Introduction
Canvas is Virginia Tech's learning management system (LMS). Instructors use Canvas to manage teaching materials like assignments, quizzes, feedback, and student grades.
- Official courses are automatically created in instructors' Canvas accounts.
- Enrolled students are automatically added.
- Instructors can reuse teaching materials by importing them to a new course site.
- Canvas provides 24-7 support by phone (833-639-7621) and chat (click Help on any Canvas screen).
The Canvas Instructor Guide and the Canvas Student Guide have full instructions on using Canvas. These instructions are specific to Virginia Tech. To see other Canvas topics, please see:
Contents
Instructions
Canvas Site Types
Official Course Sites
Canvas creates an official course site for instructors of record and populates them with student enrollments. To create teaching materials before an official course site is available, instructors can manually create a site and then move materials to an official course site later. Students cannot see official sites until (1) instructors publish them and (2) after the course start date has passed.
Official course sites appear in instructors' accounts around:
- Fall semester: June 15
- Winter semester: November 1
- Spring semester: December 1
- Summer (all semesters): March 15
Official course sites have term dates based on the academic calendar.
- When the Start date passes, students can see the sites. Students can see materials only after instructors publish the sites and materials.
- When the End date passes, official course sites are concluded.
- Instructors can change their sites' term dates (see Term dates).
If your site doesn't appear, see I don't see my Canvas site. If you still don't see your site, contact 4Help by clicking Get Help on the 4Help portal.
Manually Created Course Sites
Instructors can manually create course sites to add teaching materials. They can then import the teaching materials to official course sites later.
Manually created course sites:
- Do not have term dates.
- Do not have automatic student enrollments.
Canvas Site States
A Canvas course can exist in three states: unpublished, published, and concluded. See What are the different states of a Canvas course?
- An unpublished site is visible only to instructors.
- A published site is visible to students.
- Once students have submitted materials to a course site, you cannot unpublish the site.
- To hide it from students, in course Settings, change the term dates (see Term dates).
- A concluded course is read-only, so you cannot edit its content.
- You can still import the teaching materials into a new site (see Importing Materials from Concluded Sites).
Copying a Course Site's URL
- Log into Canvas and navigate to the course site by clicking Courses and then selecting the course from the menu.
- If the course is not listed, click All Courses to see a complete course list, and select it from there.
- Select the whole URL listed at the top of your browser.
- Copy the URL by right-clicking on the URL and clicking Copy.
Finding Courses
Canvas courses are automatically created for courses students are officially enrolled in. Know that:
- Not every instructor uses Canvas.
- Instructors must publish courses before students can see them.
- Log into Canvas. You'll go to the Dashboard.
- Scroll down past any announcements to see your courses.
- Click any course.
- If you don't see your course, click Courses -> All courses. This will let you see Current, Past, and Future Enrollments.
- If you don't see your course, click Courses -> All courses. This will let you see Current, Past, and Future Enrollments.
Changing Course Display
You can choose which courses show up on the Dashboard and Courses menu.
- Log into Canvas.
- Click Courses -> All courses.
- Click the star next to a course to show it on the Dashboard and Courses menu.
- You cannot star Past or Future Enrollments.
- You cannot star Past or Future Enrollments.
Setting Up Canvas Sites
Cross-listing Sections
If you're teaching more than one section of the same course, you can cross-list the Canvas sites. See: Cross-listing Course Sites.
Transferring Teaching Materials
Move your teaching materials from the draft or previous course site to your official course site. See: How do I import content from another Canvas course?
Configuring Course Settings
- Configure your term dates, grading scheme, course visibility, material licensing, and whether people can join the site.
- Access settings by clicking Settings in the Course Navigation Menu.
Term Dates
Courses automatically appear to students based on the semester schedule (they can only see teaching materials if the course is published). To manually control course display, you can change the course Start and End dates.
- Go to your official course and click Settings to see Course Details.
- Next to Participation, change Term to Course. Doing so de-couples the course term dates from the default semester dates.
- Under Term, next to Start and End, enter start and end dates. You need to enter both dates!
- Choose whether to restrict students from viewing the course before the start date and after the end date.
- Scroll down and click Update Course Details. Changes are not automatically saved.
Other Settings
- Content License: You can change the copyright settings for your teaching materials by selecting from the options next to License. The default setting is private, copyrighted materials.
