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 Support 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:

• Using Canvas at Virginia Tech (for Instructors)
• Using Canvas at Virginia Tech (for Students)

These instructions are for Canvas college and department administrators (admins).

Contents

• Background
• Canvas Department Admin Access
• Canvas Teacher and Department Admin Permissions
• Adding and Removing Teachers
  
  • Finding sites
  • Adding Teachers
  • Removing Teachers
• Canvas Department Admin Resources
• Getting Help

Instructions

Background

Canvas is organized hierarchically by college, school/department, and course. Canvas account admins can access all courses in the Virginia Tech’s Canvas account. Canvas sub-account admins can access courses in the Canvas sub-accounts related to their college, school, or department. For simplicity, here we refer to Canvas sub-account admins as Canvas department admins. These admins are assigned by some colleges and departments to support continuity of instruction, manage rubrics and outcomes, view course statistics, and more.

Canvas department admin access is limited to relevant courses:

• Canvas admins (“account admins”) can access all courses. Permissions at this level are carefully controlled by Technology-enhanced Learning and Online Strategies (TLOS) and IT Learning Systems (ITLS) in the Division of IT.
• College-level admins (“sub-account admin” in Canvas) can only access courses in their college.
• Department-level admins (“sub-account admin” in Canvas) can only access courses in their department.
• Instructors of record (“teacher” in Canvas) can only access Canvas courses for their teaching assignments.

 

Example Job Role	Canvas Admin Level	Canvas Hierarchy Level	Job Functions
TLOS support	Canvas account admin	All Canvas courses	Perform technical support
Deans and/or designated staff	Canvas college (sub-account) admin	Canvas courses in respective college	Add/remove teachers for continuity of instruction Undelete courses Manage rubrics and outcomes Manage Blueprint courses and other centralized teaching materials View statistics Teach classes
Department heads and/or designated staff	Canvas department (sub-account) admin	Canvas courses in respective department
Instructors of record	Teacher	Courses where person is instructor of record	Manage teaching materials Teach classes Receive SPOT evaluations

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Canvas Department Admin Access

Canvas department admins are chosen by their college or departments based on need and job role. Colleges and departments guide what actions their Canvas department admins perform.

• Not every department has a Canvas department admin.
• Canvas department admins may perform different functions based on departmental needs.
• Canvas department admins cannot view courses outside of their department.

Questions and concerns about Canvas department admin access:

• Contact your dean or department head.

Requests to add Canvas department admins:

• Submit a form at Elevated Permissions to TLOS Services.

Requests to remove Canvas department admins:

• Go to the 4Help Portal, sign in, and click Get Help.

Questions about using Canvas department access to manage teaching materials, add/remove course users, and view statistics:

• See Canvas Department Admin Resources below.
• See the Canvas Admin Guide.
• Contact 24-7 Canvas support by clicking Support on any Canvas screen.

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Canvas Teacher and Department Admin Permissions

Canvas Teachers can:

• Add and remove course designers, observers, students, teachers, and TAs to courses.
• Add, edit, and delete events on the course calendar.
• Send messages to individual course members and to all members in a course.
• View and comment on student submissions and moderate and post to discussions.
• View and manage assignments, quizzes, and all other course content.
• View the list of users in a course and view the group pages of all student groups.
• View, moderate, and edit grades.

Canvas department admins can perform the same actions as Teachers, plus:

• Manage learning outcomes and rubrics, and view and link to question banks.
• View account- and course-level statistics, account and course analytics pages, and usage reports for courses.
• View course lists and undelete courses.
• Create and manage Blueprint courses.
• Add and remove course designers, observers, students, teachers, and teacher assistants to any course in their sub-account (college, school, or department).

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Adding and Removing Teachers

Finding Sites

Canvas course sites will not appear in Canvas department admins' courses menu. Instead, search for them using admin tools.

Search by CRN

For detailed instructions, see: How do I use the Courses page in an account?

1. Log into Canvas and click Admin -> <subaccount name>.
2. Click Courses and enter the CRN in the search box. 
3. CRNs repeat yearly, so make sure the course is the correct/current term. Filter by term using the All Terms drop-down.
4. In the results, click on the site you need. 

