Canvas has added a new feature that allows users to identify their personal pronouns. Your chosen pronouns follow your name and show up basically anywhere your name appears within Canvas. That includes places like discussion posts, grading fields, announcements sent by instructors, groups pages, and messages. 

Why should I set up my pronouns? 

St. Thomas is excited Canvas has made this feature available and we’ve chosen to enable it for our Canvas users.  

Enabling this feature supports the university’s commitment to diversity. Identifying your pronouns helps others know how to address you (and lets you know the proper way to address others). In our increasingly digital world, knowing the proper way to address one another helps to build community. 

How do I enable the pronouns feature in Canvas? 

Identifying your pronouns in Canvas is an optional feature. If you wish to enable the feature and identify your pronouns, go to your User Settings and follow the instructions in the Canvas Personal Pronouns tutorial.

What if my pronouns aren’t available in the menu?  

Only pronouns set by the Canvas admin will show up in the drop-down menu. If your pronouns aren’t there, let us know! Send an email to stelar@stthomas.edu and include the pronouns you’d like added to the drop–down menu. 

Canvas 24/7 Help 

If you need assistance in setting up your pronouns, please contact Canvas’s 24/7 Help. Find your help options by clicking on the Help icon in the purple menu at the left (when logged in to Canvas).

This post was written by Nancy McGinley Myers, Instructional Designer with the St. Thomas E-Learning and Research (STELAR) Center at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. To learn more about what STELAR can do for you, please visit our website at  www.stthomas.edu/stelar or email us at stelar@stthomas.edu.

Canvas is rolling out a new gradebook to all users this winter, and we think you’re going to like the new features. St. Thomas is going to switch from the old gradebook to the new one on January 3, 2020 to accommodate posting Fall 2019 grades and the start of J-Term 2020.

New Features:

To see a list of all the changes, please view the complete functionality comparison chart. Here are three exciting new features that will help you streamline your grading and reporting:

• You will be able to set grading policies for late and/or missing work. In other words, you can have your gradebook automatically deduct points for late assignments.
• You can also set a grading policy for missing assignments which helps keep your gradebook up-to-date. (Without a score, the gradebook ignores missing assignments, so entering a score early on will give students a more accurate view of their grade.)
• You will be able to manually change the status of an assignment submission. This change allows you to track any late or missing assignments that were submitted on paper. In addition, you can remove the “late” status for assignments you granted extensions on.

Enhanced Features:

To see a complete list of enhancements made to current features, please view the complete functionality comparison chart. The following feature enhancements might be especially handy:

• In the old gradebook you could only sort student names alphabetically by last name. In the new gradebook, you’ll be able to sort students by first or last name, sort alphabetically, and choose which secondary information (like username or group) you’d like to show.
• You have much more control over the arrangement of your assignment columns with the new gradebook. You can arrange by name, due date, points, or module.
• You can also filter your columns by assignment group, modules, and/or section. In the old gradebook, you could only filter by section.
• The new gradebook allows you to mute all assignments by default (by selecting the manual post option) in Grade Posting Policies.

Features that Still Exist but Have Moved:

Looking for an old feature, but can’t find it? Quite a few features have either moved to another location in the gradebook, or their icons have changed. To see a full list, have a look at the functionality comparison chart.

• The option to mute assignments still exists, but there are enhanced features and it’s moved to Grade Posting Policies. You can set a policy for the course or for individual assignments.
• The icon that appears when you hover over the column header has changed from a triangle to three vertical dots. Access useful features like Message Students Who, Download all Submissions, Curve Grades, and Set Default Grades from within that pop-up menu.
• Accessing the SpeedGrader from the gradebook has moved to the Grade Detail Tray (access the Grade Detail Tray by clicking on a cell in the gradebook).

Getting Help

Looking for something in the New Gradebook, but can’t find it? Trying to make sense of new icons and locations? Canvas has multiple help options for you:

• Look through the New Gradebook Instructor Guide to see if you can find an answer to your question.
• Contact Canvas help if you have any issues setting up your new gradebook. They are available 24/7 via phone or chat.

This post was written by Nancy McGinley Myers, an Instructional Designer for the St. Thomas E-Learning and Research (STELAR) Center at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. To learn more about this topic, please visit our website at www.stthomas.edu/stelar or email us at stelar@stthomas.edu.