Designing an Inclusive Survey

by | Dec 8, 2021 | Blog

Designing an inclusive survey

Inclusive design is an approach to better serve people from diverse backgrounds and in diverse situations, such as ability, gender, religion, age, education, socio-economic status, quality of life, and others. It is concerned with a survey’s language and its accessibility.

Be flexible with answer choices

We want to allow the respondents to quickly identify with an answer choice and the opportunity to express themselves the way they prefer. Therefore, in addition to the commonly used choices, for instance Male, Female, Transgender Male, Transgender Female, Gender non-conforming in a question about gender identity, the following choices are recommended. This helps keep the list of answer choices short and allows respondent feedback.

  • Prefer not to answer
  • Not sure / Do not know
  • Not listed / Other
  • Please specify

Asking demographic question

When asking demographic questions, we want to pay special attention to the answer choices and the language. Harvard University provides a tip sheet on suggested language for Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation, Race, and Ethnicity questions.  Visit Chalkbeat’s  How to design your source diversity audit survey with inclusivity in mind to learn more about the differences between Native American and American Indian, between Black and African American, and between Hispanic, Latino(a), and Latinx.

Use nonsexist language

Even though the generic use of man and he (hence him, his, and himself) is considered gender-neutral, scholars argued their use to be problematic since 1970’s. Their use can sometimes be considered funny or insulting and in other times convey an unintended message about the sexes. The American Philosophical Association published Guidelines for Non-Sexist Use of Language to counter the issues stemming from the generic use of man and he. Some of the recommendations by the APA include the replacement of his with their, he with this person, one, we, brotherhood with kinship, the Founding Fathers with the Founders, and necessary rewording. Visit the link above for more examples. Moreover, use “gender-neutral” names such as Chris, Kim, and Pat in hypothetical scenarios to avoid stereotyping either males or females.

Use inclusive language

In addition to using nonsexist language, the Linguistic Society of America published Guidelines for Inclusive Language to address issues related gender, minorities, disabilities, and other demographic characteristics. Avoid perpetuating stereotypes and norms such as normally-developed and autistic.

Account for reading proficiency

About 14% of U.S.-born adults (aged 16 to 65) and 40% of foreign-born adults scored at the lowest levels in the Survey of Adult Skills conducted by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). Those numbers translate to about 17% of the U.S. adult population or 35 million U.S. adults having very limited ability to evaluate or use written material in English. Use reading levels and choose words appropriate for the target population. Avoid jargons in your field or provide context of the terms.

Designed for both online and offline response collection

There are additional steps to take if the survey involves offline data collection.

  • The survey is suitable for a print copy. That means instructions on how to fill out the survey and, especially, any logic embedded in the survey are clearly defined and explained.
  • If a respondent is asked to view content normally required internet connection (such as a YouTube video or a news article), download and save the content onto a mobile device beforehand.
  • Research and test offline survey apps. Ask University admins or survey platform support whether an offline app of the platform is available to you.

 

Accessibility

There are 10.8% of the United States population who have a cognitive disability, 5.9% with a hearing disability, and 4.6% with a visual disability (CDC). On average, 1 in 5 of a survey’s target population could have found a survey inaccessible had the survey not designed to take accessibility into account. The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) provides WCAG 2.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) guidelines for accessible web contents. The CAST publishes Universal Design for Learning Guidelines 2.2 to ensure access for all learners. Below are recommendations derived from the WCAG 2.0 and the UDL Guidelines 2.2.

Color contrast

People with visual impairment could have difficulties reading text from a background color if the color contrast is low. Use Utah State University’s Contrast Checker to ensure conformance with WCAG 2.0 level AA. A question before you click on the link, does WCU’s gold on purple pass the contrast test?

Font size

There is no recommended minimum font size. However, to achieve sufficient contrast, WCAG 2.0 recommends 18 point or 14 bold point for large scale text.

