Discussions Redesign

Discussions have been redesigned to improve functionality and usability and Canvas has announced that as of July 20, 2024 this is enabled for everyone. ID&D has enabled the Discussions Redesign for all courses on May 23, 2024, ahead of the Summer 2024 session. In Discussions, the look and feel is changing as well as the addition of new features. Instructors can elect to use the redesign of the discussions interface by enabling this feature in your course (instructions below the video). Because course Announcements also use the same formatting, the discussion redesign changes the look and feel of Announcements as well, however the functionality of Announcements remains the same. Discussions are created in the same way with the same requirements. Faculty who would like to implement the discussion redesign, can enable it for current courses through Settings within their course. 

Changes to functionality and usability include the following:

• Anonymous discussions can be created by the instructor.

• Users can mention other users in discussion replies by using the @ symbol.

• Users can quote other replies as part of their discussion reply.

• New replies display at the top of the first page of post, instead of the bottom of the last page.

• All replies are nested together and displayed in a sidebar. 

• Users can sort replies from newest to oldest or oldest to newest, if they please.

• Using a button, users can jump directly to the top of any page quickly.

• Role labels are displayed for TA roles, Teacher/Instructor roles, and discussion authors.

• Imported discussions no longer include details about the prior author.

• From each reply thread, you can select Go To Topic to jump to the top of the discussion page to view the highlighted prompt.

• You can mark entire discussions or individual reply threads as Read or Unread.

• Coming before July 20, 2024 - Checkpoints: The ability to have a first post date in addition to due date.

Watch the video below for a short tutorial about some of the discussion redesign features (as of Summer 2023).

Step-by-Step Instructions:

Enabling Discussions/Announcements Redesign in Your Course

1. In your course, click on Settings from the course menu.

2. Under the "Feature Options" tab, you will see "Discussions/Announcements Redesign" listed as a feature. If there is a red X next to the right of "Discussions/Announcements Redesign", you will need to enable it for this course.

3. To enable "Discussions/Announcement Redesign", click on the red X and select enabled.

Open

Once Discussions/Announcement Redesign is enabled, a green check mark will show up to the right of the Discussions/Announcements Redesign".

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