Canvas SpeedGrader Comment Library
- Maria Shimel
- Maddie Heaton
Summer 2021 New Feature! The SpeedGrader Comment Library allows you to save comments to a library and to reuse them easily and consistently across students when providing feedback with SpeedGrader.
Instructions
Add Comments to the Library
Before you can quickly use comments, you will need to add them to your library. You cannot add an already-typed submission comment to the library. To manage your comment library:
Log into Canvas, navigate to a course, select an assignment and go to SpeedGrader for any assignment.
Click on the Comment Library symbol in the upper right-hand corner above the submission comment box SpeedGrader.
The Speedgrader Comment Library will open in place of the right panel of SpeedGrader. At the bottom of the panel type your comment to save in the + Add to Library button text box at the bottom of the comment library panel.
You can also edit or delete comments from this panel.
If you toggle Show suggestions while typing then Canvas will search your Speedgrader Comment Library while you are typing a submission comment. If it finds any comments with the words you have typed, it will display them for quick selection without opening the comment library.
Remember, select “submit” to save the comment.
Click the left arrow at the top left of the panel to close it once you are done saving comments to the library for now. (You can always add more later.)
From there, you can use any comments from your library while grading assignments.
Things to Know about the Speedgrader Comment Area:
Only one saved comment can be used at a time. If you would like to use multiple saved comments, you can click on one from the library, then click Submit to save that comment (you may edit it first), and then repeat to apply multiple saved comments from the library.
This feature only works in SpeedGrader submission comments. (It is not available in gradebook comments or in annotation comment boxes, though that has been requested as a future enhancement.)
Idea: Use the comment library for annotation comments, but cut them from the submission comment box and paste them into your annotation comments.
Comments are saved per-instructor, and not per-course. Instructors can easily reuse comments between courses, but multiple graders in one course cannot share the same comment library.
Idea: Create a Google Doc with Comments that each person can copy and paste in their library.
The comments are plain text only.
Instructrors may need to resize the panes in SpeedGrader to make the right pane bigger in conjunction with the comment library. To do this, click on the line separating the document view and the right pane and drag it to resize the windows. Your cursor should change when you are pointing at the line.