IF YOU NEED A SUBSTITUTE ADDED TO YOUR COURSE: this is not handled by the Canvas team. Please ask your departmental admin to add the substitute to your course through Coursedog.
Teaching Assistants must be hired through Human Resources and may be assigned to classes by the Registrar’s office. TAs have teaching permissions in Canvas with the ability to see course rosters, build and change course content, and assist with grading.
Tutors must be hired through Human Resources. Tutors can be current students or staff, but they will NOT be given access to protected information like course rosters or the grade book. Tutors can see information posted to a course’s Canvas site, but cannot build or change course content.
You must fill out the Canvas Request form for Administrative Access or TA/Tutor Access AND send an email to the Registrar explaining that you want the student added as a tutor, not a TA. (Access the Canvas Request form for Administrative Access or TA/Tutor here).
As with a TA, wait 24-48 hours for the Registrar and the system to update and your TA to be added to course – this is a manual process and will take time, it is not an automated system.
There are several layers of access and permissions that can be granted to administrative Canvas users.
Canvas syncs with SAGE rosters regularly, so once the Add / Drop from has been approved by instructors and advisors and the change is made in SAGE, the student will be Added or Dropped from your Canvas course. The student will still show on the People tab as "inactive" to preserve any past work they might have done. Faculty do not have permissions in Canvas to add or remove People from their courses themselves. While past members of a course will show as inactive in the People tab, they will not show up in Attendance. So for faculty looking for a class roster, the Attendance tab is the most reliable list of who is actually in their class.
There are several methods of transferring content from WISE to Canvas. Please look at the related page below to see what is appropriate for your class.
Something in your course may not be published. Check to see that:
Published courses appear in the "Published Courses" section at the top of your Canvas Dashboard. On your course homepage, you will see the words "Course Status," a green check, and the word "Published" in the top right corner if your course is published. If you cannot see this, try moving and resizing the window on your computer screen so you can see the whole window. Published modules and items will have a green check beside them.
Upcoming training sessions should be announced periodically in campus emails, and the calendar of upcoming training sessions on the Future Training Calendar page is kept up to date. All faculty and staff are welcome at any training sessions.
You can copy an entire course from semester to semester, and you can duplicate materials within a course,
You can share entire courses or selected materials using Canvas Commons, which is located in the global Canvas menu on the left of the screen.
You can also share Item Banks, but if you share an item bank with another Canvas user, you must ALSO share the item bank with the course they will be using it for. See the detailed steps on Canvas's support site – note that you must follow BOTH sets of steps to share with a User AND a Course!
Note: you can select the scope of how material is shared on Commons: when you follow the directions on sharing to Commons you will see checkboxes that allow you to share with yourself, with all of Willamette University, or publicly (any Canvas user).
Files can be uploaded either to a specific class or to a user's global files folder.
Any videos (or other media) that you had uploaded to the My Media tab in WISE is available in your global My Media tab on Canvas. My Media, which is run by Kaltura, is a third-party program that both WISE and Canvas are connected to. If your media is not showing up in a course's Media Gallery, it can be copied over from your global My Media folder.
Please do put your syllabus on Canvas's Syllabus page. We want students to spend their time learning your material, rather than your organizational style. You can simply copy and paste your syllabus onto the Syllabus page by editing it.
We do recommend that you use modules. We want students to spend their time learning your material, rather than your organizational style, and the more professors that use modules, the less time students have to spend digging through Canvas looking for materials.
You can think of a module as a packet or folder of materials that you would have handed out to students physically. You can organize items like overview pages, questions, videos, files, images, and so on within a module that can represent a day, week, unit, topic, etc. Ultimately, the way that you use modules depends on how you like to organize your course. If you work through materials in units, it can be useful to create a module for each unit. If you prefer a linear approach, you may want to create a module for each week.
By using Canvas's inbox feature, you can message individuals or entire courses. The inbox is accessed through the global Canvas menu on the left side of the screen. You may need to adjust your notification settings if you want Canvas to send these messages to your Willamette email.
You may need to confirm the email address associated with your Canvas account.
To check this, click "Account" in the global navigation menu at the far left of the screen (screenshot with indicators below). Your photo might appear above this link.
Next, click on "Settings" in the menu on the page that appears.
Look at the far right of the screen to the section labeled "Ways to Contact." If there is a circled exclamation point next to your email address, it needs to be confirmed. Click on your email address next to the circled exclamation point and star.
A pop-up window that says "Confirm Email Address" should appear. If you do not have an email from Canvas with a confirmation link, click the "Re-Send Confirmation" link in the pop-up box. Then go to your email, open the email from Canvas, and follow the directions to confirm your email.
If you still do not receive emails and notifications after confirming your email address, you need to adjust your notification settings, also located in your account menu.
Assigning a due date to an assignment in Canvas will populate the assignment in the students' Canvas to-do list. To assign a due date, open the assignment (to create or edit it), scroll down the page until you see the "Assign Access" field, and click the link that says "Manage Access To." This will open a side menu with fields for individuals to assign the work to, due date, and when the assignment is available on Canvas.
If your class involves repeated in-class assignments like workbook page, you may prefer to create assignments through a .csv file. This allows you to bypass creating assignments in Canvas. Instead, you download a spreadsheet, open it with a program like Excel or Google Sheets, and create columns for assignments. You would then track the grades in your spreadsheet. After each assignment, you are able to save your spreadsheet as a .csv file and re-upload it to Canvas, thus keeping your grades up-to-date for your students. You can use Canvas-created and .csv-created assignments with each other in the same course. In-depth directions are available on the page below.
Almost everything in Canvas can be duplicated, potentially saving you time and work. For example, if you create a module, assignment, or page that you want to use as a template for later modules, assignments, and pages, you can create one once, duplicate it as many times as you want, and modify as needed. There is only one exception: Classic Quizzes and modules that contain Classic Quizzes cannot be duplicated. If you want to duplicate a quiz, build it as a New Quiz.
To duplicate something:
You can make many different types of quizzes in Canvas. When you begin, you will be given the option of "Classic Quizzes" or "New Quizzes." Canvas is in the process of phasing out Classic Quizzes, which also cannot be duplicated. As a result, we recommend just starting with New Quizzes. Canvas also gives you the option of creating video quizzes using Kaltura / My Media. Since each type of quiz is different, please read through the materials and options available on the Quizzes page, linked below.
Turnitin is built into Canvas. To activate it, you must create an assignment using the online submission option. This will activate another section called "Plagiarism Review." You can select Turnitin from the dropdown menu and select your preferences.
Perusall is integrated with Willamette's instance of Canvas. To get started, please read the directions linked on the page below. If you plan to use e-books bought through the bookstore, please contact the bookstore to clarify details.
Navigate to the gradebook and follow the directions on the page below.
You can embed files from your Google Drive, or Google Calendars anywhere that you use the rich content editor box, like Canvas Pages or Assignments. You can also add files and calendars to your modules as items. Please see the step-by-step-directions on the page below.
There are several ways that you can use Canvas to create advising appointment slots within a course.
Related Page:
Unless you are in a special situation, your courses will be created for you before the semester starts. If you think you need a new course outside of the ones created for you, please start a ticket with WITS.