CNS Canvas Tutorials

New Quizzes

An update deployed on 10/19/24 added the ability to release New Quiz results on a specific date. This has been possible in Classic Quizzes, but not in New Quizzes and it is something that we identified as a critical need. 

Canvas has also indicated that formula questions with multiple variables are now imported and exported as expected - so please let me know if this is NOT the case. 

Note that we are still waiting on a fix to address challenges with linking course files and images in New Quizzes - that is slated for deployment later this month (October 2024). 

View the 10/19/24 New Quiz Update documentation.

Block Editor

Based on the documentation it appears that a new "Block Editor" to help you design Pages without the use of HTML will be available for us in time for the Spring term.

Better support in SpeedGrader for large classes

The information below is from a Canvas Community blog post on SpeedGrader updates on October 15 (yes, 2024):

Over the last several months, we [Canvas} have been busy updating SpeedGrader with large classroom support in mind and this newly enhanced SpeedGrader will be generally available in January. We are deeply committed to continuously improving and innovating our core LMS. In the coming months & years, we will invest in Canvas and many other areas of our core products, with a particular focus on unlocking capabilities to support large classrooms. 

This blog post from Canvas summarizes some of the changes coming to Speedgrader in January.

Upcoming Releases and Documentation

If you are interested in keeping up-to-date with planned Canvas releases you can view the Canvas Release and Deployments site for detailed information.

And, if something isn't working properly and you aren't sure if it's you or a Canvas issue it may be helpful to visit the Canvas Known Issues page. 

The first step is to request a Canvas course shell from SPIRE. 

If you are copying content from another term or from a migrated course you can do that yourself through the import course tool.

1. In Canvas go into your Fall 24 course
2. Click the "Import Existing Content" button on the right sidebar
3. On the Content Type dropdown, choose "Copy a Canvas Course"
4. Pick the course you want to pull from under "Search for a course" 
5. Click the bubble next to "All Content." Leave the other checkboxes unchecked.
6. Click Import at the bottom. It will take a few minutes to import, then you can refresh and should see all of the content.

All courses will automatically Publish on the first day of classes, but you can open your course space early if you wish. This short screencast shows you where to find the course availability dates and how to Publish your course. 

***Important*** You cannot change the start and end dates that show up in the Settings area of your course. Those dates are set by SPIRE. You can publish your course after the start date if you wish it to open early for your students.

• Learn more about publishing and unpublishing
• View a screencast on managing assignment due dates
• View a screencast on using the Assign To feature to control module access by section

Before your course opens for students please be sure to review your course menu and remove any Navigation menu items that you aren't using (such as Microsoft Teams Classes and Badges) and enable items that you are using, such as Zoom, Echo360, Perusal, Packpack, Gradescope, Library Reserves, etc... Note that TurnItIn is located in the Assignments area not in the Navigation menu. 

Note that you cannot change your course name. This question often arises because faculty are working in a migrated course section rather than their "real" course shell.

This is an example of a migrated course:
Concierge Migration BIOLOGY152-SEC03 Introductory Biology II Spring 2023

And here is what the "real" course shell for Fall is called:
Introductory Biology II BIOLOGY 152 (155156) FA24

TA and SI Access

If you have Undergraduate TAs, Graduate TAs, or Supplemental Instructors (SIs) you will need to have your departmental scheduler add them to your course in SPIRE (via the CAPS scheduling system).

IMPORTANT: If you'd like your TAs to have grading access, make sure your scheduler adds the TAs to SPIRE as "TA Grading" (Grad TAs) or "LMS Only Grading" (Undergrad TAs). These roles allow both course editing and grading access. 

Granting Access to Other Types of Users

If you need to add guest lecturers, observers or other types of users that are not TAs or SIs please email instruct@umass.edu.

Allowing Other Instructors to Copy your Course

To allow other faculty members to copy your course kindly fill out the: Grant Permission to Another Instructor to Copy Your Canvas Course form.