- Content Visibility: You can make your teaching materials visible to those not enrolled in the course. Student work is always protected. The default visibility setting is Course, where only you and your students can see the materials. To change visibility:
- Next to Visibility, click Course to share with people who are already in the course, click Institution to share the course with those in Virginia Tech, or click Public.
- To make only your syllabus visible outside of your course, check Customize and choose a syllabus visibility setting.
- Click Update Course Details.
Making Joinable Sites
You can make manually created course sites "joinable," so others can self-enroll. Training sites often use this feature. To do so:
- Go to the course site that you manually created and click on Settings.
- Check for a SIS ID field and ensure it does not exist or is blank, otherwise the self-enroll option will not be available for the course.
- If the SIS ID field is not blank, contact a Canvas admin to remove it for you by going to the 4Help Portal, log in, and click Get Help. Write that you're trying to create a course with self enrollment and need assistance from TLOS.
- Check Let students self-enroll by sharing with them a secret URL.
- Check Add a "Join this Course" link to the course home page.
- Tell students how to self-enroll.
- Copy the course's Home page URL.
- Email students the URL and tell them: "Log into Canvas, then go to the course URL included here, click Join this Course, and then click Enroll in Course."
Adding Links to the Course Navigation Menu
You must use the Canvas Redirect tool to add a link to an external website or a Canvas Page to a Course Navigation Menu. To add a link:
- Collect the URL of the website or Canvas Page you want to add.
- Go to the course site where you want to add a Course Navigation Menu link.
- Click Settings and go to the Apps tab.
- Click the arrow icon for the Redirect app.
- The +Add App button will appear. Click it.
- The Add App window will appear.
- Next to Name, name your link. This text will appear on the Course Navigation Menu.
- Next to URL Redirect, paste the URL of the website or Canvas Page.
- Check Show in Course Navigation.
- Click Add App.
Please note if you copy a course's content into a new site, the linked URL in the Redirect tool will be copied.
- If you linked to a non-Canvas website, you don't need to do anything. The link will still work.
- If you linked to a Canvas Page in the old site, the old page will be linked to from the new site. So, make a new Redirect link that points to the new site's Canvas Page and hide the old link.
Adding External (LTI) Tools
Canvas can be extended by integrating external tools. Software companies, textbook publishers, and training websites all make Canvas external tools.
See: Canvas - Requesting and Use External Tools (LTI Tools) for details.
- You can use most external tools without help from a Canvas admin.
- Virginia Tech must approve new external tools before they're added to Canvas.
- To request a new tool, on the Learning Management System (Canvas) request form, under Service Requested, check Request External Tool be Added to Canvas.
Concluded Course Sites
See: Working with Concluded Course Sites.
Adding Outcomes
One of Canvas' most helpful features is its Learning Mastery component, which lets you decide exactly what you want your students to master in your course (called "Outcomes" in Canvas), and add these to the Outcomes tool.
Once you add your outcomes, or course objectives, they can be linked to grading rubrics, assignments, quiz questions, or any of the graded items in your course. The Learning Mastery Gradebook displays student progress with respect to the outcomes.
- For more information about the Outcomes tool in Canvas, see the Canvas Guide: What are outcomes?
- For more information about using the Learning Mastery Gradebook, see the Canvas Guide: How Do I Use the Learning Mastery Gradebook?
- To create outcomes in a Canvas course, follow the instructions in the Canvas Guide: How do I create an outcome for my course?
- For more information on how to see a student's progress using Outcomes, see the Canvas Guide: How do I track Student Progress on a Learning Outcome?
Getting Help
For instructions on resolving common issues with Canvas, see:
- Troubleshooting Canvas (for Instructors)
- Troubleshooting Canvas (For Students)
- Recommended Browser Privacy and Security Settings for Canvas
Instructure, the creators of Canvas, provide 24-7 Canvas support, including live chat and a support hotline.
To get Canvas help, click Help on any Canvas screen and choose from help options:
- Search the Canvas Guides: Search Canvas documentation.
- Chat with Canvas Support: Open a chat window in Canvas (or call the phone number).
- Contact Virginia Tech 4Help: Submit an incident on 4Help or call 540-231-4357.
- Browse Virginia Tech Resources: See other Canvas Knowledge Base articles.
- Report a Problem: Submit a Canvas support case by filling out a short form.
- Ask the Community: Go to Canvas user community resources.
- Submit a Feature Idea: Search a list of current feature idea conversations. Add to an existing conversation or start your own!