The Webcourses@UCF (Canvas) Discussions and Announcements interfaces have been redesigned. This article dives into the modifications and additions to look out for.
Note: The optional Discussions/Announcements Redesign feature is not available by default in courses; however, it is scheduled to be enabled in all Webcourses@UCF courses starting Wednesday, May 1st. If you would like to view the new features before May 1st:
- Navigate to your course in Webcourses@UCF
- Click Settings
- Switch to the Feature Options tab
- Click the red 'x' icon to the right of the Discussions/Announcements Redesign feature
- Click Enabled
New features:
- Anonymous discussions
- Reply reporting: You can allow students to report replies for inappropriate, offensive and/or abusive comments. Instructors can also report replies, when this option is enabled.
- @ mentions: Users can mention other users in discussion replies by using the @ symbol. All available users in the course display in the drop-down menu. @ mentions are not supported in anonymous discussions.
- Reply sidebar: A discussion reply can support up to one additional reply. All replies are nested together and can be displayed in a sidebar. Replying to a reply in the sidebar is called a quote. You can expand, collapse, and view threaded replies in a split screen sidebar or inline
- Role Labels: Discussion topics display a label for users with TA and Instructor roles to help students quickly identify users with instructor-based roles in the course
Updated features:
- The toolbar has been moved to the top of the discussion topic
- Sort and Filter Options on top of the page help you quickly and efficiently manage your discussions.
- Enhanced Search functionality facilitates finding specific discussions and topics including highlighting text that matches the search query.
- Newest replies display at the top of the first page instead of the bottom of the last page
- Important functionalities such as (Un)Publish, (Un)Subscribe, and Edit a discussion topic have been moved on the right side of the topic
Upcoming Features:
- Checkpoints: Allows instructors to set two due dates for discussions; providing greater clarity to students on when initial responses and replies are due.
Things to Note:
Anonymous discussions:
- When anonymity is set for a discussion, grading and groups are not supported
- Users with an instructor, TA, or designer role in the course will never be anonymous
- In anonymous discussions, student posts will be anonymous to everyone in the course, including instructors and TA's
Discussion reply reporting:
- When reporting a discussion reply, the user must indicate why the reply is being reported (inappropriate, offensive and/or abusive, or Other). Reporting a reply cannot be undone. Once a reply is displayed as reported to other users, it cannot be reported again
- You need to enable the Discussions Reported Reply notification in their account- or course-level notifications page in order to be notified of reported replies
- Reporting a reply does not hide the reply; all replies are still visible to all users. However, you can choose to edit or delete the reported reply.
Additional Resources:
Get Help:
If you have any questions, concerns or feedback, please contact Webcourses@UCF Support.