In this production release (October 7), late and missing submission status labels are only displayed to instructors in SpeedGrader, and rubric criterions can include a point range instead of an individual point value. Other small updates have been made in several Canvas areas including account-level Analytics, SpeedGrader, and the Assignments API, and several icons and styles have been changed in the user interface.

Production release notes also include fixed bugs.

To read all details about the release, please visit: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-12522-canvas-production-release-notes-2017-10-07

2017-10-07 New Feature Screencast from Canvas LMS on Vimeo.

Updated Features

Assignments

Student Late and Missing Status Labels

The submission details page and student Grades page do not display labels for missing or late submissions. This change reverts the labels for students introduced in the Canvas Production Release Notes (2017-08-05) and helps minimize confusion for students when their instructors create online assignments that can be submitted online or on paper in class. Canvas always marks online assignments as missing when no submission is made.

For instructors, SpeedGrader has not been affected and continues to display missing and late labels for online assignments. If an assignment has not been submitted by the due date, the assignment is identified as missing. If the assignment is submitted after the due date, the assignment is identified as late.

Note: Institutions that are participating in the New Gradebook focus group are not affected by this change. Students in courses with the New Gradebook enabled will continue to view the missing and late labels. If necessary, instructors can turn off the New Gradebook and return to the standard Gradebook at any time. In a future release, New Gradebook will allow instructors to manually manage missing and late labels for student assignment submissions.

 Canvas Community contributions: Missing Label Placed Incorrectly/Submission on paper and online option 

Rubrics

Rubric Criterion Range

Rubric criterions can include a point range instead of just an individual point value. This feature is available in both account- and course-level rubrics.

When the Range checkbox is allowed and selected, each rating displays a maximum and minimum point value. Ranges are managed the same way as non-range rubrics. Ratings can be divided, edited, and removed individually, and total point value changes automatically adjust for all rating values.

When a rubric is added to an assignment, range options are not displayed if the free-form comment option is selected.

In SpeedGrader, rubric values can be selected by entire range. Students can also view the ranges in the assignment details page and when viewing the rubric in the Grades page. The first value in the range is assigned for the point value.

 Canvas Community contributions: Rubric with Point Ranges 

SpeedGrader

Performance Update

SpeedGrader has been optimized for performance in large courses and includes a JavaScript improvement for loading students in the student menu. Although all values for an assignment are loaded and saved in the browser to reduce load time, the browser JavaScript inefficiently managed values when switching students. Instead of updating for all students, the student menu is only updated where a student’s status could change and only updates affected students accordingly.

User Interface

Bootstrap Styling

To improve typography and consistent user interface patterns in Canvas, Canvas engineers are actively removing Bootstrap, a third-party framework, from various areas of Canvas. Institutions who rely on Bootstrap code or styling should add links to their custom CSS or JavaScript files in the Theme Editor following the documentation on Bootstrap’s site.

 

Icon Updates

Publish & Unpublish Icons

The Publish and Unpublish icons in Canvas have been updated in the Instructure icon library. Based on additional user testing of icons, weights, and styles, these icon changes enhance visibility and status clarity.

DocViewer Delete Icon

In DocViewer, when a user creates an annotation, the Delete icon displays above the annotation. Previously the icon displayed below the annotation, which obscured the annotation content. This change is currently available in the beta and production environments for all users.