Canvas - Latest Updates

For more information about these and other changes please refer to the Canvas release notes user summaries for instructors.

Instructors: Multiple Attempts First Score Option for New Quizzes

The Multiple Attempts menu includes an option to retain the first score for grading when multiple submission attempts are allowed.

Learn more: How do I manage settings for an assessment in New Quizzes?

For more information about these and other changes please refer to the Canvas release notes user summaries for instructors and students.

Instructors: Course Availability Date Enhancements

The course availability date UI has been changed to provide more clarification in its functionality; instructors can now choose between "term" dates and "course" dates.

Please note: There is no functional change; course dates will still automatically be set and enforced by default. If you need to grant a student extended access please contact oithelp@colorado.edu or dial 303-735-4357.

Learn more: How do I change the start and end dates for a course?

Students: Webcam Assignment Submission

For File Upload assignments, students now have the option to use their webcam.

Please note: The first time a student uses this feature they will need to give permission to Canvas to access their webcam.

Learn more: How do I upload a file as an assignment submission in Canvas?

Instructors: Modules Support for New Quizzes

Instructors can now choose to create a New Quiz when creating a quiz via modules. 

Learn more: How do I add a quiz as a module item?

All Users: Rich Content Editor File Preview Enhancements

Users who link a file in the Rich Content Editor can now choose between overlay or inline preview types.

Overlay preview is the existing file preview functionality, where the file preview opens and overlays the entire page.

Inline preview loads the preview directly in the Rich Content Editor window once the file is clicked. If the option to expand the preview by default is also selected, the file is automatically expanded in the page and the user does not need to click the file to view it.

Learn more: How do I embed documents from Canvas in the Rich Content Editor as an instructor?

Instructors: SpeedGrader Submission Reassignments

Instructors can now reassign an assignment with a specified due date to an individual student and ask them to redo their submission in SpeedGrader.

Please note: The Reassign Assignment button is only available for assignments with due dates.

Learn more: How do I use SpeedGrader?

Instructors: Learning Mastery Gradebook Student Filters

Instructors who have the Learning Mastery Gradebook enabled can view outcomes data in the Learning Mastery Gradebook for students who no longer have an active enrollment in their course.  

Learn more: How do I use the Learning Mastery Gradebook to view outcome results in a course from the Gradebook?

For more information about these and other changes please refer to the Canvas release notes user summaries for instructors and students.

Instructors: View Ungraded as Zero

Instructors, Graders, and TAs with gradebook access can now access the View Ungraded as 0 option in the Gradebook View menu. Previously this setting was only available in the Individual Gradebook.

Learn more: How do I use the Gradebook?

Instructors: Import Override Scores in Gradebook

Instructors, Graders, and TAs with gradebook access can now import and apply changes to Final Grade Overrides via CSV uploads. 

Learn more:

• How do I override a student's final grade in the Gradebook?
• How do I import grades in the Gradebook?

All Users: Pretty HTML Editor

The Rich Content Editor includes a "pretty" HTML editor in addition to the raw HTML editor.

Learn more:

• How do I use the HTML view in the Rich Content Editor as an instructor?
• How do I use the HTML view in the Rich Content Editor as a student?

For more information about these and other changes please refer to the Canvas release notes user summaries for instructors and students.

Instructors: Feature Option Management

In order to provide consistency with other areas of Canvas, the Feature Options management page has been updated.

To see which Feature Options are available in your course go to your Course Settings and select the Feature Options tab at the top.

Learn more: How do I manage new features for a course? 

Students: Canvas Student App Push Notifications

In order to streamline communication for all user roles, Canvas has decreased the number of notifications types available for Push notifications.

To view/edit your Push notifications, open the Canvas Student App, open your Settings page, select Push Notifications.

Learn more:

• How do I set Notification Preferences in the Student app on my iOS device?
• How do I set Notification Preferences in the Student app on my Android device?

For more information about these changes please refer to the Canvas release notes user summary for instructors and students.

All Users: New Rich Content Editor

The Rich Content Editor has updated to the New Rich Content Editor. Despite the new UI and small workflow changes, all previous functionality remains.

For an in-depth look at the New Rich Content Editor please read the What is the New Rich Content Editor? feature-overview by Canvas.