Access for 5-College Students

In order for 5-College students to have access to a UMass Canvas course, they must have a UMass NetID and be enrolled through SPIRE. Once the NetID is created, students will receive an email to their current college email account containing their NetID and a temporary password. 

If the student has a valid UMass NetID and only needs access to the readings while awaiting to be enrolled (as sometimes it may take a few days for the registration process to complete) IDEAS can provide them with Guest access. Once they are formally enrolled via SPIRE their role will be automatically updated in Canvas to a full Student role. 

Incompletes and Extended Student Access

Students with incompletes will be enrolled with the appropriate role upon the instructor's request via email to the Instructional Media Lab (instruct@umass.edu).

If you have migrated a course from Blackboard or Moodle when you log into Canvas the course(s) you requested to be migrated should appear under Unpublished Courses. They are now ready for your review, edits, and updates. 

Watch this screencast for some strategies for reviewing migrated content.

And, be sure to reference the Canvas Course Checklist created by IDEAS.

Still need something moved? You can also ask that your existing course be exported out of Moodle or Blackboard and into Canvas. This is known as a content-copy migration and usually takes about 3 days to complete. 

For more information on configuring your account and notification settings visit the UMass ServiceNow Canvas Account Settings page.

Managing which courses show in your Dashboard

1. Select the “Course” master menu (circled in blue) from the left hand-side bar.
2. Select “All Courses”
3. From the list of available courses, “star” the courses you’d like to keep visible in the Dashboard. The rest of the courses will remain accessible from this “all courses” page, but would no longer appear in the Dashboard.

View this Dashboard help file from Canvas which includes screenshots for more information on how to customize your Dashboard.

Adjusting the Notifications you receive from Canvas

In Canvas you can control how often (if at all) you are notified via email about certain course activities. 

For example:

From: Instructure Canvas <notifications@instructure.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 9, 2024 6:23 PM
Subject: Recent Canvas Notifications

You're signed up to receive a daily report of some notifications from your Canvas account. Below is the report for Sep 9:

***You can adjust your notification settings so you are notified immediately, once a day, once a week, or not at all. You can adjust settings on specific items, an entire course, or your full account dependning on your needs.

Setting a Profile Picture

There are many options for adjusting your profile, but one easy way to personalize your Canvas experience is by setting a profile picture. 

Sharing your Name Pronunciation

UMass Amherst has integrated Namecoach into Canvas. Namecoach is an easy-to-use tool for students and instructors to record and share name pronunciation. Once you record your name it is available across all of your courses

Canvas supports a large number of external tools including TurnItIn, Pearson, McGraw-Hill Connect, EchoVideo, Gradescope, Kami, TopHat, VoiceThread and a new integration for Qwickly Attendance (good for those of you with large classes!) 

The challenge with these external tools is that they aren't all located in the same place or enabled in the same way. Some are enabled in Settings, others on the Assignments page, while others you can connect directly in content areas. The External Tools in Canvas UMass Knowledge Base article tells you where to locate each tool in Canvas.

Below is some additional information on a few of the commonly used tools by CNS faculty:

For faculty using OWL please review how to link to OWL from your Canvas course. 

If you are using EchoVideo, view this tutorial to learn how to share your Echo recordings with your students. (Note that the tutorial is available within Canvas on the Canvas Training and Resources site so you may need to log into Canvas to access it.) 

If you are using iClicker you can link it to your Canvas course and sync your grades from iClicker Cloud to Canvas.

TurnItIn works similarity to how it did in Blackboard and Moodle. You can learn more about how to create a TurnItIn assignment here. (Note that the tutorial is available within Canvas on the Canvas Training and Resources site so you may need to log into Canvas to access it.) 

***Important information about the TurnItIn AI detection tool: The University does not have a recommended AI detection tool at this time. The final report of the JOINT TASK FORCE ON GENERATIVE AI discourages the use of generative AI detectors given their current limitations. Future advancements in the technologies or the contexts in which they are deployed may change that recommendation.

