Canvas instructors in new courses. New instructors are defined as users with instructor roles created in an account after the new tutorial feature has been enabled. The course setup tutorial can be collapsed from view and is persistent across Canvas pages, so if the tutorial is collapsed in one page, it will stay collapsed until expanded again.

Instructors can end the tutorial series in any page using the End Tutorial button. However, ending the tutorial in one course applies to all other courses. Instructors can view the tutorial in new courses again at any time by accessing their User Settings page and enabling the Course Setup Tutorial user feature option.

Note: This user feature option only displays for users enrolled as instructors. For instance, a user enrolled as an admin wouldn’t see the feature option unless the user were enrolled in a course with an instructor enrollment.

Admin Feature Option Details
The New Instructor Tutorials features are managed by two separate feature options: Modules Home Page enables Modules as the Home page default, and New User Tutorial enables the course setup tutorial series. Both feature options are intended to be enabled together. Although the Modules Home Page feature option can be enabled on its own, if an admin only wants to enable the New User Tutorial feature option, the Home page tutorial mentions Modules as the default Home page. Therefore, the Modules Home Page feature option should also be enabled to avoid confusion.

User Feature Option & Existing Instructor Access
Once the New User Tutorial feature option is enabled for an account, the Course Setup Tutorial feature option displays in each instructor’s User Settings page. Existing instructors can view the tutorials in new courses by enabling this user feature option at any time. User feature options cannot be managed by admins.

Dashboard

Dashboard View Menu

To switch between Recent Activity and Course Cards, the Dashboard toggle has been updated to a settings drop-down menu. This change helps clarify Dashboard customization and aligns design consistency throughout Canvas.

Pending Enrollments View

When a user is manually added to a course, the pending enrollment only shows the name of the user, the user’s section, and role. Once the user accepts the enrollment, the enrollment displays the enrollment information for the user (email address, login ID, or SIS ID). Previously the enrollment information was also displayed in the pending state.

Notifications

Student-Performance Texts

Canvas engineering and research teams are collaborating on a new feature designed to help students improve their ability to manage coursework. Students who have opted into receiving text messages may see a new type of notification in the coming weeks. Opting in means that students have provided their phone number as a communication channel in their profile. Students can opt-out of these notifications at any time.

The new text notifications include the following:

A reminder to turn in any unsubmitted online assignments that are still available after the due date
A reminder to retry a quiz if a quiz contains multiple attempts and the highest score received was less than an A or 95%

These notifications will be sent once daily to students who meet the above criteria. No notification will be sent for assignments with due dates farther in the past than the previous 24 hours, and only one notification will be sent for each assignment. Approximately 0.0001% of active enrollments in Canvas this semester will receive one of these messages.

Text notifications will most likely be changed based on the efficacy data received. Please note that these notifications will not go into effect until the production release and are not available for testing in the beta environment. For additional questions, admins should contact their Customer Success Manager.

Top Bug Fixes:

MANY fixes to accessibility features, including fixes in the Assignments, Quizzes, Calendar, Modules, Navigation, and Syllabus. Read the full release here:
The Individual View Gradebook now displays the correct final letter grade when grading schemes are used in a course.
Students can now enter decimal point values in the What-If-Grade tool and the grades will be displayed correctly.
Canvas will now ignore deleted discussion threads when using the user search.
The Quizzes tool has been updated so that changing the correct answer does not modify alt text for images. To correct any exisiting quizzes, instructors can edit the quiz and update the alt text for the correct answer.

Next Release Schedule

Beta release and notes: May 1
Production release notes: May 8
Production release and documentation: May 13