All Users: Auto Save in Rich Content Editor

In pages with one Rich Content Editor (e.g., Pages, Assignments, Quizzes, single Discussion replies), the editor autosaves any content that hasn't been submitted for up to one hour.

Note: Canvas can only recover autosaved content using the same browser on the same computer an hour within the last edit.

Learn more:

• How do I add and modify text in the New Rich Content Editor as an instructor?
• How do I add and modify text in the New Rich Content Editor as a student?

Instructors: Student View Now Accessible Throughout Canvas

The Student View button now displays in most course pages, providing quick Student View access for that specific page.

Note: On the Home Page, the Student View button has been removed from the sidebar and replaced with a smaller button at the top of the page.

Learn more: How do I view a course as a test student using Student View?

All Users: Media Recordings Now Reusable

Newly recorded/uploaded media via the Upload/Record Media link is now stored in the Course, Groups, or User Files folder.

Previously, media recorded/uploaded could not be repurposed without being exported. Now, when users record/upload media using the Upload/Record Media link, the media file is stored in the Files folder for the media location (course or group).

For students who record or upload media for an assignment submission, the media file is stored in the User Files folder. These media files can be downloaded and shared like all other files in the Files page.

Learn more:

• How do I record media using the New Rich Content Editor as an instructor?
• How do I record media using the New Rich Content Editor as a student? 

For more information about these changes please refer to the Canvas release notes user summary for instructors and students.

All Users: Recent History

All users are now able to access a new tab on the Global Navigation Menu displaying recently viewed content from the past three weeks.

Learn more:

• How do I view my recent page view history in Canvas as an instructor? 
• How do I view my recent page view history in Canvas as a student?

All Users: Notification Preferences Interface Updates

The user-level notifications page has been updated to match the design of the course-level. Additional enhancements have been added to clarify notifications between each level. This is mostly a UI change.

Learn more:

• How do I set my Canvas notification preferences as an instructor? 
• How do I set my Canvas notification preferences as a student?

Student App: Score Statistics for Android and iOS

If enabled in the course, score statistics are available below grades in the assignment details page.

Learn more:

• How do I view Course Grades in the Student app on my Android device?
• How do I view Course Grades in the Student app on my iOS device?

Student App: Annotation Comments for iOS

When a submission includes annotation comments an icon displays in the submission which students can tap to view the associated comments, then tap the Comments button.

Learn more: How do I view assignment comments from my instructor in the Student app on my iOS device? 

For more information about these changes please refer to the Canvas release notes user summary for instructors.

Instructors: New Analytics Reports

Instructors can now use New Analytics to generate CSV reports for missing assignments, late assignments, excused assignments, the class roster, and course activity data.

Learn more: How do I view and download reports in New Analytics?

For more information about these changes please refer to the Canvas release notes user summaries for instructors and students.

Instructors: Bulk Page Delete

Instructors can now delete multiple pages at one time in the Pages Index page. Note: The delete functionality is disabled for the page designated as the Front Page. 

Learn more: How do I delete pages in a course?

All Users: Global Announcement History

All users now have access to view announcements that were previously dismissed from the Dashboard.

Learn more:

• How do I view the Global Announcements page as an instructor?
• How do I view the Global Announcements page as a student?

To ensure the smoothest Canvas experience possible we have been waiting to enable these features until now. 

For more information about these changes please refer to the Canvas release notes user summaries for instructors and students.

All Users: Granular Course Notifications

When adjusting notification preferences at the course level, users are provided the same level of granularity as they have when adjusting account level notifications.

Learn more:

• How do I manage notifications for a single course as an instructor?
• How do I manage notifications for a single course as a student?

To ensure the smoothest Canvas experience possible we have been waiting to enable these features until now.

For more information about these changes please refer to the April 18th Canvas update user summary for instructors, the April 25th Ready Release user summary for instructors, and the May 16th Ready Release user summary for instructors.

Instructors: Canvas Dashboard Now Distinguishes Between Unpublished and Published courses.

To help instructors identify which courses are published, the Dashboard now separates courses into two categories: Published Courses and Unpublished Drafts.

In addition to the normal publishing workflow, Instructors can also publish courses directly from the Dashboard when it is ready for student access.

• Learn more: How do I publish a course?

Instructors: Rubrics Can Now Be Accessed from the Course Navigation Bar

Instructors can now access Rubrics directly from the Course Navigation Bar. Previously instructors would have to go to Outcomes > Manage Rubrics. 

• Learn more: How do I manage rubrics in a course?

Instructors: File Upload Enhancements for Modules

Instructors can now upload multiple files into a module at one time. This can be done through drag-and-drop or the traditional add item window. In addition, the course home page will now always display an import existing content button.

• Learn more: How do I add content as module items?

For more information about these changes and other Canvas updates please refer to the Canvas release note user summaries for instructors and students.

In addition, please refer to release note user summaries for the applicable “Ready Release.”

• April 18th, 2020: instructors and students
• April 11th, 2020: instructors and students
• April 4th, 2020: instructors and students
• March 28th, 2020: instructors and students

All Users: Mute Notifications by Course

Users can mute all notifications from a course they’re enrolled in.

• Learn more: How do I manage notifications for a single course as an instructor?
• See also: How do I manage notifications for a single course as a student?

All Users: Mobile App QR Code Login

All users can now generate a QR Code to login to the mobile app.

• Learn more: How do I view a QR Code to login to the Canvas mobile apps as an instructor?
• See Also: How do I view a QR Code to login to the Canvas mobile apps as a student?

Instructors: Bulk Edit Assignment Due/Availability Dates

The Assignments page now supports editing all assignment, discussion, and quiz dates in a single page

• Learn more: How do I bulk update due dates and availability dates as an instructor?

Instructors: Assignment Submission Limit

Instructors can now limit the number of submissions students can make on a given Assignment.

• Learn more: How do I add or edit details in an Assignment?

Instructors: Partial Credit for Multiple Answer Questions (New Quizzes)

Instructors can now select “partial credit with penalty,” otherwise known as “right-minus-wrong,” when creating a Multiple Answer question in New Quizzes.

• Learn more: How do I create a Multiple Answer question in New Quizzes?

Instructors: Quiz Engine Preference

Instructors can now set their preferred quiz engine when creating a quiz. Please note: This is a course-level setting. Additionally, you can reset your preference by using the quiz options menu (the three vertical dots in the upper right hand corner of the course’s Quiz Index Page.

• Learn more: How do I create an assessment using New Quizzes?
• See Also: How do I use the Quizzes Index Page?

Instructors: Assignment Header SpeedGrader Menu Link

Instructors and TAs can now, once again, go directly to the SpeedGrader from the Assignment Header Menu.

• Learn more: How do I get to SpeedGrader from the Gradebook?

For more information about these changes and other Canvas updates please refer to the Canvas release note user summaries for instructors and students.

Instructors: Course Summary Visibility

Instructors are now able to remove the auto-generated Course Summary section in the Syllabus.

Instructors: Re-Upload Submissions Status Page

The re-upload submissions tool has moved to a background process. Instructors can now navigate away from the page without having to wait for a confirmation screen.

For more information about these changes and other Canvas updates please refer to the Canvas release note user summaries for instructors and students.

Instructors: New Quizzes Creation

In courses with New Quizzes enabled, the button to create a new New Quiz has moved. Previously located on the Assignments page, the button has merged with the original +Quiz button on the Quizzes page. When you click +Quiz on the Quizzes page, instructors now have the option to create a Classic Quiz or a New Quiz.

Like Classic Quizzes, you and your students will now be able to access New Quizzes on both the Assignment and Quiz pages. The icon for New Quizzes has been updated accordingly.

Enable New Quizzes

To enable New Quizzes please go to your course settings > feature options and toggle the button on next to New Quizzes.

Learn more:

• How do I create an assessment using New Quizzes?
• New Quizzes Feature Comparison

All Users: Canvas Mobile Responsiveness

The Canvas website is now mobile responsive. The user experience of visiting the Canvas webpage through a mobile browser, not the Canvas app, has vastly improved. Visit https://canvas.colorado.edu on your mobile phone to try it yourself!

For more information about these changes and other Canvas updates please refer to the Canvas’ release note user summaries for instructors and students.

Instructors: Direct Share

Direct Share allows users to copy individual course items to another course and share individual items with other users.

Learn more: Canvas Release: Direct Share

Instructors: Attendance Tool Updates

Instructors are now able to prevent the attendance tool from counting toward the final grade of the course.

Learn more: How do I use the Roll Call Attendance tool in a course?

Instructors: Postable Submission Comments

Instructors are now able to post comments to student assignments without a grade. This functionality is only available to assignments with a manual posting policy.

See also: How do I use posting policies in a course?

Instructors: New Quizzes Answer Shuffling

Instructors are now able to shuffle answers for all applicable question types in New Quizzes. Previously this was only available as a per-question option.

Learn more: How do I manage settings for an assessment in New Quizzes?

For more information about these changes and other Canvas updates please refer to the Canvas’ release note user summaries for instructors and students.

Instructors: New Gradebook

Effective December 27, 2019 all Canvas courses will exclusively use Canvas’ New Gradebook.

• Learn more: How do I use the New Gradebook?
• See also: New Gradebook user guides

Instructors: New Course and User Analytics

Effective December 27, 2019 all Canvas courses will exclusively use Canvas’ New Course and User Analytics.

• Learn more: What is New Analytics?
• See also: New Analytics user guides

Instructors: Numeric Question Invalid Input Warning (New Quizzes)

When a student attempts to submit a New Quiz, a warning will display if any Numeric question type has an invalid character in its answer.

Learn more: How do I create a Numeric question in New Quizzes?

For more information about these changes and other Canvas updates please refer to Canvas’ release note user summaries for instructors and students. 

All Users: Course Card Unfavorite Option

While using the Course Card Dashboard, users can open the options menu for a course card, click the move tab, and select the unfavorite option removing the course card from their Dashboard.

Note: The unfavorite option only displays if you previously selected favorite courses.

Learn More: How do I view my favorite courses in the Card View Dashboard?

Instructors: Manually Submit New Quiz Attempts

Instructors can now submit outstanding quiz submissions on behalf of their students, specifically in situations where a quiz will never auto-submit because it is missing a timer and/or due date.

Learn more: 

• How do I manually submit outstanding quiz submissions?
• How do I moderate a student’s assessment attempt in New Quizzes?

Instructors: New Training Portal in the Help menu

The Help Menu includes a new training portal link for admins, instructors, and designers. This new training portal contains self-paced training resources and registration opportunities for training webinars.

Note: You will need to accept the authorization request to access your Canvas account.

For more information about these changes and other Canvas updates please refer to Canvas’ release note user summaries for instructors and students.

All Users: Course and User Menu Visibility

The Course and User Navigation Menus have been updated to include both color and a visual indicator defining active menu items. 

For Instructors: The Course Navigation Menu now includes tooltips to clarify inactive menu items.

Learn more: How do I use the Course Navigation Menu as an instructor?

Instructors: Private Chat Restriction in Conferences

The BigBlueButton conferences interface now supports restricting viewers from creating private chat messages with other users.

Learn more: How do I use the Conferences interface as a moderator or presenter?

Instructors: Grade Post Policy Icon Updates (New Gradebook)

In the New Gradebook, when an assignment has a Manual Posting Policy, the previously used Visibility icon has been replaced with the word Manual. Additionally, the Visibility icon will now only display once grades have been entered into the New Gradebook that need to be posted.

Assignments using an Automatic Posting Policy do not include any additional indicators.

Learn more: How do I select a grade posting policy for an assignment in the New Gradebook?

Instructors: Student Group Filter in SpeedGrader

Instructors can enable a course setting that causes students to be filtered by group when viewing submissions in SpeedGrader. This is designed to make it easier to grade submissions in large courses.

Learn more: How do I enable SpeedGrader to launch filtered by student group?

Instructors: Individual Choice Feedback in New Quizzes

The New Quizzes tool now allows you to provide specific feedback relating to each individual answer choice for multiple choice questions.

Learn more: How do I create a Multiple Choice question in New Quizzes?

Instructors: Course Card Images Now Provided by Unsplash

When adding an image to your course card on the Dashboard, you can now search Unsplash, a library of high-quality, safe images (previously, Canvas used Flickr for this purpose).  

Learn more: How do I add an image to a course card in the Dashboard?

Instructors: Student View and Item Bank Sharing in New Quizzes

The New Quizzes tool (previously called Quizzes.Next) now allows you to preview a quiz as a student. In addition, item banks can now be shared with other instructors.

Learn more:

• How do I preview an assessment in New Quizzes?
• How do I share an item bank in New Quizzes?

Instructors: Grade Post Policies in New Gradebook

The way grades are released to students has changed in the New Gradebook. Instead of muting and unmuting assignments, instructors can post or unpost individual grades. Grades for an entire assignment can be hidden by default and then posted automatically as students complete work, or manually as the instructor is ready.

Learn more:

• New Features Information: Grade Post Policies
• How do I post grades for an assignment in the New Gradebook?

Instructors: See Groups in New Gradebook

Instructors can now see student group data in the New Gradebook, either as Secondary Info under the Student Name column display settings, or as a filter under the View settings.

Learn more: How do I sort and display student names in the New Gradebook?

Instructors: Give Students Extra Time or Attempts in Quizzes.Next

In Quizzes.Next, a student can now be given extra time or attempts on a particular quiz without affecting other quizzes.

Learn more: How do I add assessment accommodations for a student in Quizzes.Next?

Instructors: Calculators and Scientific Notation in Quizzes.Next

In Quizzes.Next, Instructors can now use scientific notation for Numeric question answers that use the Exact Response or Within a Range requirement options. Instructors can also now enable the on-screen calculator for an entire quiz at once.

To enable Quizzes.Next in your course, go to Settings, then Feature Options, then click the switch next to Quizzes.Next.

Learn more:

• What is Quizzes.Next?
• How do I manage settings for an assessment in Quizzes.Next?
• How do I create a Numeric question in Quizzes.Next?

Instructors: View Modules in the Teacher App

In the Canvas Teacher app for Android and iOS, instructors can now view the Modules within their course. The Teacher app does not yet support editing Modules.

You can download the Teacher app any time from the App Store on iOS or the Play Store on Android.

Students: Improvements to Mobile App

In the Canvas Student app for iOS and Android, the Syllabus page of each course has been redesigned for improved usability. In addition, the iOS app now supports creating Siri Shortcuts to quickly check grades for any Canvas course. Shortcuts can be added from Siri & Search or by asking Siri.

You can download the Student app any time from the App Store on iOS or the Play Store on Android.

Instructors: Tag and Search Quizzes.Next Bank Items

Instructors can now tag items within Quizzes.Next item banks, allowing for easy categorization of similar items. This also allows instructors to now search item bank results by tag or item type.

Learn More: How do I edit an item bank item in Quizzes.Next?

Instructors: Notifications of Broken Links

Instructors now receive an alert when a student tries to click on a broken link within the Canvas course. By default, instructors are notified once a day if broken links are clicked. Instructors can change this notification frequency or disable it (see link below).

Learn More: How do I set my Canvas notification preferences as an instructor?

Instructors: Enable On-Screen Calculator in Quizzes.Next

Instructors can now enable the use of on-screen calculators for Quizzes.Next assessment questions. This new feature allows students access to basic or scientific calculator functionality on relevant assessments.

Learn More: How do I create a Multiple Choice question in Quizzes.Next? (The on-screen calculator can be enabled for any other question type using the same method.)

All Users: Search Discussions by Author Name

Users can now also search and sort Discussions topics by author name, in addition to searching by topic title. This change enhances flexibility for searching specific Discussion topics on Canvas.

Learn More: How do I view and sort discussion replies as an instructor?

Instructors: Enhanced Flexibility with Quizzes.Next

Instructors can now reopen students’ access to previously submitted Quizzes.Next assessments. Additionally, instructors have greater control over which information students see in their Quizzes.Next Result View.

Learn More:

• How do I moderate a student's assessment attempt in Quizzes.Next?
• How do I manage settings for an assessment in Quizzes.Next?

Instructors: Additional Comments in Speedgrader Rubrics

While grading, instructors can now add additional comments for rubric criteria directly in the Speedgrader sidebar. These additional comments are displayed below each criterion.

