September-December 2022 Release Summary

January 20, 2023

This is the latest information on changes to UWM’s Digital Learning Environment which includes changes to Canvas, Proctorio, 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

  • Canvas LMS
    • December 17, 2022: Student Grades Page Updates
    • December 17, 2022: (New Quizzes) Partial Rich Content Editor Implementation
    • December 17, 2022: (New Quizzes) Clear Multiple Choice Question Answers
    • December 17, 2022: (New Quizzes) Word Bank “Fill In The Blank” Changes
    • December 17, 2022: Scheduled Page Publication

Canvas LMS

December 17, 2022: Student Grades Page Updates

The students Grades page has been re-organized to provide access to assignments, comments, and to better indicate the final grade for the assignment. Grades are now shown as a fraction (points earned vs. total points). Clickable icons are displayed as buttons. The feedback icon displays the number of comments left. Both the assignment and feedback icons display “Unread” dots to indicate that the student has not viewed the information.

  • Before the change: The Students Grade Page shows grade values in different columns, and provides minimal feedback information. Students are unable to access assignments from the grade.
  • After the change: Columns are reorganized to better indicate grades for assignments, feedback indicators note the number of comments left, and whether new feedback is available.
  • How this impacts teaching and learning: This quality-of-life improvement for students increases the usability of the Grades page. Students receive a better perspective over their progress, can easily view their assignments, and can also easily view feedback.

December 17, 2022: (New Quizzes) Partial Rich Content Editor Implementation

Note: At this time, instructors should consider using Classic Quizzes unless New Quizzes offers a feature which Classic Quizzes does not.

Some features from the Canvas Rich Content Editor are integrated with New Quizzes, replacing a less-capable HTML editor.

  • Before the change: The non-standard Rich Content Editor is used in all areas of New Quizzes
  • After the change: The Canvas Rich Content Editor with a subset of functionality is implemented for New Quizzes.
  • How this impacts teaching and learning: This systemic change improves both the student and instructor experience when using New Quizzes by offering much of the same functionality.

Instructure is implementing the Rich Content Editor in phases as they work towards eventually replacing Classic Quizzes with New Quizzes. The implementation plan for the Rich Content Editor in New Quizzes is as follows:

  • Phase 1 (Complete): HTML view, accessibility checker, word count, record media, math editor.
  • Phase 2 (Complete): Insert images, insert recorded media (from Canvas, not from My Media), insert links, insert documents.
  • Phase 3: External Tool support (for example, My Media).
  • Phase 4: Changes to how content is stored.

Lastly, it is important to note that while New Quizzes will someday replace Classic Quizzes, there is no scheduled retirement date.

December 17, 2022: (New Quizzes) Clear Multiple Choice Question Answers

Note: At this time, instructors should consider using Classic Quizzes unless New Quizzes offers a feature which Classic Quizzes does not.

When building a quiz, instructors can enable “Allow Clearing Selection (Multiple Choice)” which allows students to deselect a multiple choice option.

  • Before the change: No functionality exists for students to de-select a multiple choice answer.
  • After the change: Instructors may choose to enable the display of a link which allows students to deselect multiple choice options.
  • How this impacts teaching and learning: This usability change gives instructors the option to allow students to reverse their multiple choice answer, effectively giving students the ability to accept no penalty if they do not know the answer.

When instructors create multiple choice questions in New Quizzes, wrong answers may be given negative scores.

  • If a student takes the quiz, and second guesses their answer with this feature disabled, they must randomly pick an answer and risk receiving a negative score.
  • With the feature enabled, the student can choose to submit the quiz without answering the question, saving them from receiving a penalty from an incorrect answer.

December 17, 2022: (New Quizzes) Word Bank “Fill In The Blank” Changes

Note: At this time, instructors should consider using Classic Quizzes unless New Quizzes offers a feature which Classic Quizzes does not.

Word banks can be re-used in “Fill In The Blank” questions for multiple blanks. Additionally, the interface for entering answers and distractors is changed so distractors are entered in a distinct location.

  • Before the change: Word banks are displayed interspersed below the question, and a word can only be used once.
  • After the change: Word banks are displayed as dropdown menus for each blank, and the same answer can be used more than once for-credit.
  • How this affects teaching and learning: This systemic change increases the flexibility of “Fill In The Blank” questions for New Quizzes, which means the question serves more teaching use cases.

Word banks allow instructors to make “Fill In The Blank“ questions in New Quizzes that draw possible answers from a selection of words. Instructors enter both correct answers, and distractor words. When students view the question, they see one or more blanks with a menu to select the appropriate word from. For more information, see: How do I create a Fill in the Blank question in New Quizzes? F

Note: Instructure has documented the question type as “Fill In The Blank”, without hyphens.

December 17, 2022: Scheduled Page Publication

Instructors may set a “Publish At” date for pages to pre-configure their availability in a course.

  • Before the change: Pages are either unpublished, or published, and the only way to control access to the page is through Module restrictions (which do not control access to the page itself).
  • After the change: Pages may be published at a specific date.
  • How this affects teaching and learning: This quality of life change allows instructors to pre-schedule the publishing of pages, which can provide a more fluid course experience depending on the course design.

To schedule a date for publishing, enter a date and time in the “Publish At” field while creating or editing a page, then click the “Save” button. Clicking “Save & Publish” overrides the publish date. If students attempt to access a published module item linking to an unpublished page, the student will see a message indicating that the page is not published.

Additional Changes

  • Canvas Catalog
  • Canvas LMS
    • August 24, 2022: Instructors may choose to enable the Discussions/Announcements redesign if a feature is present which may benefit their course. The feature is off by-default but can be enabled on a course-by-course basis. IMPORTANT: The feature preview does not offer all the same features as the current Canvas Discussions and Announcements tool. If you use this redesign in your course, please provide feedback to Instructure through the Discussions/Announcements Redesign Users Group, or by contacting CETL.
    • September 14, 2022: The start and end dates in the calendar can be set in 5-minute intervals.
    • September 17, 2022: (New Quizzes) changes can be synced via Blueprint courses. Item Bank references work across courses.
    • October 10, 2022: Instructors can make Files available to the public, or to the institution from a course, based on course settings. More information on file availability settings.
    • November 9, 2022: Rich Content Editor icons match link colors where appropriate.
    • November 9, 2022: New Quizzes outcome data is available in mastery gradebooks, and in the Outcomes tool.
    • December 7, 2022: The Rich Content Editor displays a word count. Clicking the word count displays the number of words and characters used in the editor, and in any highlighted selection.
    • December 20, 2022: When copying between two Blueprint courses, checking “Import Blueprint Course settings” copies Blueprint-specific course settings.
  • Canvas Mobile Apps
    • September 21, 2022: (Teacher App for Android) Files can be attached to submission comments using the Attach icon.
    • September 21-December 5, 2022: (Student and Teacher App for Android) Email notifications can be managed from the app.
    • December 5, 2022: (Teacher App for iOS) On the Dashboard, use the cog icon to change the Dashboard layout.
    • December 14, 2022: (Student App for Android) Assignments can be filtered. Late, missing, graded, upcoming, and all assignments can be viewed.
    • December 14, 2022: The app offers a light and dark mode toggle.
    • December 14, 2022: (Student App for Android) Calendar entries can be synced to Google Calendar.
    • December 14, 2022: (Student App for Android) Calendar items can be filtered by course, or to only show personal calendar entries.
    • December 14, 2022: (Student App for Android) The Notification icons have a badge indicating how many notifications are waiting.
    • September 21-December 14, 2022: The last login page used is saved when opening the app. Students can choose to change institutions before visiting their Canvas Dashboard.
  • Zoom
    Note: it can take some time for features to become available. If you are missing a feature, update your Zoom client before contacting support.

    • September 18, 2022: Hosts can broadcast their voice to breakout rooms.
    • September 18, 2022: Participants can be assigned as sign-language interpreters
    • December 19, 2022: Support for iOS 10 and Android has
    • December 27, 2022: Human avatars may be used in 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.