Typeface

A study found simple typefaces such as Arial, Courier, Helvetica, and Verdana are more legible and favored by individuals with dyslexia. OpenDyslexic is a free typeface designed for individuals with dyslexia.

Avoid CAPTCHA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CAPTCHA is useful in making sure that a respondent is a human being rather than a bot or script. However, CAPTCHA often implements distorted characters, which are inaccessible to people who are blind or dyslexic. Read Hannah Alvarez’s article on alternatives to CAPTCHA if prevention of computer-generated responses is a concern.

Use a simple table structure

This is to help a screen reader to understand the table.

Avoid split cells, merged cells, nested tables, and blank rows or columns.

    Use text labels or patterns instead of color alone

    Using color as an exclusive visual indicator could be challenging for people with visual impairment to understand the survey. Instead, use text labels or patterns to communicate critical information. Adapting from UXDesign’s good trick, print the survey in black and white and see if everything, especially images, charts, graphs, are still legible and understandable to you. Upload images, charts, and graphs used in your survey to Coblis (Color Blindness Simulator) to gain the experience of what people with visual impairment see.

    Use of multimedia

    Follow some best practices when multimedia is used in the survey.

    • Use alternative text, title, and description for images and non-text content
    • Use synchronized captions in videos
    • Supplement audios with transcripts

     

    Conclusion

    With the evolving cultures and personal choices, survey language needs to adapt to those changes to be more inclusive. The Internet makes a survey more interactive. It also allows survey administrators to reach a larger population, people with or without a disability and people from diverse backgrounds. Facing the changing demographics, it is our responsibility to advocate inclusion and accessibility in survey design.  

    If you’d like to talk to a member of the Coulter Faculty Commons about group work, please click here to schedule a consultation.

     

    References and resources

    Alvarez, H. (2014). Think your site needs CAPTCHA? Try these user-friendly alternatives. Retrieved from https://www.usertesting.com/blog/think-your-site-needs-captcha-try-these-user-friendly-alternatives

    Batalova, J., & Fix, M. (2015). What does PIAAC tell us about the skills and competencies of immigrant adults in the United States? Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute. Retrieved from http://piaacgateway.com/s/Batalova_Fix_PIAAC-empr.pdf

    Bauman, C., & Bushra, L. (2021). How to design your source diversity audit survey with inclusivity in mind. Retrieved from https://www.chalkbeat.org/2021/9/15/22661407/source-diversity-audit-survey-design-inclusivity-chalkbeat-rji-tracking

    CAST (2018). Universal Design for Learning guidelines version 2.2. Retrieved from https://udlguidelines.cast.org/

    Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2020). Disability impacts all of us. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/infographic-disability-impacts-all.html

    Color Blindess Simulator. https://www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/

    Linguistic Society of America (2016). Guidelines for inclusive language. Retrieved from https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/guidelines-inclusive-language

    Office of Regulatory Affairs and Research Compliance of Harvard University (2020). ORARC tip sheet: Inclusive demographic data collection. Retrieved from https://cdn1.sph.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2102/2020/04/ORARC-Tip-Sheet-Inclusive-Demographic-Data-Collection.pdf

    OpenDyslexic. https://opendyslexic.org/

    Rello, L., & Baeza-Yates, R. (2013). Good fonts for dyslexia. doi: 10.1145/2513383.2513447.

    Stanley, P. (2018). Designing for accessibility is not that hard. Retrieved from https://uxdesign.cc/designing-for-accessibility-is-not-that-hard-c04cc4779d94

    Warren, V. L. (n.d.). Guidelines for non-sexist use of language. Retrieved from https://www.apaonline.org/page/nonsexist

    WebAIM. Contrast Checker. https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/

    World Wide Web Consortium (2008). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. Retrieved from https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/

    To Flip or Not to Flip? That is the Question.

    by | Nov 16, 2021 | Active Learning, Be Present-Mindful, Blog, Classroom, Collaborative Learning, Cooperative Learning, Educational Development, Flipping the Classroom, Pedagogy, Problem Based Learning, Student Engagement, Student Performance, Teaching and Learning

    Whether you call it inverted instruction, classroom flipping, or some other term, the concept behind this kind of instruction is basic. Students get the foundational knowledge they need outside the classroom and class time is spent on higher-level learning. Properly executed, this instructional methodology changes the instructor’s role from one of a “sage on the stage” to a “guide on the side.” (Bergmann & Sams, 2007)

    How do the students get that foundational knowledge?

