Useful new feature in our Canvas instance!

GCC faculty will be seeing a new feature called the Student Context Card in Canvas on Thursday, April 11. This feature provides an quick glance of your student’s interactions with your course, their current grade, and a handy link to start a new Inbox conversation with them. Best of all, you can see this information without leaving your current task in Canvas. From the Gradebook, the People page, Discussion replies, or almost anywhere you see a student’s name as a blue link, you can click the student name to see a snapshot of that student in context.

What can I see at a glance?

Take a look at what information is available at a glance:

1. Profile picture: If your student has uploaded a profile image, you’ll see it here. You can click the picture to go to the student’s user details page.
    
2. Student name: Click to access the student’s user profile page.
    
3. Mail icon: Click to send an Inbox message directly to the student from the context card.
    
4. Course name and section: The section name is only included for courses with multiple sections (i.e. cross-listed courses).
    
5. Last login: The student’s last Canvas login is displayed (unless the student has never logged in). If the login was on the current date, the card only displays the time. If the login was within the current week, the card displays the day of the week. Any later logins display the full date.
    
6. Grades button: Link to the student’s grades page.
    
7. Analytics button: Click to access the student’s analytics page (button is only available to users with permission to view course analytics).
    
8. Current grade: The student’s current grade displays as shown in the Gradebook according to your course grading scheme. (This grade does not adjust for any muted assignments in the Gradebook.)
    
9. Missing assignments: Missing assignments are based on course analytics data for online submission assignments in Canvas. For assignments not submitted online, calculations may not be entirely accurate as they are attempted based on the assignment’s grade and when the assignment was graded.
    
10. Late assignments: Late assignments are based on assignment due date.
     
11. Last Graded Items: Displays a maximum of the student’s last 10 recently graded assignments along with the assignment’s grade (shown according to grading scheme, or as points if the grading scheme does not fit in the window). To view submission details for the assignment, click the graded item.
     
12. (Hover) Assignment Name: To view the name of an assignment, hover over a graded item.
     
13. Participation: Displays the student’s participation compared to other students in the course (calculated based on standard deviation, not meant to be an exact comparison).
     
14. Page views: Displays the student’s page views to other students in the course (calculated based on standard deviation, not meant to be an exact comparison).

Examples of why this is awesome:

This feature is really designed to allow faculty to “multitask” within Canvas. Think about your daily tasks versus how Canvas is compartmentalized. This feature will eliminate a bunch of mouse clicks or navigation taps.

For example, you might be following a discussion, or grading it, when you come upon a student response that you’d prefer to address privately instead of within the discussion forum. Instead of leaving the discussion to go to the Inbox, you can click the linked student name in their discussion reply to open the Student Context Card, then click the Mail icon to send the student and Inbox message. You never leave the discussion page, so there is no need to navigate back before you can resume your primary task.

Another example: you could be in the Gradebook entering scores for a recent assignment. When you reach the row for a particular student you might notice their overall course grade is suffering. Click their name, and you might see they haven’t logged in for over a week, or you might see low participation and page views compared to the rest of the class. Right there, you can click the Mail icon and send an Inbox message to check in with the student, and then dismiss the Card and keep entering grades.

How will you use Student Context Cards?

We can think of other examples, but we’d rather hear from you. Try out the Student Context Card and let us know how you will use it in your Canvas courses by leaving us a comment on this post!