Canvas - Granting Student Accommodations with Quizzes (for Instructors)


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 has full instructions on using Canvas. These instructions are specific to Virginia Tech. To see other Canvas topics, please see How to Use Canvas at Virginia Tech (for Instructors).

Contents

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Instructions

Granting Students Extra Time/Attempts on Quizzes

Classic Quizzes

To grant students extra time or attempts:

  1. Create and publish a single quiz for the entire class. You don't need to make two versions!
  2. Go to the quiz and click Moderate This Quiz. The Moderate Quiz page shows what students submitted, their score, and how long they took on the quiz. If you do not see the Moderate this Quiz option, please ensure your quiz is published as it will not display until you publish your quiz.
    • Attempt - the number of times the student submitted (not started!) the quiz.
    • Time - how long the student spent on the quiz.
    • Score - the portion of the score that Canvas automatically calculates.
    • Arrows/pencils - give the student another attempt.

      Image of the above instructions.

  3. Find the student you want to give extra time or submission to and click the pencil next to their name. 

    Image of the above instructions.

  4. On the Student Extensions window:
    • Give the student a number of extra attempts. Check Manually unlock the quiz for the next attempt if the quiz end date has passed. 
    • Give the student extra time for every attempt. 

      Image of the above instructions.

  5. Click Save.

If the quiz is only available for a short amount of time, such as the length of one class period, do the following steps:

  1. In the Quizzes tool, select the name of the quiz in question, then click Edit.
    • Alternately while in the Quizzes tool, you can click the three dots to the right of the quiz and click Edit in the dropdown menu.

      Image of the above instructions.

  2. Scroll down to Assign to and click the +Add button. A new entry will appear to add the student.

    Image of the above instructions.

  3. In the new entry, in the Assign to field, add the student. 
    • To find the student, use the dropdown option or start typing the student's name. 
    • The "Assign to" in the first entry will change from Everyone to Everyone else.

      Image of the above instructions.

  4. Change the dates in the Due, Available from, and Until fields as necessary to grant the student additional time. 

    Image of the above instructions.

  5. Complete steps 2-4 for each additional student.
  6. When finished, click the Save button in the bottom right corner. 

Also see: 

New Quizzes

With New Quizzes, you only need to grant a student additional time once. These settings will be applied to all course assessments for the student.

  1. In the Quizzes tool, click on the name of the quiz in question.

    Image of the above instructions.

  2. Scroll down and click the Build button.

    Image of the above instructions.

  3. Click Moderate at the top of the screen.

    Image of the above instructions.

  4. To grant accommodations to a student, click the pencil icon to the right of the student's name.

    Image of the above instructions.

  5. In the pop-up box, under Time adjustments, click on Give additional time, enter the extra time needed, and click Save.

    Image of the above instructions.

  6. Time accommodations are now granted to that student for every quiz given with New Quizzes in this course. 
If the quiz is only available for a short amount of time, such as the length of one class period, do the following steps:
  1. In the Quizzes tool, click on the name of the quiz in question.

    Image of the above instructions.

  2. Scroll down to Assign to and click the +Add button. A new entry will appear to add the student.

    Image of the above instructions.

  3. In the new entry, in the Assign to field, add the student. 
    • To find the student, use the dropdown option or start typing the student's name. 
    • The "Assign to" in the first entry will change from Everyone to Everyone else.

      Image of the above instructions.

  4. Change the dates in the Due, Available from, and Until fields as necessary to grant the student additional access to the quiz. 

    Image of the above instructions.

  5. Complete steps 2-4 for each additional student.
  6. When finished, click the Save button in the bottom right corner. 

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Troubleshooting

Script Blocker Problems

Canvas uses JavaScript. However, browser security settings or security suite software increasingly block JavaScript by default. If JavaScript is blocked, Canvas will not appear and function correctly, for example: 

  • The Canvas Dashboard shows flashing courses.
  • Clicking Help and Courses do not show the menus.
  • Clicking Assignments, Announcements, Discussions, Grades go to a blank page.
  • The +Guests button doesn't appear in People.
  • Videos in Files don't automatically play.
  • SPOT doesn't appear on menus.
  • Kaltura videos won't play.
  • Instructors can't add files to Canvas. 
  • Students can't upload files to Assignments.

To fix browser and script blocker problems:

  1. Check/update your browser. We recommend using an updated version of Google Chrome. 
    1. Click [...] in the upper right corner of your browser.
    2. Click Help->About Google Chrome.
    3. An automatic update may start. When it finishes, click Relaunch.
    4. To update, see Update Google Chrome.
  2. If you use another browser or need to check more browser settings, see KB0013067: Recommended Browser Privacy and Security Settings for Canvas.
  3. Check the Canvas URL.
    1. Click your Canvas bookmark in Chrome. Make sure it links to https://canvas.vt.edu, not the Instructure URL. If it links to the Instructure URL, update it to link to https://canvas.vt.edu. 
    2. If tools are malfunctioning in Canvas, check and make sure the URL is https://canvas.vt.edu. If not, go to https://canvas.vt.edu.
  4. Bypass/clear your browser's cache.
    1. To bypass the cache, go to the Canvas page where you should see the link to the LTI tool. Hold the Shift key while clicking the browser's refresh button.
    2. To clear the cache, see Clearing Browser Cache.
  5. Whitelist Canvas URLs in your script blocker; set your script blocker to allow JavaScript from Canvas and related URLs. 
    1. Go to your script blocker's settings for trusting/allowing/unblocking/whitelisting websites. Instructions for common script blockers: 
    2. Set your script blocker to trust/allow/unblock/whitelist the following Canvas-related URLs:
      • vt.edu
      • instructure.com
      • amazonaws.com
      • canvas-user-content.com
      • inscloudgate.net
      • kaltura.com
      • ops.cielo24.com
      • evaluationkit.com
      • cloudfront.net
      • jquery.com
      • bootstrapcdn.com
      • iclicker.com 
      • smc-service-cloud.respondus2.com

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Getting Help

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: 

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