Canvas released an update that includes a few new features for faculty, such as a basic accessibility checker, an option to duplicate discussions, and streamlined comment viewing in DocViewer.

We’ve highlighted these new features in the post below. For the full update notes, please see the Canvas Production Release Notes (2017-10-28).

 

Accessibility Checker

When editing a page in the Rich Content Editor, click the “Check Accessibility” icon (the stick figure on the top right) to launch the Accessibility Checker tool. The checker will find common accessibility issues and assist you in correcting any it discovers. Be sure to click “Apply Fix” to apply any changes.

The basic accessibility checker will assist with table headers, table captions, headings, alt text, and text contrast. For help building an accessible course in Canvas, please see the Accessibility Within Canvas guide.

 

Discussion Duplication

Many faculty have weekly discussion with similar discussion prompts; these discussions can now be duplicated in Canvas. From the Discussions page, click the settings icon (small gear) to the right of the discussion you wish to duplicate. From the drop-down menu, select “Duplicate”. An unpublished copy of your discussion will be created with the name, description and options settings from the original discussion.

DocViewer – Expand / Collapse Link

While annotating documents in SpeedGrader, multi-line comments in DocViewer are now collapsed by default. To expand a comment, click on the ellipsis (…) – if a comment has replies, the replies will also be expanded. The delete icon for annotations is now hidden by default. To delete a comment, click the comment to select it, then click the trash can icon.