How can we Improve Packback Questions?
Packback's product team wants to hear your suggestions about how we can make Packback Questions more useful, friendly, and curiosity-inspiring!
Here's what each of the statuses below mean:
Under Consideration: We are aware of this suggestion and agree that it could be valuable, but are still gathering data.
Planned: This suggestion is in our product backlog and is planned for release in the next 3-6 months.
Not Planned: Based on our product purpose and current team resources, we do not expect this suggestion to be worked on in the next 6 months.
Done: This improvement is now live in Packback Questions!
Please note: This list does not reflect Packback's full roadmap; the list below is limited to improvements and iteration on existing features in the Packback Questions platform. Large-scale features are not included here.
Separate Deadlines for Questions and Responses
Allow for separate deadlines for questions and responses. There is often a concern that people will wait until the last minute to ask questions and this could help ...
Under consideration
Abilty to organize questions by modules (or chapters/units), not purely by time
I love Packback but I'm really struggling with the inability to have different modules separated so all posts are on the same unit/topic.
I need an option that is ...
Planned
General User Experience
Reminder notification to students to complete their posts before the deadline if they haven't yet
This suggestion is to send a reminder alert by email and in-app to students ~1 day before their weekly course deadline to complete their Packback practice work, if ...
Under consideration
Emails & Notifications
Support two different deadline times on the Automated Gradebook when there is >1 deadline per week.
Instructors can currently enter 1 or more deadline into the automated report per week but both are locked to the same deadline time (e.g. Wednesday and Sunday at ...
Under consideration
Professor Tools
Allow instructors to easily transfer instructor-selected questions from one course to the next.
This request is to make the process of setting up a new community easier by allowing instructors to keep a list of desired questions that can be easily populated from ...
Planned
Professor Tools
Allowing professors to have access to which posts were moderated
Under consideration
Allow instructors to require specific formatting for Citations
Add a tool like easy bib which could check that students follow guidelines for the citation requirements their professor set
Under consideration
Discussion Features
Introduce "Topic" tagging on posts to make it possible to navigate the main feed by topic.
This suggestion is to add the ability for posts to be tagged by topic (e.g. "Chapter 1" or "Mitosis"), and enable navigation/search in the community by topic. ...
Under consideration
General User Experience
Indicate which students have had Featured Posts
I try to distribute the Featured Posts across students so that all are getting praise over the course of the term. My suggestion is to create an easier way to see ...
Under consideration
Introduce a Packback native application for iphone / android.
This suggestion is to launch a Packback 'app' for download onto mobile and tablet devices.
Not planned
Add support for multiple citations with a separate field for each citation.
Right now, students may cite multiple citations using commas to separate their citations.
This suggestion is to allow multiple citations to be added, each in ...
Planned
Discussion Features
Add a word cloud that shows the key terms most commonly used in questions.
I suggest adding an automatically generated cloud/chart that shows which terms showed up in students' questions during a given date range and gives a general ...
Under consideration
Rework the Learner Leaderboard to make it motivating for all students
I like the sense of competition with the leaderboard, but it makes some students (like the international students) feel bad when they are at the bottom. Plus, some ...
Under consideration
Leaderboard & Gamification
Fully custom deadline time
I've had a couple of professors reach out about being able to set the deadline so that their students are able to post a moment before class. Right now our platform ...
Not planned
Allow multiple pinned posts
This will allow for dual threads where students can supply counter/supporting points. This was also recommended by 2-3 professors.
Not planned
Update the Learner Leaderboard to reset rankings weekly (by default).
Currently, the Learner Leaderboard shows an "all-time" ranking only.
This suggestion is to add an additional leaderboard sort option for "This Deadline Period" ...
Under consideration
Leaderboard & Gamification
Add an option to leave private "Praise" Custom Feedback.
Packback's current paradigm is to make Coaching feedback private, and Praise feedback public- to allow all learners in a community to see and learn from an ...
Under consideration
Professor Tools
Do not include instructor in the Packback Participation reports
I do not need to record or upload my instructor Packback scores to Canvas. But if I forget to delete the row for my information (when I edit the report in Excel ...
Under consideration
Professor Tools
Option to schedule the post of an instructor question such that it auto-posts at a given time/date
Be able to make questions ahead of time and schedule them for a certain time to be released, so students can know when an instructor question will be posted reliably ...
Done
Allow users to merge 2 accounts and/or connect multiple school emails to the same account.
When students have multiple emails for the same school, or have been enrolled at multiple institutions while using Packback, accounts are currently tied to a single ...
Under consideration
Account Settings
Hiding the Learner Leaderboard from students
Making it possible to hide or disable the Learner Leaderboard if professors don't want the students competing with one another.
Under consideration
Allow responses to supporting and counter points
I would like to be able to respond to responses, and for students to do the same. That way, a back-and-forth conversation can emerge more easily, rather than ...
