Overview

Instructure (the makers of Canvas) occasionally publish enhancements ("feature previews" or "feature options") for both courses and sub-accounts in order to enhance or improve the Canvas interface, the user experience, or a particular feature workflow. Normally feature previews are "locked off" and unavailable to general users until the feature is added in production. However, some features are "unlocked" prior to gaining full production-class status.

If a feature is listed on your course setting's Feature Options tab with a "FEATURE PREVIEW" tag, you can select the title to display a description of the feature and any related documentation in the Instructure Community. It is recommended that you read and understand the feature and all of its benefits, including any known bugs/issues, before enabling the feature within your course or on your sub-account.

New Canvas features are published here:  Feature User Groups 

A "Feature Preview" tag can be found under Course settings > Feature Options, and looks like this (see arrows):  

Enable/Disable Within A Canvas Course

To enable/disable a feature in your course, select the red "X" (indicating that it's currently disabled) and choose "Enabled". Alternately, you can click on the green check (indicating that a feature is currently enabled) and choose "Disabled".