Faculty/staff

Canvas and You

Every instructor's Canvas experience will be different. Courses can be as basic or involved as you want. There are many functions available that can be used in whatever way that works best for your topic and your students.

 

Learn Canvas

Are Your Courses Ready in Canvas? expanding section

Use this checklist to find out! 

Help Your Students expanding section

Here are a few questions students might ask you about technology and resources/answers you can give them.

Student Question: How can I learn more about Canvas?
Instructor Answer: Check out this Canvas orientation course. 

Student Question: What is my Person ID? 
Instructor Answer: Here is a help article on how to find your Person ID. 

Student Question: How do I know when things happen in Canvas? 
Instructor Answer: You can adjust your notifications in Canvas.

Student Question: How do I get text messages about Canvas things? 
Instructor Answer: You can add a mobile number and adjust your notifications in Canvas. 

Student Question: How do I see feedback on my assignment? 
Instructor Answer: You can see your assignment and feedback. 

Student Question: I need some help with Canvas
Instructor Answer: Students have their own 24/7/365 Canvas Support number so give them a call 833.826.8719.

 

Accessing courses expanding section
  • Semester SIS (WINGS) courses are loaded 60 days before start of term.
  • A newly created/enrolled WINGS course could take up to 24-48 hrs to appear.
  • Create a Master Course anytime!
    • These are used as shells/sandboxes to set up course content before SIS courses are in Canvas.
    • Once SIS courses are loaded, import content from Master Course.

Student enrollment status. Active vs inactive?

Adding a new teacher? They need to login to Canvas first to activate their account and then can be added to course. 

Publishing courses expanding section

How to publish your course.

There are three different states of a course.

  1. Unpublished- courses in preparation, students cannot access or participate.
  2. Published- available to students. Content within course can be controlled individually by publishing or unpublishing.
  3. Concluded- courses that are completed according to term dates. Instructors and students can no longer participate. Read-only state unless students have been restricted from viewing.
Emailing students expanding section

To email students from Canvas, the course must be in a published state.
(You still have the ability to email your class roster from WINGS). 

  1. Select the Inbox icon on the Global Navigation. 
  2. Select the pencil icon at the top. 
  3. Choose what course from the course dropdown. 
  4. Select the person icon to choose the recipients (all, teachers, students, sections).

Receiving your sent messages in your UWL email inbox is controlled by notifications. 

Set up notifications in Canvas*.
  1. Select account on the top left navigation.
  2. Select Notifications. 
  3. Scroll to Conversations and make sure "Conversations Created By Me" is checked. 

*The email may take awhile to show up in your inbox. 

Notifications & settings expanding section

Set up notifications

  • Notifications can be set up one of four ways: notify me right away, daily summary, weekly summary, or don't send.
  • Notifications are applied to all your courses, they cannot be set up individually.
  • Update your ways to be contacted.

*Tips to Control Course Notifications

Change settings

  • Update language, email addresses and other contact methods. 
  • Cannot update names at this time. 

Update profile

  • Edit your profile picture and bio.
  • Add personal links
Student list- Names & Email expanding section

Go into your course navigation and enable Analytics Beta. There is a download button under the Course Grade section that downloads a CSV zip file with the students name and email as well as their ID if you would need that for anything (Akindi, iClicker). 

Course email name list.jpg

Submitting course grades in Canvas to WINGS expanding section

Canvas grade sync with WINGS.

When submitting grades:

  • The dash in a column does not add into a final grade. You will need to go through and add 0's for an accurate total.  
  • Submit only letter grades (A, AB, B, BC, C, D, F) through Canvas to WINGS.
    • Submit other types of grades such as incompletes and audits by entering them directly into WINGS. 
  • Adjustments to grades need to be done in WINGS after syncing from Canvas. 

After syncing, you will still need to approve grades in WINGS.

Grade submission deadlines.

Does something not look right after syncing? Contact Canvas Support immediately and take screenshots to provide to them. This could be a bug that needs to be handled on their side.

Questions?

WINGS grading: Deb Peterson or Victoria Rahn
Canvas grading schemes: Stephanie Speer

If you contact these individuals after hours or on the weekend, you will likely not get a response until the next business day.

Creating a Master Course (shell/sandbox course) expanding section

Canvas > Help > Create a Master Course

  1. Click the Help button at the bottom of the Global Navigation on the left.
  2. Click Create a Master Course.
  3. Enter Course Name, Course Code, and Select Department from drop-down menu.
  4. Click the Create Course.
  5. Click Let's Go! to start adding content.
Master course location image.
Importing/copying courses for a new Term expanding section

Using the Course Import tool

Once WINGS courses have been loaded into Canvas, you can import your Master Course (shell/sandbox course). This process is similar to importing course material from D2L, but instead you are importing from within Canvas. 

  1. If it's a blank course, select Add existing content and skip to #4
    OR
  2. In Course Navigation, click the Settings link.
  3. Click the Import Course Content link on the right.
  4. In the Content Type drop-down, select Copy a Canvas Course.
  5. You can search by Course Name, or SIS ID.
    1. The SIS ID is a string of numbers found under the Course Details (i.e. 000000-00-0000-0-00-000000).
  6. Select if you want all content or specific content.
  7. Import.

For more detailed directions check out the Canvas document: How to copy content from another Canvas course.

Limitations

  • Importing a course more than once may have unintended consequences.
  • Enrollment-related data; course users, groups, sections are not included.
Cross-listing (combining) courses expanding section

Cross-listing sections guide

  • Cross-listing should be done while courses are unpublished.
  • Before you can cross-list a section, the course must contain at least one enrollment.
  • May already be done through SIS import; if you have cross-listed courses in WINGS, they should come into Canvas as cross-listed.
Additional Course Management
Accessibility and Canvas
FAQ
Canvas workshop handouts

UWL Canvas Support Staff: