This is the latest information on changes to UWM’s Digital Learning Environment which includes changes to Canvas, Kaltura (a.k.a. My Media), Zoom, and other services available in Canvas.
Updates are made regularly to bring new features, improve the user experience, and fix bugs. For each item, the change date is provided. Release Summaries are used to communicate planned updates for the given month and may include updates which occurred after the previous update.
Service Maintenance
No maintenance is planned for these changes.
Major Changes
No changes of significant impact are expected.
Additional Changes
- Canvas Catalog
- May 23, 2022: After registering for a course or program, the confirmation language is changed to direct students to their Catalog Dashboard to begin their course.
- August 8, 2022: (Catalog Admins only) Bulk enrollments can be disabled by course or by catalog.
- Canvas LMS
- June 17, 2022: (Continuing Education and Training and Development instances of Canvas only) Student file storage quotas were increased to 200MB to be consistent with student file quotas on the Instructional instance of Canvas.
- June 21, 2022: (Institution Admins on the Continuing Education and Training and Development instances of Canvas only) The ability to moderate discussions has been enabled.
- June 22, 2022: Students are shown an availability duration when an assignment’s due date is shorter than 24 hours.
- June 22, 2022: (New Quizzes) A unique icon is displayed when a student has a New Quizzes attempt which is not yet graded.
- June 22, 2022: If a calendar event title is too long, a tooltip is displayed by hovering the mouse over event title.
- July 6, 2022: Assignment due dates for specific students take precedence over due dates for the section or group they are a member of.
- July 6, 2022: (New Quizzes) The Item Bank icon is a folder, changed from a piggybank.
- July 7, 2022: SilverCloud is removed from the Canvas help menu as the UW System agreement for the service has ended.
- July 16, 2022: People using the Observer role to monitor student progress can filter their Dashboard to view courses for a specific student.
- July 20, 2022: You@UWM has been added as an optional Course Navigation link.
- July 26, 2022: (Administrators, Support Staff Only) Course Templates are enabled, which allow departments the ability to define starting content for a small number of courses upon creation. Additional information will be shared with relevant stakeholders in the coming days.
- July 26, 2022: Support Administrators may no longer delete courses.
- August 3, 2022: If instructors leave SpeedGrader before saving rubric scoring, a warning is displayed.
- August 17, 2022: Alignment Options in the Rich Content Editor have text labels (e.g., “Left Align”, “Center Align”, “Right Align”).
- Canvas Mobile Apps
- June 23-July 5, 2022: (Teacher and Student apps for iOS and Android) Dark mode is supported.
- June 23-July 5, 2022: (Teacher and Student apps for iOS and Android) Annotation markers can be dragged to adjust position.
- July 25, 2022: (Teacher and Student app for Android) it is possible to add alternate text to images.
- July 25, 2022: (Teacher app for Android) Course invitations and global announcements appear at the top of the mobile app Dashboard.
- July 25, 2022: (Teacher app for Android) When a new message is received, a notification appears over the Inbo icon.
- External Tools
- August 4, 2022: Respondus LockDown Browser is deployed to College of Nursing courses offered by UWM and UW-Parkside to address college-specific in-person proctoring needs. LockDown Browser does not replace Proctorio and is not supported by CETL or the UWM Help Desk. Gaining access to LockDown Browser is by special request only after cost sharing is negotiated with the College of Nursing. Additional information is available regarding LockDown Browser in the UWM Knowledgebase.
- August 8, 2022: PackBack is available for for-credit or supplemental courses. Support for PackBack is provided by the vendor and licenses must be purchased by students, or through tuition. To get PackBack, instructors may request it using UWM Canvas Tools. Additional information is available regarding PackBack in the UWM Knowledgebase.
- August 8, 2022: Wilo Labs is implemented to support UWM’s Inclusive Access pilot. This supporting technology enables instructors to automatically add textbook materials to their courses for students who have chosen to automatically adopt textbook materials.
- August 9, 2022: OneNote Class Notebook is available for for-credit or supplemental courses. Support for OneNote is offered by Microsoft, with ancillary support provided by the UWM Help Desk. To get OneNote Class Notebook, instructors may request it using UWM Canvas Tools. Additional information Is available regarding OneNote Class Notebook in the UWM Knowledgebase.
- Zoom (Note: availability dates are approximate and may require updating the Zoom client for your computer or mobile device.)
- May 21, 2022: (iPad/iPhone) the ability to share the screen is included in the Zoom client.
- May 21, 2022: CSV and PDF poll exports for meetings can be exported in a format that mirrors the in-meeting poll report. Additionally, CSV formatting is changed for readability.
- July 18, 2022: Downloaded transcripts include the speaker’s name and timestamps.
- July 18, 2022: Meeting hosts can change who can begin sharing a whiteboard in a meeting.
- July 18, 2022: Whiteboards can be panned during meetings.
Learn More
To learn more about updates, and to see how the changes may affect instructors’ and students’ work, refer to the release note links. Remember that some features may not be enabled for UWM or the UW System.