Under consideration
Ability to give Packback assignments a name/title
Currently, Packback grading periods are only identified by a date range. We could potentially let professors choose a title/topic name for each grading period.
Under consideration
Allow me to generate a report on my own, based on my own parameters
I want to be able to do boolean searches on various fields to build my own report. Here are examples of fields to make available:
1) Number of sparks received for ...
Under consideration
Freeze header row on the Participation Report
When you are grading and scrolling through the students in the report, the headers scroll out of view, making it difficult to tell what each column refers to. Freeze ...
Under consideration
Professor Tools
Automated reference checker
Whenever a student is creating a post, whether a question or response, it would be beneficial for the student to be able to select the reference style they are using ...
Under consideration
Allow support for direct uploading of videos and images into posts (Embedding already supported).
Our text editor supports the use of embedded videos, images, and other rich media.
This suggestion is to allow learners to directly upload their own videos and ...
Under consideration
Discussion Features
Provide option to require students to post before seeing other posts for the week
Most LMS discussion boards have an option that requires students to post on a given discussion board before being able to see other posts. I wonder if allowing this ...
Under consideration
Packback Questions Should support Multi-factor Auth
To increase the security of student accounts on Packback Questions, it should support an additional form of authentication, such as two-factor auth.
Under consideration
Account Settings
Manually Override Gradebook
In the event of an outag, an emergency, or even just a sick student, it would be incredibly helpful to be able to manually edit a students' grade within Packback. ...
Done
View the entirety of each student's threads (question and replies) on one scrollable page.
Currently, we have to click the student's names in the grade book to access their posts. We then must click "View Post" to see the entire thread, including the ...
Under consideration
Allow Instructors to choose when the Curious Reader's Digest is sent out.
Professor Feedback:
If faculty can choose what day the Curious Reader Digest gets submitted, it could be a lot more helpful. For my students, very few students ...
Under consideration
Validate citations upon posting
Curiosity points seem to be awarded for any value entered into the citation field. Packback should verify citations upon submission. Instructors should be given the ...
Planned
Add "response to professor's question" option in the gradebook
Instructors requiring students to respond to their question at some point during the semester, currently have no way of checking who did it and who didn't by looking ...
Under consideration
Allow for "make up" work
It would be useful to be able to identify make-up work in the grade book. Right now, when I assign make-up work, I have to manually identify that the student did ...
Planned
Add filter "unread."
An unread filter could show posts that the user hasn't read through yet. This could help us interact with new material easily.
Under consideration
Improve the experience of adding "Seeded" posts to communities.
Seeded posts are example posts that instructors can search for and add to their communities to "seed" the discussion with some excellent examples and ensure the first ...
Planned
Professor Tools
Organize discussions by topic rather than interval
I'd like to be able to list the topics students are to discuss rather than the dates. This would give students the message that it is learning the content of the ...
Under consideration
Sliding scale for CP
A professor suggested that we allow a range of CPs to award points like this:
Curiosity score <55 = 1 point
Score 55-70 = 2 points
Score 71-100 = 3 points ...
Under consideration
Add Additional Stats to the Custom Date Range Report
The Custom Reports feature gives a lot of great stats about the community. But more would be helpful to help gauge involvement over time, and perhaps even allow us ...
Under consideration
One-Page Drop-Down of "View Post" Feature
Currently, when we want to view an entire post, we need to click "View Post" and then a new window opens up. After reading the post, we must navigate back to the ...
Planned
Expand/collapse format for discussions
When responding to a question, you'd then have to click twice to get back to the main community discussion. This could be an issue when pages took a while to load. An ...
Planned
Deep Dives - Create Tables
Professor would like students to be able to create charts and tables in Deep Dives.
Under consideration
Provide a method to know when a moderated post has been edited and reposted.
When I moderate a post, it would be helpful to know when the student has reposted with an edit so I can check the student actually made the required changes.
Under consideration
Auto-moderate posts containing gibberish
Students posting nonsensical words or using Loren Ipsum text should be auto-moderated. One student wrote a post that was relevant for the first 1.5 paragraphs, but ...
Under consideration
Display alert for post that was previously moderated for course team
Create a badge (like the coaching hand) that shows the course team a post that was previously moderated, and republished. That way they can review more closely to ...
Under consideration
Allow users to include and display pronouns on their Packback accounts
With an option for them not to display them at all if that is more comfortable for them
Under consideration
Create penality for students who plagiarize multiple times in 1 term
Students who are moderated for plagiarism, say, 5x or more should face some form of penalty in either being temporarily removed from the community pending professor ...
Under consideration
Alert student before post submission that their post doesn't meet the minimum Curiosity Score
It would be helpful for me and my students if there was an alert, when students were crafting their submission, that their post doesn't meet the minimum Curiosity ...
Under consideration
Allow the deleting of a Packback Avatar from an account, so users can return to the default avatar.
As a user, I want to be able to delete my avatar from the Edit Avatars page, so I can choose to go back to a placeholder image if I so choose.
Done
Account Settings