Search by current instructor (not the one you want to add)

For detailed instructions, see: How do I use the People page in an account?

1. Log into Canvas and click Admin -> <subaccount name>. 
2. Click People and enter their PID.
3. In the results, click their name. You'll go to their Profile page. 
4. Scroll down and view their Enrollments. Click on the site you need.

Adding Teachers

1. Go to the course site in Canvas. See Finding sites above. 
2. Click People on the course navigation menu.
3. Click +People. If you can't click +People, the site might be concluded: 
   
   1. Go to Settings and set the End term date to tomorrow. 
   2. Check the box for Students can only participate in the course between these dates.
   3. Scroll down and click Update Course Details. 
   4. Go back to the People tab and click +People.
4. Under Add user(s) by, click Login ID. 
5. Enter the person's PID in the Add People box.
   
   • Do not enter their email address, because not everyone's email address is PID@vt.edu. 
6. Under Role, choose Teacher and click Next.
   
7. Click Add Users. If you had to change the term End date to add the teacher, go back to Settings, set the End date to one in the past, and save. 

Removing Teachers

To remove a Teacher from a course site, college or department administrators MUST remove their teaching assignment in Banner.

Canvas enrollments automatically update four times daily with teaching assignment and student enrollment data from the Registrar. Teachers and Canvas department admins can add and remove people from courses. However, when Canvas automatically updates with Banner data:

• People manually removed from the site will be re-added (unless they have also been removed in Banner).
• People manually added will remain in the course site.

When an instructor separates from Virginia Tech, departments should remove their teaching assignments from Banner as soon as possible.

For detailed instructions, see: How do I remove an enrollment from a course?

1. Go to the course site in Canvas. See Finding sites above. 
2. Click People on the course navigation menu.
3. To the far right of the person's name, click the three dots then click Remove From Course.
4. Click OK to confirm. 
5. If the person is the instructor of record, repeat the removal until Banner is updated. 

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Canvas Department Admin Resources

Admin Tools How do I view login and logout activity for a user in an account? How do I view grade change activity for an account? How do I view course activity for an account? How do I restore a deleted course in an account? Analytics and Reports How do I view Account Analytics? How do I view statistics for an account? How do I view reports for an account? Blueprint Courses How do I enable a course as a blueprint course as an admin? How do I associate a course with a blueprint course as an admin? How do I lock course objects in a blueprint course as an admin? How do I sync course content in a blueprint course as an admin? How do I view the sync history for a blueprint course as an admin? Courses and Sections How do I use the Courses page in an account? How do I add a course in an account as an admin? How do I add a section to a course as an admin? How do I change the start and end dates for a course section as an admin? How do I use cross-listing in an account? How do I cross-list a section in a course as an admin? How do I de-cross-list a section in a course as an admin? Grading How do I view and manage grading schemes in an account? How do I edit a grading scheme in an account? How do I view grading periods in an account? How do I add grading periods in an account?

Outcomes How do I use the outcomes page in an account? How do I create an outcome for an account? How do I create outcome groups for an account? How do I import outcomes for an account? How do I edit or delete an outcome in an account? How do I edit or delete an outcome group in an account? How do I create custom account outcome names for students? How do I move outcomes and outcome groups in an account? How do I find an existing outcome to add to an account? How do I view the outcomes results report for an individual student in an account? People How do I use the People page in an account? How do I send a message to a user in an account? How do I view the enrollments for a user in an account? How do I view the page views for a user in an account? How do I view groups in an account? How do I add groups in a group set in an account? How do I manage profile pictures for users in an account? Question Banks How do I manage question banks in an account? How do I create a question bank in an account?  Rubrics How do I manage rubrics in an account? How do I add a rubric in an account? How do I align an outcome with a rubric in an account? How do I customize learning mastery ratings for an account?

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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 Support 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!

In Canvas, use the new Help Docs button located near the Support button that will provide quick access to a knowledge base located inside Canvas.

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