    • Video
      • If you record your own videos:
        • Keep them short (7 minutes max)
        • Topic focused
        • Provide captions and transcript
      • If you don’t want to make your own, there are plenty of sources:
        • Khan Academy, YouTube, Ted Talks
      • Assign specific time ranges as appropriate
    • Texts
      • A history, account, narrative, or case study
      • From the course texts, assign specific pages if the students don’t need the whole chapter – they are more likely to do the reading
      • Consider developing a reading guide to target their attention on particular concepts or ideas 
    • Websites
      • Again, assign specific pages or parts of the website as appropriate
    • Research
      • Give your students a list of questions and let them find answers

    How can I know they have attained the foundational knowledge?

    Barkley and Major, in their text Learning Assessment Techniques, offer concrete ways to assess students’ foundational knowledge, and they fit the “blending” teaching paradigm:

    • If asking them to recognize – consider an online quiz that focuses on verification, matching, or forced choice, to be taken prior to coming to class.
    • If asking them to recall – consider online quiz questions that focus on low cues or high cues.
    • If asking them to interpret or exemplify – consider an online quiz that focuses on constructed responses or selected responses.
    • If asking them to infer – consider questions that focus on verification, matching, or forced choice.
    • If asking them to explain – consider questions where students must reason, troubleshoot, redesign, or predict.

    What are some effective classroom strategies to engage students in higher-level learning?

    • Muddiest point
      • Have your students bring a list of points they’d like to have clarified to class
        • Alternatively, have them post them to a discussion board
      • Address these points first before moving on to other learning activity
    • Group discussions
      • Students discuss/clarify muddiest points in groups
    • Group presentations
      • Have students teach what they learned
    • Knowledge Demonstration
      • Let the students demonstrate what they have learned

    Is flipping right for me?
    The real question is whether or not flipping is right for your students. One of the big advantages of flipping is that it gives students more control over their learning as they guide the classroom activity with their questions. Another is the opportunity it provides instructors to review their teaching methods. After considering your options, you may decide that flipped instruction does not provide any advantages. However, keep in mind that this is not an all-or-nothing proposition. You may determine that some material in your course is suitable for flipping, while some still require more of a hands-on approach. In either case, you’ll have reflected on how you are teaching and that is always a good thing. (Trach, 2020)

    If you’d like to talk about group work with a member of the Coulter Faculty Common, click here to schedule a consultation.

    Sources

    Barkley, Elizabeth F., and Claire H. Major. Learning Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/hunter-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4205832.

    Bergmann, J., & Sams, A. (2007). Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day. International Society for Tech in Ed. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/hunter-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3317690

    Hertz, M. B. (2012, July 10). The Flipped Classroom: Pro and Con. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/flipped-classroom-pro-and-con-mary-beth-hertz

    Trach, E. (2020, January 1). A Beginner’s Guide to Flipped Classroom. https://www.schoology.com/blog/flipped-classroom

    Halting Plagiarism before it Starts: Teaching Strategies

    by | Nov 11, 2021 | Blog, Student Engagement, Teaching and Learning

    In a previous blog post, I made a brief case for not using plagiarism detection software. I also argued that we could partially resolve some of our concerns about plagiarism by designing writing assignments that offer authentic writing challenges related to our fields of study.

