The “assign to” feature has been updated. Now you no longer must click “edit” to get to the “assign to” box. While on the page of the assignment, quiz, or discussion board, you will now see an “assign to” option at the top. When you click on this box, a card will slide out from the right, allowing you to update due dates and add additional due dates for individual students, sections, or groups.
When in edit mode, the “assign to” box at the bottom has been replaced with a link. When you click on this link, the same card will slide out from the right, allowing you to make changes.
You can now assign modules to individual students or sections. When you click on the three dots to the top right of the module, you will see the “assign to” option. It is defaulted to “Everyone,” but you can change this by selecting “Assign To” and entering in students’ names or sections.
You are now also able to quickly duplicate a module. When clicking on the three dots at the top right of the module, you will see “Duplicate.” This will create a copy of the module that you can then update.
The Inbox has new features that let you create a signature file for all your inbox messages and set the ability to set automatic out of office replies. To access these options, click on the gear icon at the top right of the inbox.
The first phase of the rubric redesign is now available. You can now easily duplicate and archive rubrics, as well as rearrange criterion. This video overview highlights these changes. A written guide can also be found at the Canvas Release Notes page.
Two new AI features are now available for use in Canvas. First is “Smart Search.” When enabled, this will allow your students to use natural language inquiries about course content. Smart Search will index your course content to include content pages, announcements, discussion prompts, and assignment descriptions. This is a feature still in development, and more improvements will be coming.
The second AI feature is a discussion board summary. When enabled, you can generate an AI summary at the top of discussion board page that will give you an overview of your students’ replies. You are also able to ask natural language questions of the summary, such as “what areas are my students having difficult with understanding?” This summary is only available for those with a teacher or TA role. Students will not have access to generate or read the summaries.
To enable either feature, go to your course settings and click on the Feature Options tab at the top. You will see “Smart Search” and “Discussion Summary” as options to enable. Click on the red X to right of the feature and choose “enable.” For Smart Search, you may have to go to the “Navigation” tab at the top and click “save” at the bottom for it to appear in your course navigation.
To review all of the recent changes, please refer to the Canvas Release Notes (2024-07-20). Please note that not all of the updates listed may apply to our instance of Canvas. You can contact e-Learning Support at learning-support@ufl.edu or by phone at 352-392-4357 if you have any questions about these changes.