Learn More: How do I use a rubric to grade submissions in SpeedGrader?

Instructors and Students: Reorder Course Cards in Dashboard

Instructors and students can now manually reorder the course cards on their dashboard by dragging and dropping the card.

Learn More: How do I view my favorite courses in the Card View Dashboard?

Instructors: SpeedGrader Audit Log

Instructors who have enabled anonymous or moderated grading in their courses can now view an audit log in SpeedGrader showing how grades were assigned and what changes were made to an assignment submission. (Note: anonymous and moderated grading are feature options that can be enable by going to the Features tab within your course settings.)

Learn More: How do I audit an assessment in SpeedGrader?

Instructors and Students: Direct File Upload for Rich Content Editor

Instructors and students can now directly upload files to embed in the Rich Content Editor, without first having to upload the image files to Canvas.

Learn More: What is the Rich Content Editor?

Students: To Do List and Sidebar Updates

The To Do list now displays up to seven items, instead of five, and can display items that are due more than two weeks in advance. Due to this change, the Coming Up section has been removed from the Card View and Recent Activity Dashboard sidebars, and from the Course Home Page sidebar.

Learn More: How do I use the To Do list and sidebar in the Dashboard as a student?

Instructors: Student ID Filter in Gradebook

Instructors are now able to search by student ID number in the New Gradebook.

Learn More: Canvas Release: New Gradebook

Students: List View for Dashboard

Students can now set their Canvas Dashboard to “List View,” which displays all course To Do items in an agenda view to help you easily manage tasks across all of your courses.

Learn more: How do I use the Dashboard List View as a student?

Instructors: Quizzes.Next No Longer in Beta

Canvas’ next-generation quiz tool, Quizzes.Next, has been fully released and is no longer in beta. Still, features and improvements will continue to be added over the coming months. Instructors can create a Quizzes.Next assessment by going in their course to Assignments and then clicking +Quiz/Test.

Learn more:

• What is Quizzes.Next?
• Quizzes.Next Feature Comparison

Instructors: Moderated and Anonymous Grading

Canvas now offers improved support for moderated grading, along with new features for anonymous grading. Both anonymous and moderated grading must first be enabled in your course by going to Settings and clicking the Feature Options tab.

Learn more:

• How do I add a moderated assignment to be graded by multiple reviewers?
• How do I add an assignment that includes anonymous grading?

Instructors: Updated Grading Features

An option to “Remove points from rubric” has been added when creating a new rubric, allowing instructors to build rubrics that are not tied to an assignment’s score.

In SpeedGrader, the Keyboard Shortcuts and Help links can now be found under the Settings (cog wheel) menu.

Instructors: New Modules Capabilities

Entire modules can now be duplicated within a course, through the Settings menu.

Only Quizzes. Next quizzes are supported for copying within modules, though. For more information and instructions, see How do I duplicate a module?

Students & Instructors: Updated Discussions Page

The Discussions page has been updated for improved accessibility among all users. For non-graded discussions, instructors can also now create section-specific discussions.

Full details on this new look for Discussions are available here: How do I use the Discussions Index Page?

Students & Instructors: Updated Annotations in DocViewer

DocViewer now supports annotations to BMP, JPEG, JPG, PNG, TIF, and TIFF images in SpeedGrader and the Submission Details page.

Instructors: New Annotation Management Capabilities

Within DocViewer, Instructors are now able to delete annotations or comments by other users, such as students or TAs.

Students & Instructors: Update to Rich Content Editor

The Rich Content Editor will now display a word count tracker for students and instructors as they type. This change tells users how many words they have typed into a discussion, page, assignment text entry, or other content location where the Rich Content Editor is supported.

Students: Redesigns in Canvas Student App (iOS)

The Canvas Student app for iOS has been redesigned for improved usability and accessibility.

• The Grades page now includes labels for late, missing, submitted, and unsubmitted assignments.
• Students can now “like” individual discussion replies.
• On the Files page, students can no longer edit or delete multiple files.

Students & Instructors: New Login Page for iOS Apps

The Login Page in the Canvas Student and Teacher apps on iOS has been redesigned for consistency with Android devices. The “Find My School” button has been added to allow users to search institutions.