    In this blog, I want to go one step further and suggest that we can design writing assignments and processes that privilege student learning first, with the happy side-effect of also preventing plagiarism! We can even do so in ways that meaningfully integrate writing into your current courses without significant displacement of other content, or without over-taxing your already over-taxed time and energy.

    Design a Process that is Hard to Fake

    Copy and pasting from Google or an article isn’t the real plagiarism problem we face. The real issue is the essay mill industry that is churning out essays for students to purchase and pass off as their own (something plagiarism detection software can’t help us with, by the way). That industry flourishes because finalized writing is easy to fake.

    The more generic or stock the assignment, the easier it is to fake. Likewise, the less involved the composing process is, the easier the final draft is to fake. It is difficult to reverse-engineer a purchased essay so that it looks like it went through a specific series of revisions. For instance, you can make the “Literature Review” and the “Discussion” section of a report due as separate assignments; you could have the “Methodology” section be composed alongside a series of focused activities. You can even set the expectation that students do revisions between those drafts and the final and write a reflection explaining how and why the text has changed as they worked on it.

    A process-based approach also opens the opportunity to address accidental plagiarism as a moment of learning. If I see a student has dropped in a quote without attribution and we are still at the rough draft stage, it is a good point to explain both the ethics and the written conventions of attribution.

    What if I Don’t Have Time to “Teach Writing”?

    One counterpoint I have particular sympathy for is “I don’t have time or space in my curriculum to teach writing.” I get it. As a writing teacher, I know how labor-intensive a process-based pedagogy can be. Time and labor are precious resources to academics of all ranks.

    However, keep in mind that teaching writing is teaching how to think in your field. It works best alongside the intellectual process of engaging work in your field, not as a final product at the end. If you are teaching students how to take fields notes to integrate into a larger research project, you are teaching writing. If you’re teaching students how to analyze the sections of a lab report, you are teaching writing.

    Additionally, consider the following time-saving teaching practices:

    Rubrics as Reflection Tools:
    Teachers often present rubrics to students as assessment tools—”these are the criteria by which you will be judged.” Personally, I love rubrics and find them invaluable to teaching writing. But we miss a real opportunity when students only see them as the medium through which a grade arrives in their inbox.

    A good rubric is primarily a reflection tool. Alternately, a bad rubric assigns points only to formal characteristics of the text–commas, paragraph length, thesis statement, citations, etc.— that don’t help writers learn how to write.

    Instead, you can design your rubrics to name the several rhetorical goals or written conventions of a text—synthesizing research, integrating evidence, analyzing data, considering audience expectations, etc. Then the evaluative criteria in your rubric become points of reflection as students compose. Midway through a process, you can ask students to use a well-designed rubric to self-assess their own writing and identify specific places for revision.

    You can also design short in-class or online modules around those specific elements of the rubric. We can even assign reflective writing, in advance of a deadline, that asks students to use our rubrics to self-assess a draft and locate specific areas for revision.

    Peer Review

    Sometimes the best advice comes from others doing similar work. Though detailed written or recorded feedback on student writing is of inestimable value to student writers, there are ways to center lessons on written conventions specific to your field.

    One thing you might do is a model in class and discuss some of the written conventions the model is doing well; then have students work in groups to offer feedback on the use of those conventions. For instance, if there are specific conventions for writing methodology sections in your field, you can (a) assign a draft of just that session to be due on a certain date; (b) in class, point out some of the rhetorical purposes of that section that are specific to your field; (c) outline some of those conventions together; (d) briefly discuss why those conventions exist, and then (e) ask students to read each other’s drafts and give feedback along those lines.

    Design Mini-Lessons on Writing

    You don’t have to set aside entire class meetings to teach writing effectively.

    When I am reading drafts of student writing, I often notice that multiple people are making the same missteps. In those cases, I stop commenting on it. You can really exhaust yourself by trying to give everyone the same feedback (or by playing copyeditor instead of guide).

