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 ...
Suggested by: Rakeeta Hampton (24 Jun, '20) Upvoted: 11 May, '23 Comments: 10
Done

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 ...
Suggested by: Katharine Rumrill-Teece (09 Jan, '20) Upvoted: 11 May, '23 Comments: 9

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 ...
Suggested by: Jessica Tenuta (21 Nov, '19) Upvoted: 08 Nov, '23 Comments: 4
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 ...
Suggested by: Jessica Tenuta (14 Nov, '19) Upvoted: 30 Sep, '23 Comments: 2

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 ...
Suggested by: Jessica Tenuta (21 Nov, '19) Upvoted: 18 Dec, '23 Comments: 1
Planned Professor Tools

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
Suggested by: Scott Phillips (25 Nov, '19) Upvoted: 09 Nov, '23 Comments: 4
Under consideration Discussion Features

Allowing professors to have access to which posts were moderated

Suggested by: Grace (24 Jun, '20) Upvoted: 07 Feb Comments: 9
Under consideration

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 ...
Suggested by: Jaclyn Jensen (19 Feb, '20) Upvoted: 18 Dec, '23 Comments: 3
Under consideration

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. ...
Suggested by: Jessica Tenuta (14 Nov, '19) Upvoted: 04 Aug, '23 Comments: 0
Under consideration General User Experience

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 ...
Suggested by: Jessica Tenuta (14 Nov, '19) Upvoted: 09 Nov, '23 Comments: 1

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 ...
Suggested by: Jessica Tenuta (14 Nov, '19) Upvoted: 15 Feb Comments: 0
Under consideration Account Settings

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 ...
Suggested by: Kim Hammett (14 Jun, '21) Upvoted: 09 Nov, '23 Comments: 0
Under consideration

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" ...
Suggested by: Jessica Tenuta (14 Nov, '19) Upvoted: 11 May, '23 Comments: 0
Under consideration Leaderboard & Gamification

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.
Suggested by: Kathryn Stegeman (03 Dec, '20) Upvoted: 30 Sep, '23 Comments: 2
Under consideration

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 ...
Suggested by: Molly Martin (04 Dec, '19) Upvoted: 01 Nov, '23 Comments: 1
Under consideration Professor Tools

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.
Suggested by: Packback Professor Suggestion (23 Jun, '20) Upvoted: 08 Nov, '23 Comments: 1
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 ...
Suggested by: Lindsay Tan (24 Sep, '20) Upvoted: 08 Sep, '23 Comments: 0
Planned

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 ...
Suggested by: Stan K (27 Nov, '19) Upvoted: 11 May, '23 Comments: 1
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 ...
Suggested by: Lacy Ferrell (04 Mar, '20) Upvoted: 02 Dec, '22 Comments: 2
Under consideration

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 ...
Suggested by: Rita Mitra (14 Apr, '21) Upvoted: 28 Mar, '23 Comments: 1
Not planned

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 ...
Suggested by: Jonathan Phares (05 Feb, '21) Upvoted: 08 Nov, '23 Comments: 0
Planned

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 ...
Suggested by: Paul HIllman (21 Jan, '20) Upvoted: 02 Nov, '22 Comments: 0
Under consideration

• Would be nice if the “back to community” button took us back to the individual section we were jus

• Every time I read a complete post and I want to go back, I press the “back to community” button. • But the problem is that it goes back to ALL my students, not the ...
Suggested by: Marc Magellan (10 Feb, '21) Upvoted: 01 Nov, '23 Comments: 1
Planned

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 ...
Suggested by: Packback Suggestion (16 Dec, '19) Upvoted: 01 Oct, '21 Comments: 1
Under consideration Professor Tools

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 ...
Suggested by: Jessica Tenuta (14 Nov, '19) Upvoted: 25 Mar, '21 Comments: 1
Under consideration Discussion Features

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 ...
Suggested by: Janice (07 Oct, '21) Upvoted: 08 Nov, '23 Comments: 0
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 ...
Suggested by: Christa Hein (02 Apr, '21) Upvoted: 10 Jan, '23 Comments: 0
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.
Suggested by: Craig Booth (30 Dec, '19) Upvoted: 07 Jun, '21 Comments: 3
Under consideration Account Settings

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 ...
Suggested by: Lucia Summers (26 May, '20) Upvoted: 18 Jan, '23 Comments: 2
Planned

