- Release Notes Interface in the Global Navigation Menu
- Anonymous Instructor Annotations on Student Assignment Submissions
- Moderated Grading for Assignments
1. Release Notes Interface
Users can view feature release information directly in Canvas. This change helps users know when a new feature is available in Canvas for their user role and promotes self-training for Canvas features.
The Canvas Help Menu displays an indicator when a release note has been published for your role. Notes display a summary of a feature and provide a link to view more details.
2. Anonymous Instructor Annotations
When creating an assignment, you can enable anonymous instructor annotations. When students view a submission with anonymous instructor annotations, comments do not display an instructor’s name.
NB: This option only affects comments added on the document itself. Comments added in the Speedgrader sidebar are NOT anonymous.
Notes:
- Anonymous Instructor Annotations is separate from the Anonymous Grading feature and displays as an option in all assignments.
- If you select this checkbox after student submissions are received, any annotations already made in DocViewer will not be anonymous. Ensure this checkbox is selected before allowing students to submit assignments.
Open Assignments
In Course Navigation, click the Assignments link.
Open or Create Assignment
To open an existing assignment, click the Assignment name [1].
To create a new assignment, click the Add Assignment button [2].
Edit Assignment
Click the Edit button.
Enable Anonymous Instructor Annotations
Select the Anonymous Instructor Annotations checkbox.
Save Assignment
3. Moderated Grading
When creating an assignment, you can choose to set it up with moderated grading. Moderated grading allows multiple reviewers to grade a students work and create draft or provisional grades for an assignment. For instance, you may want to allow two TAs in your course to grade all assignments, and you can review their assessments before determining the final grade. This feature can also be used to create a sampling of students for assignment review to ensure grading is consistent and allows secondary grade reviews.
For each moderated submission, the user set as the moderator is the only user who can specify the final grade for each assignment. Once the assignment is created, only the moderator and admins will be able to change the assigned final grader.
Anonymous Grading
Moderated grading can be enabled with anonymous grading assignment options. If enabled in an assignment, anonymous grading is enabled by default in SpeedGrader, although anonymous grading in SpeedGrader can be enabled separately if not enabled for an assignment.
Notes:
- Moderated grading is currently a course opt-in feature. To enable this feature, learn how to manage feature options in the course features lesson.
- Once an assignment has been set as a moderated assignment, the moderated assignment option cannot be disabled once submissions have been received, but any edits made to the moderated settings will be tracked.
- Grades cannot be edited in the Gradebook before grades are released as final grades to the Gradebook by the moderator. However, after grades are posted, grades can be edited in the Gradebook by any grader.
- Moderated assignments are automatically hidden in the Gradebook until grades are posted.
- Moderated assignments are not supported with Peer Review assignments.
In Course Navigation, click the Assignments link.
Add Assignment
To create an assignment with all assignment details at the same time, click the Add Assignment button.
Edit Assignment
If you want to edit an existing assignment that has not yet received student submissions, click the name of the assignment.
Add Assignment Details
Select Moderated Grading
Click the Moderated Grading checkbox.
Select Number of Graders
- Enter the number of graders who should grade the submission. This number does not have a limit.
- If the number of graders entered is higher than the number of course users with grading permissions, it will display a warning message.
- The moderator is never included in the number of available graders since the moderator does not traditionally grade individual submissions. However, the moderator may choose to provide a custom grade instead of selecting a grade from one of the graders.
Select Grader Visibility
If you want to allow graders to view each other’s comments, select the Graders can view each other’s comments checkbox. This option is selected by default.
Note: If anonymous grading is also enabled for your course, selecting this option displays the Graders cannot view each other’s names checkbox in the anonymous grading assignment options.
This option allows graders to view comments from other graders but not view the name associated with each comment.
Select Final Grader
In the Select Grader menu [1], select the name of the moderator, or the grader who determines the final grade. The Select Grader menu displays the names of course graders who have been given permission to determine the final grade. \
If you want the final grader to view the names of the grader who graded each submission, select the Final grader can view other grader names checkbox. This option is selected by default.