How do I use the Course Navigation Menu as an instructor?

The Course Navigation Menu is a series of links on the left side of your course that help you and your students access different course areas. The Course Navigation Menu is visible by default, but you can choose to collapse it.

Depending on the structure of your course, you can choose to reorder and hide course navigation links.

Note: If you have enabled the Canvas Elementary Theme for your course, the Course Navigation Menu displays a different font.

Open Course

View Courses

To open a course from the Global Navigation Menu, click the Courses link [1]. Then click a course link [2], or to view all courses, click the All Courses link [3].

View Course Navigation Menu

View Course Navigation Menu

View the Course Navigation Menu [1]. The currently active link is highlighted with different color text and a line indicator [2]. This highlight helps you quickly identify the feature area you are currently viewing in Canvas.

Links that are hidden to students are indicated by the Visibility icon [3]. A link may be hidden to students because the feature area has no content or because the link is disabled. Learn more about managing course navigation links.

By default, new courses show links leading to the index pages for the following areas:

  • Home
  • Announcements
  • Assignments
  • Discussions
  • Grades
  • People
  • Pages
  • Files
  • Syllabus
  • Outcomes
  • Quizzes
  • Modules
  • Conferences
  • Collaborations
  • Settings  
  • Lucid (Whiteboard)

Note: Configured external (LTI
) tools may create additional Course Navigation links. However, these links do not display the visibility icon. To prevent a link for an LTI tool displaying in the Course Navigation Menu for either you or your students, you can disable Course Navigation links for LTI Tools in course settings.

Collapse Course Navigation Menu

Collapse Course Navigation Menu

To collapse the Course Navigation Menu, click the Menu icon.

Expand Course Navigation Menu

Expand Course Navigation Menu

When the Course Navigation menu is collapsed, it is not visible. To expand and view the Course Navigation Menu, click the Menu icon.

Note: When you expand or collapse the Course Navigation Menu, the menu is expanded or collapsed in all of your courses.