Canvas FAQ (Faculty)

All new faculty and adjuncts should schedule a Canvas Training with OTLE. However, all faculty can get familar with Canvas by looking through the "Growing with Canvas" course on your Canvas dashboard. 

All Canvas users can message other users using the Inbox on the gloabl side navigation bar on the left-hand side of the screen. This Canvas webpage explains the Canvas Inbox in further detail. 

1. Go into the Canvas course shell you want to import content INTO.
2. Click on "Import Existing Content" on the Canvas course's homepage (far right corner).
3. Under "Content Type," select "Copy a Canvas Course."
4. Search for the course you wish to copy. You then can decide if you want to copy the entire course or only specific content. 

Student surveys (conducted by OTLE) have shown time and again that students prefer the course's structure to be driven by the Modules area and organized in sequential modules that include all resources and linked activities that students will need for that module.

You can organize your modules in whatever way you wish, but it is most common to use a weekly or bi-weekly schedule.

Your Canvas Gradebook will directly reflect the organization and structure you create in the Canvas Assignments section. 

This Canvas webpage explains the Canvas Gradebook settings in further detail. Contact OTLE if you need any help!

This Canvas webpage explains how to use the Roll Call Attendance tool in your Canvas courses. 

When should I use the Assignment folder?
Written assignments can enable a huge variety of assessment strategies: worksheets, reflection papers, journals, essays, research papers, etc. These can be lower-stakes assignments for formative assessment purposes, or they can be higher-stakes assignments that assess higher-order thinking and cumulative learning.

Setting up written Assignments in Canvas
In Canvas, you’ll need to set up a new Assignment folder for each individual graded writing activity. This Canvas webpage explains how to create an online-submission Assignment in Canvas.

When should I use Quizzes?
Online Quizzes are primarily used for formative assessment: that is, helping you and the students gauge whether they are learning what they should be learning. For instance, Quizzes can test students’ basic comprehension of readings or lecture videos, or help them practice foundational knowledge.

Quiz questions in Canvas can be created in a true/false, multiple-choice, short-answer, or written response (long answer) format. Generally true/false, multiple-choice, and short answer questions test lower-level thinking; however, they can be designed to test higher-order thinking. Here’s a Tech Snacks handout about designing higher-order thinking questions in Quizzes.

Setting up Quizzes in Canvas
Canvas offers two different Quiz types: the Classic Quiz and the New Quiz experience. Both options offer similar question types, but there are a few features that only exist in the New Quiz experience. You are free to use whichever quiz type you prefer.

If you have quiz questions already created in a Word document that you use for paper tests and quizzes, you can convert them into Canvas quiz questions. This question conversion tool will let you copy and paste text (with a bit of special formatting) and generate a Canvas test bank that you can import into your courses. Read the instructions on that page carefully, and contact us if you need help.

Many textbook publishers offer pre-built quizzes and question pools, but we strongly recommend not relying on those if at all possible. Students can find virtually every publisher-created test question and answer on “study guide” websites like CourseHero, Quizlet, and Chegg. Here’s a handout we created on the topic of cheating and cheating prevention.

Admittedly, given the situation you might have no choice but to temporarily rely on publisher questions to supplement your assessments. If that’s the case, you should consider tweaking them and/or using them only for low-stakes, formative assessment and not high-value tests.

When should I use Discussions?
The Discussion tool in Canvas can be used to engage students with important course concepts while also giving them an opportunity to interact with other students (and the instructor) about these topics. Discussions are typically used for formative assessment purposes and are usually graded as lower or medium stakes assignments.

There are advantages and disadvantages to using online discussion as a learning tool. Discussions in Canvas, for instance, are not synchronous (real-time). This means that the instructor may have to work harder to facilitate timely contributions and conversational flow than they would in a live classroom. There are also advantages, however. For instance, students who are reserved in person may thrive with the opportunity to collect and organize their thoughts in writing.

Setting up Discussions in Canvas
This Canvas webpage explains how to set up discussions in Canvas.

This Canvas webpage explains how instructors can view course level statistics and analytics within their courses.

All students and faculty have access to Office365, including an official campus email that is different from the Canvas Inbox. For convenience, OTLE has added an Office365 integration to the side navigation at the course level in Canvas, so you can access Office365 in each of your courses.