    In those cases, I tell myself: “That’s a lesson.” If you notice that a majority of students are placing a period in the wrong place in APA citations, then take 5 minutes to point it out, have them open their drafts, and look for the issue; if you notice that many students are engaging audiences in ways that would be considered unprofessional by peers in your field, design a short activity to model why that convention exists, what it looks like, then have them open their drafts (or even share drafts with each other) to look for it.

    If you feel like your in-class time is so jam-packed you can’t set aside a few moments to discuss writing, then also consider designing online modules that ask students to complete distinct process steps related to the revisions you would like to see in their writing. For instance, consider creating a homework module with a short video explaining the rhetorical goals of the section that needs work, design one or two process activities that ask students to complete distinct process steps related to the revisions you would like to see, and even require a short reflection so that you can respond to questions or confusions (especially if you don’t have the capacity to respond to each draft individually).

    Further Reading:

    Anti-Plagiarism Strategies for Research Papers (2020) Rober Harris, VirtualSalt – http://www.virtualsalt.com/anti-plagiarism-strategies-for-research-papers/

    Rubrics (nd.) Berkeley Center for Teaching & Learning – https://teaching.berkeley.edu/resources/improve/evaluate-course-level-learning/rubrics

     

     

     

    Plagiarism as Pedagogical Question

    by | Nov 9, 2021 | Blog

    Think back to a piece of writing you produced that makes you proud. It could be an academic article, a grant proposal, a job application. I imagine it makes you proud because it was an experience that involved hard, engaged work. I bet it also gives you a strong sense of confidence in your ideas and professional identity.

    I also bet you stole it.

    Let those words linger a minute. Of course, I bet you didn’t steal it. But imagine that, when you submitted that piece of writing, someone said that you did.

    Why You Shouldn’t Use Plagiarism Detection Software

    I get the case for using plagiarism detection software. The argument typically goes: plagiarism threatens the value we place on critical thinking and undermines the reputation of an institution. I don’t take exception with much in that argument, except that it has at its core a big assumption: students are cheaters.

    Scholars in my field of Rhetoric and Writing often condemn the use of plagiarism detection software. The Composition Program at the University of Louisville offers a detailed case for why, and I would encourage you to read it. Here, I would like to emphasize two points:

    1. Plagiarism detection software damages the student/teacher relationship from the outset.

    If you felt defensive at my earlier suggestion that you stole your writing, imagine how your students feel (regularly) when they see plagiarism software statements on our syllabi. Such statements are not challenges to innovate, to create, to synthesize, to critique and advance; they aren’t invitations to explore the course content in ways that matter to them. Instead, they say “Writing is a proving ground, like a test, and you better get it right.” How we talk about plagiarism matters.

    I mean, look at the names for some of these services: TurnitIn (an emphatic command), Safe Assign (your writing is “unsafe” and we must purge it before acceptance), and Ouriginal (you must generate original ideas that humanity has never considered before, that critical thinking is always revealed in totally novel expression). It is difficult to establish meaningful student/teacher relationships if they feel we look at them this way, and I don’t think we want our institution to have the reputation of seeing students these ways.

    1. The use of plagiarism detection software is ethically dubious.

    Not only are students often forced to submit their own intellectual work to a privately-owned database, but essay mills use such services to guarantee that the writing they sell customers will pass a detection test. That means that professors across the country are essentially underwriting plagiarism by helping to create a comprehensive database that helps essay mills do it better. In an effort to alleviate our concerns about plagiarism in the present, we may be making the entire activity harder to detect (I have no evidence that is the case with Ouriginal, though the service does allow individual users to set up paid accounts).

    If the two propositions above are so, then our use of these services are not ethically neutral.

    I will go into more detail about pedagogical alternatives in another blog post, but let’s start with re-thinking our approach to student writing.

