a collection of icons related to academic technologies on a blue background.

Feedback Box

LTI Tool to improve faculty-to-student communications

Feedback Box

To help improve faculty-to-student communications, “Feedback Box” is available in Canvas. The “Feedback Box” is a simple LTI plug-in that lets students send safe, anonymous feedback to professors anytime during the course.

Feedback Box logoTo help improve faculty-to-student communications, the LTI plug-in Feedback Box lets students send safe, anonymous feedback through Canvas to professors anytime. Students can message their faculty anonymously and confidentially to voice concerns about issues in the classroom and allow the faculty member to respond, all while protecting the privacy of the student.

The faculty member can receive suggestions about speed, tone of voice, overall classroom presence, and even encouragement without waiting until the semester's end via course evaluations. While the course evaluations are helpful, getting that feedback can also be too late to solve any problems voiced by students while enrolled in the course. This kind of communication can also improve students' engagement, especially if they perceive they cannot speak openly in class, as students cannot view one another's Feedback Box submissions.

Get Started

Students

  1. Click the Sign In button above to sign in to the Canvas LMS.
  2. Select the course.
  3. Select the “Feedback Box” in the course navigation.
    screenshot of Feedback Box selected in Canvas
  4. Enter your anonymous feedback. 
    Screenshot of where to provide feedback in the Feedback Box tool.
  5. Click Submit.
    Screenshot of how to submit feedback in the Feedback Box tool.
  6. Once the feedback is submitted, the faculty member will receive an email alerting them of any student feedback.

To view a reply from the instructor, click on View Replies in the Feedback Box section.
screenshot of how to review a Feedback Box reply.

Faculty

  1. Click the Sign In button above to sign in to the Canvas LMS.
  2. Select the course.
  3. Select Feedback Box in the side menu.
    screenshot of Feedback Box selected in Canvas
  4. Review any submissions.
    screenshot of review feedback in Feedback Box
  5. You can choose to:
    • Reply to the message.
    • Mark it for review by clicking the Report Abuse button.
      screenshot of how to report abuse in Feedback Box within Canvas.
  6. The student will receive a notification when their message receives a reply.

For faculty wanting to use Feedback Box, we recommend announcing the feature in class or as an announcement within Canvas. We also suggest prompting the students with the type of feedback they can provide.

Using Feedback Box

Instructure, the parent company of Canvas, hosted Feedback Box for a short webinar in 2017. They discussed the value of immediate student feedback, walked through the simple functionality, and discussed the overwhelmingly positive use cases to date.