Instructors: Updated Notifications in Teacher App

The Canvas Teacher mobile app now supports push notifications. Users can tap on notifications to open the app and the related page. Learn how to enable push notifications.

For iOS devices, the To Do List and Inbox tools now support notification badges for new items. The To Do List notification badge will display the number of items that need grading for all assignments, while the Inbox will display the number of unread messages in the Inbox. For Android devices, the To Do List displays a notification badge, but not yet the Inbox tool.

Students & Instructors: New Announcement Features & Accessibility Updates

Instructors can now create section-specific announcements in their course. While drafting an announcement, they can select to send the announcement to all sections, one section, or multiple sections. Visit the Canvas guide on creating announcements to learn more.

Announcements have also received an updated design to improve accessibility for all users. Most functionality has not been affected.

Students: Course Invitations & Global Announcements Supported in Student App

The Canvas Student app now supports course invitations. Within the app, students will have the option to accept or decline course invitations appearing on their dashboard.

The Canvas Student app also now supports global announcements. Students will be able to view announcements in their Dashboard until it is dismissed or until the due date has passed.

Students: Redesigns to Course Navigation & Dashboard Within App

The Canvas Student app’s Dashboard and course navigation menu have been redesigned for increased usability and accessibility to all students. Visit the Canvas Student app guide for information on using the mobile app.

Instructors: New Gradebook Feature Options & Late Policies

Instructors can now choose to individually enable the New Gradebook at the course level. This means instructors can choose which courses they want to enable the New Gradebook for, and toggle this setting themselves. To enable the New Gradebook, click Settings in the NavBar, and under the Feature Options tab, toggle the New Gradebook button so that it reveals a green checkmark.

For more information about using the New Gradebook, see the New Gradebook tutorial in the Canvas Guides.

The New Gradebook now also supports late policies, which allow instructors to automatically apply grading rules for late and missing submissions in their courses. For more information about using late policies in the New Gradebook, see the Late Policies tutorial in the Canvas Guides.

Instructors: Canvas Teacher Now Supports Pages, Files, & To-Do Lists

The Canvas Teacher app now includes support for Pages, Files, and To-Do Lists. For more information about using the Canvas Teacher app, see the Using Canvas Teacher tutorial in the Canvas Guides.

Students & Instructors: Decorative Image Checkbox

In order for individuals with vision disabilities to access your content, images that contain meaningful content should always have explanatory alt text associated with them. (You can add alt text in Canvas through the Embed Image dialog in the Rich Content Editor.) However, if an image is decorative, you can now indicate that it should not be read out by screen readers by checking the Decorative Image checkbox in the Embed Image dialog box.

Students: Canvas Student Grades Widget on iOS Devices

The Canvas Student app now supports a grades widget on iOS devices. This widget displays a student's current grade for up to eight courses. For more information about using the Grades Widget, see this iOS Grades Widget tutorial in the Canvas Guides.

Instructors: Student View Button on Course Home Page

The Course Home Page now includes the Student View button, which allows instructors to view their course as a student without having to open Course Settings. For more information about using Student View, see this Student View tutorial in the Canvas Guides.

Students & Instructors: Rich Text Editor Accessibility Checker

The Rich Content Editor Accessibility Checker is designed to help instructors, students, and course designers create accessible content in Canvas. The Accessibility Checker is available everywhere the Rich Text Editor can be used, and is located on the far right-hand side of the text editor menu. For more information about using the Accessibility Checker, see the Accessibility Checker tutorial in the Canvas Guides.

Instructors: Duplicate Discussions

Discussions can now be duplicated from both the Discussions and Assignments page. The duplication option has been added to the Settings menu for each discussion. When a discussion is copied, the word “copy” is added to the end of the discussion name. Copied discussions are set to unpublished by default. For more information about copying discussions, see the Copy Discussion tutorial in the Canvas Guides.

Instructors: Gradebook History Filters

The Gradebook History page has been redesigned for improved performance and can now be filtered by student, grader, assignment, start date, and end date. Previously the Gradebook History page only displayed the name of the assignment with a grade change. For more information about gradebook history filters, see the Gradebook History tutorial in the Canvas Guides.