    Offer Authentic Rhetorical Challenges

    Rhetoric is thinking artfully (making intentional decisions) and ethically (considering the consequences of our language use on real audiences) about our communication. Our students will never face generic writing situations beyond the classroom. Writing is used to solve problems, to convey critical information, and to develop innovative ideas. When we think of student writing as proving grounds, we offer generic assignments that I would argue are a-rhetorical. Students aren’t making intentional decisions as writers, and they aren’t thinking about the impact of their words for real audiences—they are just trying to get the right answer.

    In their 1991 book, Situated Learning, Lave and Wenger forward the idea of “legitimate peripheral participation.” They developed the concept through observing various traditional apprenticeship practices. For instance, the shoemaker’s apprentice doesn’t start out on day one cutting leather; instead, they may sweep around the shop and do other tasks that are not shoe-making, but they do complete tasks that legitimately engage the situation in which shoes are made. Over time, through exposure and guidance, they learn more about the direct act of production.

    Our students would benefit if we thought of our writing assignments as apprenticeship. Students can’t write SOAP notes without actual clients to work with, but how can you create scenarios that model the rhetorical challenge in those situations? Students may not yet be able to offer a full dietary plan to a patient, but can they use writing to research the processes they should use in doing so? Students can’t write a police report, but what intellectual inquiry could you design to have them analyze and understand the written conventions of such documents?

    Here’s the point: if we offer authentic rhetorical tasks for our students, they will be more engaged in their learning and it will be harder to plagiarize. It is difficult to get an essay mill to write something that engages a hyper-local problem, or that practices specific written conventions of professional genres.

    In thinking of student writing as apprenticeship, we resist plagiarism and begin to respect our students’ writing as legitimate inquiry—as a real part of the work in our fields.

    Further Reading:

    Policy Against the Use of Plagiarism Detection Software (2009) University of Louisville Department of English – https://louisville.edu/english/composition/policy-against-the-use-of-plagiarism-detection-software.html

    Playing with Plagiarism: Remixing What Sticks (2014)  Dustin Edwards, Harlot of the Hearts – http://harlotofthearts.org/index.php/harlot/article/view/205/143http://harlotofthearts.org/index.php/harlot/article/view/205/143

    A Final Nail in the Coffin for Turnitin? (2019). Inside Higher Education – https://www.insidehighered.com/blo.gs/just-visiting/final-nail-coffin-turnitin

    The 2021 Last Lecture

    by | Nov 3, 2021 | Blog, Student Engagement, Teaching and Learning

    The 2021 LAST LECTURE – Dr. Candy Noltensmeyer, Communication Department

    Dr. Candy Noltensmeyer

    WCU students vote to determine the Student-Nominated Faculty of the Year Award, the recipient of which delivers a “Last Lecture” of her own during the following academic year. This year’s Last Lecture will be presented by Dr. Candy Noltensmeyer, Associate Professor in Communication.

    The “Last Lecture” series began at Carnegie Mellon University with Randy Pausch’s inspirational lecture in 2007 about achieving childhood dreams. Pausch’s last lecture became a reality because he developed pancreatic cancer and passed away. Years later, the “Last Lecture” became a common award to professors on college campuses across the country.

    Dr. Noltensmeyer is a relational scholar whose research focuses on communicative dynamics in cultural competence, bias, feedback, social support, stigma, and sexuality.  She teaches a variety of courses in human communication focusing on theory, research methods, health, sexuality, interpersonal and small group concepts.

    Recognizing that every classroom is a unique culture, Dr. Noltensmeyer believes that building a positive classroom climate is imperative to fostering engaged learning opportunities.  Students need spaces to learn and talk through their ideas.  She also believes in applied learning, especially when it comes to communication. She uses a variety of activities and focused discussions to engage students with the material to foster a student-centered classroom. She works hard to make her classrooms inclusive and safe for everyone.

    Dr. Noltensmeyer will present her “last lecture” on the interconnectedness between our relationships and communication.  Her lecture will take place on Thursday, November 18th at 5:30pm in the University Center (UC) Theatre. It is open to everyone. A reception will follow.

