Enable a side-by-side view for grading student submissions in Assignments on desktop

At today’s T&L/UX call, we discussed feedback from faculty in writing intensive courses about the new grading UI in Assignments in Sakai 23. Faculty are saying that that the new mobile-friendly grading interface in Assignments is actually making grading slower for desktop users. The problem is that the grading panel slides out from the right, overlapping the student submission and making the submission content area inactive. Since it is inactive, there is no way to scroll or view additional student submission content. Faculty have to close the grading panel in order to scroll up or down or to view the entire width of the submission. While closing the grading panel is usually quick when it is empty, after some feedback has been entered, it takes some time to save the feedback (maybe a second or two, depending on the amount of feedback) before the panel closes. This slows down the entire process.

See the screenshot of the current interface below.

A side-by-side view is typically preferred when grading on a large screen such as a desktop. Therefore, we would like to propose that the student submission content not be made inactive, and that the grading panel appear side-by-side (instead of overlapping) by default when viewed on the desktop. This will make it possible for faculty to view the student submission with the grading panel open, which will speed up the grading process overall.

See proposed mockup below. (We acknowledge that the double scrollbars may need some work.)

Comments and suggestions on the proposed change are welcome!