{"id":4592,"date":"2025-09-22T12:00:23","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T16:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.fau.edu\/canvas\/?p=4592"},"modified":"2025-09-22T12:00:57","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T16:00:57","slug":"canvas-feature-updates-september-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.fau.edu\/canvas\/2025\/09\/22\/canvas-feature-updates-september-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Canvas Feature Updates &#8211; September 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Good afternoon Owl family! We&#8217;re now a few weeks into the Fall 2025 semester and with that, we&#8217;re bringing you some info about several recent updates to Canvas. Below you&#8217;ll find descriptions of each feature along with steps required to get them enabled in your course(s).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/community.canvaslms.com\/t5\/Instructor-Guide\/How-do-I-create-a-graded-discussion\/ta-p\/1019#manage-checkpoint-settings\" target=\"_blank\">Multiple Checkpoints for Graded Discussions<\/a><\/strong><ul><li><strong>Description:<\/strong> For graded discussions, allows instructors to add points possible for replies to the discussion topic, the number of additional replies required, and points possible for additional replies.<\/li><\/ul><ul><li><strong>Available for:<\/strong> instructors<\/li><li><strong>Status:<\/strong> enabled (only available for <strong><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/community.canvaslms.com\/t5\/Instructor-Guide\/How-do-I-create-a-graded-discussion\/ta-p\/1019\" target=\"_blank\">Graded Discussions<\/a><\/strong>)<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/community.canvaslms.com\/t5\/Discussion-Summaries-Feature\/Feature-Preview-Overview-Discussion-Summaries\/ta-p\/609157#toc-hId-337187249\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Canvas Discussion Summaries<\/strong><\/a><ul><li><strong>Description:<\/strong> Uses a Generative AI model to provide instructors summaries of key points, questions, and ideas in a discussion thread. This feature is designed to save educators time and to allow discussions to be used effectively in large-format classes and other environments where they were previously infeasible.<\/li><li><strong>Available for<\/strong>: instructors<\/li><li><strong>Status:<\/strong> enabled, but can be disabled via <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/community.canvaslms.com\/t5\/Instructor-Guide\/How-do-I-manage-feature-options-for-a-course\/ta-p\/710\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a course&#8217;s Feature Options<\/a><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/community.canvaslms.com\/t5\/Instructor-Guide\/How-do-I-manage-feature-options-for-a-course\/ta-p\/710\"> <\/a>menu.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/community.canvaslms.com\/t5\/Smart-Search-Feature-Preview\/Feature-Preview-Overview-Smart-Search\/ta-p\/609118#toc-hId-2079997461\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Canvas Smart Search<\/strong><\/a><ul><li><strong>Description:<\/strong> Allows a course&#8217;s enrolled users to search for course content with natural language. This search tool is powered by AI, understands the context of queries and finds relevant results based on that context. It only returns results that are available to that user (i.e., it will not provide students with access to course content that is not published).<\/li><li><strong>Available for:<\/strong> instructors, students<\/li><li><strong>Status:<\/strong> disabled, but can be enabled via <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/community.canvaslms.com\/t5\/Instructor-Guide\/How-do-I-manage-feature-options-for-a-course\/ta-p\/710\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a course&#8217;s Feature Options<\/a><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/community.canvaslms.com\/t5\/Instructor-Guide\/How-do-I-manage-feature-options-for-a-course\/ta-p\/710\"> <\/a>menu.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><strong>Google Gemini Integration<\/strong><ul><li><strong>Description:<\/strong> allows to import <strong>NotebookLM <\/strong>notebooks and <strong>Gemini Gems <\/strong>(coming soon) into your Canvas course to share with your students. Also provides teachers and students with preset prompts that open Google Gemini in a new tab.<\/li><li><strong>Available for:<\/strong> instructors, students (read-only access to the notebooks\/Gems you share)<\/li><li><strong>Status:<\/strong> disabled, but can be <strong><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/helpdesk.fau.edu\/TDClient\/2061\/Portal\/Requests\/ServiceDet?ID=27141\" target=\"_blank\">enabled by request<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>For assistance, guidance or general questions about the abovementioned features or any other Canvas matters, please reach out to our team via a <strong><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/helpdesk.fau.edu\/TDClient\/2061\/Portal\/Requests\/ServiceDet?ID=27141\" target=\"_blank\">Help Desk request<\/a><\/strong> or by <strong><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/techevents.fau.edu\/appointments\/online\" target=\"_blank\">booking an appointment with one of our experts<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Good afternoon Owl family! We&#8217;re now a few weeks into the Fall 2025 semester and with that, we&#8217;re bringing you some info about several recent updates to Canvas. Below you&#8217;ll find descriptions of each feature along with steps required to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2999,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,4,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.fau.edu\/canvas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4592"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.fau.edu\/canvas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.fau.edu\/canvas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.fau.edu\/canvas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2999"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.fau.edu\/canvas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4592"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.fau.edu\/canvas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4598,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.fau.edu\/canvas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4592\/revisions\/4598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.fau.edu\/canvas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.fau.edu\/canvas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.fau.edu\/canvas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}