    New Canvas Features for October 2021

    New Canvas Features for October 2021

    by | Oct 26, 2021 | Blog, Canvas, O365, Student Engagement, Student Performance, Teaching and Learning, Teaching with Technology

    Canvas at WCUCanvas New Features
    October 2021

    Canvas provides updates to the platform every month without disruption to service. Some of them are minor fixes and others provide additional features and functionality to users.  As we reach the middle of the first full semester with Canvas we thought we’d highlight for you some of the most recent updates that may make your work in the online learning environment more efficient and effective.

    New Feature Details

    Navigation Menus will be “Sticky”

    In the past, the left-hand navigation items would scroll with the page so that users would have to scroll back up to navigate.  With this change, the navigation menu will “stick”, making the menu visible at all times without having to scroll.

    SpeedGrader: Ability to Edit Submission Status

    The SpeedGrader sidebar now includes an Edit icon that can be used to change submission status for assignments. Status can be edited the same way as was previously only available in the Gradebook. Adjusting a status in SpeedGrader, will, of course, also update the Gradebook.

    Some details about Status

    • Setting the status to missing will add a “missing” label. This additional signal could be used to help nudge students toward the completion of assignments.
    • If a late policy is enabled, setting the status to late displays the “late” label. Additionally, a text field allows the grader to enter a value for the days/hours late.
    • Setting the status to “excused” displays the Excused status, and the grade field displays as “EX” and is grayed-out, and will not be counted in the total for that assignment category. (The excused function will not work well if you are using total points and not using the assignment category weighting).
    • Setting the status to “None” removes any labels that were previously displayed for the assignment.

    Figure A: SpeedGrader Status Edit Menu Examples

    The Edit Status icon is not displayed in the following assignment scenarios:

    • Previously submitted submissions (only the most recent submission is supported)
    • Concluded user enrollments
    • Inactive student enrollments
    • Assignments that require moderated grading
    • Assignments in a closed grading period

    Gradebook: Assignment Search

    Another updated feature is the addition of a search field in the Gradebook that can search for assignment names.  This gives instructors another way to sort and control their workflow.  This allows for a search of student names as well in a separate search box.

    Improved Navigation for Course Notification Customization

    Canvas allows users to customize their notification preferences for their entire account and to create special notifications for specific courses.  For example, an instructor might choose to create a more frequent notification schedule for a fully online course than for a course that is only offered face-to-face.  In the past, making granular course level changes took going deeper into the course settings.  Now course notification preferences can be customized on the main notifications page using a drop-down menu.

    Please note: Students are also able to set their own notifications per course. If you are using notifications to students as a strategy for engaging them, make sure to specify how they should set their notifications for your course so they are not missing out on communication from you.

    Figure B: Notifications Page screenshot

    User Settings: Microsoft Immersive Reader Additional Feature Areas

    To help engage students at all levels of learning and with all learning differences, we have long advised the use of the accessibility checker in the Canvas page editor.  Our Microsoft 365 account and the Canvas integration now enable a new tool that allows any user to use the Microsoft Immersive Reader to use the Microsoft AI to give students more options for accessible use of content. Students will have this option visible on their screens so they can use it when they need to.

    Figure C: New Immersive Reader Button

    If you really want to stay up-to-date with Canvas’ new features, become an insider by subscribing to Canvas Releases in the Canvas Community.

    Or Feel Free to Watch the Highlight Videos for Each of These Updates

    Release Screencast: 2021-10-16 Navigation (Sticky Navigation Menu)

    Release Screencast: 2021-10-16 SpeedGrader (Submission Status Label Edits)

    Release Screencast: 2021-10-16 Gradebook (Assignment Search)

    Release Screencast: 2021-10-16 Notifications (Course Customization)

    Release Screencast: 2021-10-16 User Settings (Microsoft Immersive Reader Additional Feature Areas)