Effective July 31, SMS (text message) notifications for Announcements and Grading will be removed from Canvas, and the SMS column will not display in the Notifications page. Users are encouraged to enable notifications via email or the Canvas mobile app as an alternative to SMS. Instructors may contact CIRT for additional guidance on adjusting Canvas notification settings.

Combining Course Sections

Course shells are created in Canvas for each course section (CRN) on the University’s course schedule. The only course sections that are combined into a single Canvas shell at creation are sections that are cross-listed in the UNF course schedule. This practice ensures compliance with FERPA and protects student privacy.

Instructors who wish to combine non cross-listed course sections in Canvas for educational or pedagogical reasons can do so using the native Canvas Cross-listing tool and will be responsible for taking the appropriate steps to ensure student privacy and compliance with FERPA.

Further information regarding this change is available on CIRT’s About Canvas webpage within the Policies section.

Conferences (Big Blue Button) Disabled in Canvas

Effective August 13th, Conferences will no longer be available for use within Canvas. The decision to disable Conferences aligns with the recently updated course section combining guidance and further supports the effort to protect student privacy and maintain FERPA compliance. Additionally, the percentage of courses using Conferences has significantly lessened with the integration of Zoom in Canvas, which is a more robust tool that offers enhanced security features and host controls for meetings. Zoom will continue to be available both within Canvas and via the web portal at unf.zoom.us.

Instructors who have specific questions about making the transition from Conferences to Zoom can schedule an individualized consultation with CIRT staff. Instructors and students may refer to CIRT’s Zoom webpage for additional resources on using Zoom. As well, CIRT will be offering live training events which present best practices for hosting online office hours and using Zoom. Instructors can register for upcoming events from the CIRT Events Calendar.

Honorlock for Fall Courses

Honorlock will only be available for use by Distance Learning (DL) courses in the Fall term. Instructors of DL courses who wish to use Honorlock for proctoring must email cirtlab@unf.edu to submit a request to have Honorlock installed in their courses.

Users will also have the ability to turn Closed Captioning on by default for all Canvas Studio videos. This prevents users from having to click the CC button whenever they start a new video.

 Updated Maintenance

To better manage required maintenance across all customer instances, regular Instructure maintenance windows will be implemented for each region, beginning in July 2021. Most maintenance windows will take place sometime between the hours of 12:00 am and 4:00 am local time on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month.

UNF’s current install of Canvas now defaults to the new Rich Content Editor, enhancing the content creation experience in Canvas. The following enhancements are included with this feature update:

• The Rich Content Editor expands to the full width of the browser and can also be expanded into full screen mode
• The toolbar includes a condensed, more intuitive look
• Toolbar menus are grouped by common icons and interactions
• The content sidebar only displays when linking to other parts of Canvas, accessing Canvas files, or accessing uploaded media
• Image and media additions include drag and drop; images include an Unsplash search and content auto-scaling
• When content in a browser window is long enough to require a scroll bar, the Rich Content Editor menu bar is fixed at the top of the browser window. Users can scroll the length of the browser page and manage content in the Rich Content Editor without having to scroll back up the page to access the menu.
• The Keyboard shortcut, Accessibility Checker, and HTML Editor icons have moved to the bottom of the editor next to the word count. Additionally, the Rich Content Editor window can be resized using the Move handle below the window, and the window can be expanded to full screen.

For more information on the New RCE – including some useful tutorials and updates on future enhancements – please see the Canvas Release Notes.

LaTex

Good news for our mathematics and statistics instructors: in the Feb. 20 Canvas release, LaTeX equations can be entered in any Canvas text field and MathJax is loaded if Canvas detects an equation image added by delimited LaTeX characters. This change allows users to use equations in more areas of Canvas and manage equations more efficiently.

Multiple Notification Types on Canvas Mobile

Multiple notification types are not supported for Push notifications. Additional notification types can be enabled through other communication channels. This change streamlines communication for all user roles. When users open their Notification Preferences page or notifications in a Canvas app, Push notifications are only supported for specific notification categories. Users can adjust their notification preferences by setting up additional supported communication channels.

Additional details about supported notifications for Push notifications can be found in the Canvas Notifications PDF.

• XL-based MyLabs (math, business, English, health science, and careers & nursing), Pegasus-based MyLabs (World languages, IT, communication, political science), , Mastering, Revel, Enhanced Revel, MyLabsPlus, Learning Catalytics/ Live Response, Pearson Writer, Writing Solutions, Strategic Reader, and MediaShare.
• MyEnglishLab and Pearson English Portal

Students and Instructors will be unable to access their courses during the entire maintenance window. Pearson will post a message 72 hours before the maintenance on the sign-on pages for my lab and mastering, and a splash page about the maintenance work will show during that time.