This month’s highlights are our enablement of DesignPLUS QuickStart Wizard, Discussion Checkpoints, and Preserve Group Sets for all courses and the availability of the Enhanced Rubrics and updated SpeedGrader feature options.
We enabled the DesignPLUS QuickStart Wizard by CidiLabs Thursday, August 7, 2025. This tool makes it easy for teachers to turn blank pages into stylish templates. Our first templates are front pages and module overview pages in three styles. Please visit our DesignPLUS support page for more information.
We enabled the Discussion Checkpoints feature option Tuesday, August 12, 2025. Discussion Checkpoints let teachers give separate points and due dates for students’ first responses and additional replies (to one another). To set up Checkpoints, teacher can check an “Assign graded checkpoints” box after checking the “Graded” box in a discussion’s options.
We also enabled the Preserve Group Set During Assignment or Discussion Copy feature option. This feature does what it says – when it is enabled in the destination course for a course copy, Canvas preserves the group set names and links to group assignments and discussions. (Without this feature, all group assignments and discussions are linked to one Project Groups set.) But note, Canvas does not preserve the group names inside the sets.
We unlocked, but did not enable, the course-level Enhanced Rubrics feature option. In the 2025-26 academic year, Instructure will continue to implement features and address known issues of this successor to the classic Rubrics tool we have used for years. Teachers can enable this preview feature course-by-course in the Settings page’s Feature options tab. Click here to read the Enhanced Rubrics product manager’s explanation of their plans for the tool.
The Performance and Usability Upgrades for SpeedGrader course-level feature option is also unlocked but disabled at this time. Instructure engineers are working on this new version of SpeedGrader with a fresh code base designed to work faster in courses with high enrollment. It remains a feature preview at this time, and posts in the Community feature user group indicate some known issues that remain to be addressed. A post by the product manager for rubrics and SpeedGrader suggests that the Enhanced Rubrics interface works best with the new SpeedGrader feature preview.
Click here for the list of Canvas release notes. The full notes contain more details, links to screencasts, and feature Q&A discussions. You may log in to the Canvas Community to post.
Header photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash