Canvas New Features for Spring 2020

New Analytics

Course analytics have been completely overhauled and now provide additional data versus the previous version.  New analytics can be used to:

  • View average course grade analytics as an interactive chart graph or a data table
  • Compare the course average with an individual assignment, course section, or student filter using the chart graph comparison or data table comparison
  • View average weekly online participation analytics as an interactive chart graph or a data table
  • Compare the course average weekly online participation analytics with an individual student or section using the chart graph comparison or data table comparison
  • Send a message to all students based on specific course grade or participation criteria
  • Send a message to an individual student based on specific course grade or participation criteria
  • View course grade and participation analytics for an individual student

More information is available via the Canvas Guide, “What is New Analytics?

Anonymous Grading

When creating an assignment, you can choose to set up an assignment with anonymous grading. Selecting the anonymous grading option hides student names from graders when they view assignment submissions in SpeedGrader.

More information is available via the Canvas Guide, “How do I add an assignment that includes anonymous grading?

Conferences with BigBlueButton

Conferences with BigBlueButton has been overhauled to provide a modern web conferencing experience.  BigBlueButton allows for conducting real-time activities in a course, including video conferences, lectures, one-on-one meetings, and screen sharing.  BigBlueButton conferences can be recorded and stored for a maximum of two weeks.

More information is available via the Canvas Guide, “What are Conferences?

Student Context Cards

Student context cards provide insights and context about the student. Context cards are meant to be a simplified overview of a student’s progress. The context is generated from grades in the Gradebook and standard page view and participation activity in course analytics.

Student context cards are found anywhere a student’s name can be clicked on within a course, including People and Grades.

More information is available via the Canvas Guide, “How do I view a context card for a student in a course?

Dashboard Images

Course cards on the Dashboard now allow for images to be displayed instead of a color & name.  Images can be uploaded from an instructor’s computer, or can be found through the built-in Unsplash search.   A color overlay will display over the image, so it is best to ensure the image used is viewable under different color overlays.

More information is available via the Canvas Guide, “How do I add an image to a course card in the Dashboard?

Rubric Criterion Range

Rubrics can now use a range of scores along with individual ratings.   When creating/editing a rubric, click the range check box to enable using a range of scores.

More information is available via the Canvas Guide, “How Do I Add a Rubric in a Course?

MasteryPaths

MasteryPaths allow instructors to customize learning experiences to students based on student performance. With MasteryPaths, you identify activities for each student’s learning path and differentiate assignments for required learning, optional learning, or choosing their own content and assignments within a specific path, which helps them achieve course mastery.  MasteryPaths is based on differentiated assignments, which allows targeted learning activities to be assigned to different users.

More information is available via the Canvas Guide, “How do I use MasteryPaths in course modules?

SimCheck

SimCheck, by TurnItIn, is the college’s updated plagiarism review system.  SimCheck will run in tandem with Vericite, our existing system, during the Spring 2020 semester.  SimCheck will replace Vericite beginning with the Summer 2020 pre-session.

SimCheck enabled assignments are scanned against publicly accessible content, academically oriented content, the web, and with prior submitted Vericite & SafeAssign scanned documents at the college.

SimCheck can be enabled on assignments through the Assignment plagiarism review function.  Vericite assignments can be switched to use SimCheck.  Please refer to the guide, “Switching an Assignment from VeriCite to SimCheck”, for the process.

Please note SimCheck and Vericite cannot be enabled on an assignment at the same time.