Navigation while viewing a post

When I'm in a post I want to go forward or backward to sequentially read posts. This is better than clicking back or returning to the entire list and then clicking again.
Suggested by: Ryan Baxter (19 Mar, '21) Upvoted: 01 Nov, '23 Comments: 1
Under consideration

Add built in infrastructure to do Lab Reports on Deep Dives

I think with some UI switches you could position Deep Dives for lab reports if there were some built in settings or something you could click to indicate it's a lab ...
Suggested by: Daniel Green (05 Apr, '23) Upvoted: 12 Sep, '23 Comments: 0
Under consideration

Allow instructors to send M+M to students with highest growth

Students who have the highest growth %s are already filtered in our EM reports, so this is data we already have and are pulling. It would be really valuable to allow ...
Suggested by: Michelle Barton (21 Feb, '23) Upvoted: 03 Oct, '23 Comments: 0
Under consideration

Deep Dives - Create Tables

Professor would like students to be able to create charts and tables in Deep Dives.
Suggested by: Michelle Fabiani (01 Jul, '22) Upvoted: 13 Jan, '23 Comments: 0
Under consideration

Add fill-in-the-blank feature to Packback Polls

Suggested by: Grace (19 May, '22) Upvoted: 01 Nov, '23 Comments: 0
Under consideration

Be able to make copies of the same poll

Some professors have multiple sections of the same course and resuse polls. They don't want the students to see the prior student's responses, but want them answering ...
Suggested by: Grace (10 Feb, '22) Upvoted: 18 Dec, '23 Comments: 0
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 ...
Suggested by: Anne Olson (26 Jan, '21) Upvoted: 04 Aug, '23 Comments: 0
Under consideration

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 ...
Suggested by: Albert Belllera (21 Jan, '21) Upvoted: 20 Oct, '22 Comments: 0
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 ...
Suggested by: Daniel Green (15 Feb, '22) Upvoted: 02 Jul, '22 Comments: 1
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 ...
Suggested by: Sam Ehrlich (28 Apr, '21) Upvoted: 04 May, '21 Comments: 1
Under consideration

Identify Grading Periods when students post

My students often post too early (or too late!) If you could reword the "Post" button to identify Grading Period, or have another way of reminding them which Grading ...
Suggested by: Anne Quackenbush (23 Feb, '21) Upvoted: 04 Aug, '23 Comments: 1
Planned

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 ...
Suggested by: Rita Mitra (10 Feb, '21) Upvoted: 02 Dec, '21 Comments: 1
Planned

Make text highlighting possible for instructors

Because I select the featured post of the week, and students will be tested on the content, I realized it would be useful to have a highlighting tool where I could ...
Suggested by: Norman Meek (03 Nov, '20) Upvoted: 01 Nov, '23 Comments: 1
Under consideration

Allow professors to schedule polls

Professors want to be able to write polls ahead of time and them release them automatically on a given date (instead of manually making them available).
Suggested by: Michelle Barton (06 Mar, '23) Upvoted: 12 Oct, '23 Comments: 0
Under consideration

Easier way to find great responses

I like that I can sort the Learner Leaderboard to find the best questions. I wish I could do the same for finding responses, since responses are an equally important ...
Suggested by: Isak Beck (02 Jul, '22) Upvoted: 07 Mar Comments: 0
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.
Suggested by: Lynn (26 Oct, '21) Upvoted: 16 Aug, '22 Comments: 0
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 ...
Suggested by: Anne Olson (15 Sep, '21) Upvoted: 16 Aug, '22 Comments: 0
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
Suggested by: Nico Tangorra (10 Sep, '21) Upvoted: 20 Oct, '22 Comments: 0
Under consideration

Differentiate what type of plagiarism students are being moderated for so they know how to edit it

Explain if it's internal plagiarism vs external plagiarism vs majority quoted content. Without the differentiation, it's tough for students to edit properly
Suggested by: Anne (03 Mar, '20) Upvoted: 04 Aug, '23 Comments: 0
Under consideration

Allow for download of participation report to see CS for each individual post by student

Right now when the participation report is downloaded (custom or auto gradebook) - you see average curiosity scores for all posts. What would be more accessible and ...
Suggested by: Kelsey (19 Apr, '21) Upvoted: 28 Apr, '21 Comments: 1
Under consideration

"Lock mode" for small groups where students are unable to change section after assigned

Students can change their section at will and they do, it causes a lot of confusion and annoyance for the course team when they are able to do this.
Suggested by: Anne Olson (25 Sep, '20) Upvoted: 13 Nov, '20 Comments: 1
Under consideration