Harmonize
What is it?
Harmonize is a Canvas-integrated discussion tool that allows students to communicate, interact, and engage via media-rich features that encourage and support frequent, thoughtful engagement with course content.
Some standout Harmonize features include:
- Multiple due dates for an assignment- requiring an initial post by one date and a specified number of comments and reactions by subsequent dates
- Single-student response viewing, as well as whole-group, across a post for easier grading
- SpeedGrader integration
- Canvas rubric integration
- Turnitin plagiarism detection integration
- Still-image and video annotation
- LaTeX equation editor
- In-depth engagement insights
- Real-time chat
- Supports videos, images, and audio files in the discussions
- Modern social-media-like interface and appearance
- Social annotation allows students to provide dynamic critiques of their peers’ work
- Polling features
- Auto-captioning of video content
- Ability to create smaller discussion groups within the class where discussions might feel more natural
How to Access
FAQ
Yes, Harmonize can recognize foreign characters. You will also be given the option to include closed captioning on videos in foreign languages if needed.
Assuming the discussion has one or more Milestones and Auto-Grading enabled, Harmonize will send a student's score to SpeedGrader when one of the following occurs, whichever comes first:
- The student completes all requirements for all Milestones, or
- The dues dates for all Milestones on the assignment have passed
Students will see their score for the assignment on their Canvas Dashboard in "Recent Feedback" and in their individual grades as soon as the score generated by Harmonize Auto-Grading appears in the SpeedGrader score text box.
If a student only completes one of the Milestones, they will receive points for only that milestone and none for the Milestones that were not met.
If students complete requirements after Milestone due dates, their content will still appear in the SpeedGrader view, but it will be marked as late. Likewise, their Milestone section will be highlighted in red to note that the milestones were completed after the due date.
No, once a grade has been given for a student, either manually by the instructor or by Harmonize via the Auto-Grading feature, the posts and comments present at the time of grading will become locked and cannot be edited by the student.
Students can, however, create new posts and comments after the due date has passed as long as the assignment is still available. In Canvas, assignments remain accessible by students until the "Available Until" date set on the assignment has passed.
When a student is late completing a Milestone, the requirements bar for the Milestone will be marked in red, both in the student's view and in SpeedGrader. A check mark will appear if they have completed the milestone, an exclamation point if they have not.
Yes, instructors can change the score in SpeedGrader as they see fit. This is done by editing the score in the SpeedGrader score text box.
Yes, instructors can hide the Auto-Grade score from students by adjusting the Grading Policy on the assignment. Canvas assignments have a Grading Policy feature that allows for grades to be visible to students either automatically or manually. If the instructor would like to hide the score generated by Harmonize Auto-Grading, they can set that assignment's grade to "Hidden" either in the grade book or in SpeedGrader.
Users may access and customize their Harmonize notifications and settings by logging into Canvas, selecting "Account" and then selecting "Harmonize Settings" from the menu. For more information, you can review the how to access Harmonize section.
Yes, students are able to sync all Harmonize discussion due dates, milestones, and to-do items to their Canvas calendar. More information on this process can be found on the Syncing Harmonize to your Canvas Calendar guide opens a new website.
On the topic edit page, you'll see a banner at the top of the instruction's section. Click on the "Let's Brainstorm" button to get started. For more information, review the Using Harmonize Brainstorm with ChatGPT to Create Discussion Prompts opens a new website guide.