New tools:

To learn more about taking attendance with Qwickly:

• Watch a short screencast about the Qwickly Attendance Pilot
• Visit the UMass Knowledge Base document on Qwickly Attendance.
• Visit the Qwickly video resources website.

If you're looking for a replacement for Google's Jam board then Lucid (Whiteboard) may be the tool for you! View a screencast of how Lucid can be used in Canvas and view Lucid's YouTube channel for additional videos and resources. 

For those of you who are fans of using Microsoft Teams you can easily integrate a Teams class into Canvas. View a screencast of using Microsoft Teams with Canvas and learn more about syncing course data between the two systems. 

Top Hat is a classroom engagement tool that allows you to easily create questions for student feedback, take attendance, and assess student learning. View a screencast of Top Hat features and learn more by visiting the Educator's Guide to Top Hat.

Using the Gradebook

The UMass Knowledge Base article on the Canvas Gradebook is great place for all questions and issues related to the gradebook. 

Susan Boyer from the Isenberg School of Management Read shared recommendations during her Teach Tech Talk on 10 Ways to Maximize Efficiency and Engagement in Canvas Grading: A Faculty Guide.

***One very important thing to remember about the gradebook is that you do need to enter in a zero (0) for students to see a true reflection of their grade.

Importing Grades via a CSV file

Nora Junaid from the Isenberg School of Management has created this short VERY HELPFUL video on how to import grades in Canvas using a CSV file. 

You can also read more about the process from the Canvas help documentation on importing grades. 

Formula Questions in Canvas

In Canvas you can create formula questions that include variables. 

The following YouTube video playlist How to use Formula Questions in Canvas provides a great overview of building and customizing formula questions with variables [x] in Canvas.

For more information you can also visit Canvas Formula Quiz Question Helper Functions page which lists the helper functions that can be used to build formulas for formula quiz questions. 

Grading by Group

In Settings you can click the Launch SpeedGrader Filtered by Student Group to switch to grading by group. Once this is turned on and you've picked the group to grade, you can click the gear in the upper left of Speedgrader > Options to sort the members. You can also filter by group in the gradebook - This will let you sort a group by first or last name in the gradebook.

New Quizzes

Interested in learning more about New Quizzes? Visit the Canvas New Quizzes Hub for updates, resources, troubleshooting, and instructor guides. 

***Important*** Known Canvas issue relating to 0s in the Gradebook:

There have been multiple reports of assignments (quizzes and otherwise) getting marked 0 when they should not be marked. It is a known issue that techs are working on. Advice has been to submit a Help Ticket (click on Help on the bottom of the far left menu when in Canvas and select Report a Problem). They are also trying go gauge how widespread the problem is and those tickets help. (9/27/24)

There is a way to fix this - follow these instructions from CSU Fullerton

Visit the UMass ServiceNow Communication Tools page for a comprehensive overview of Canvas communication tools, options, and settings. 

Posting Announcements

One of the great features of Canvas is the ability to post Announcements - to the entire class or to specific sections. Announcements can also be configured to show up on the course home page. Posted Announcements are automatically emailed to students and will be sent via a push notification to users of the Canvas Mobile App. 

However... as a course instructor you may not get an emailed copy, depending on how your Notifications are configured.

Watch this short screencast on Announcements to learn more about posting Announcements and how to check and change your Notification settings. 

Using the Canvas Inbox

Canvas has an internal inbox where you can send and receive messages. Note that you can opt to be notified via email when you have new items in the inbox through adjusting your Notification settings. 

To ensure that you will be notified via email of incoming Inbox messages:

1. Click on the Account icon at the top of the global navigation menu.
2. Select Notifications.
3. Scroll through your notification settings until you find the Conversations header.
4. To be notified right away that you have received a new Inbox message make sure that a green bell icon is showing next to Conversation Message.

Learn more about the Canvas Inbox and Notification settings.  (Note that this tutorial is available within Canvas on the Canvas Training and Resources site so you may need to log into Canvas to access it.)