hover behavior when course time zone and local time zone differ

[cheryl_colan]

This student guide on how to set your time zone states that "If you set a time zone in your user settings, you can always view the course time zone by hovering over any date and time in your course. The text will show both the local time and course time."

I can't get that behavior to happen. Can you describe more specifically how to see the local time and the course time?

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi there, @cheryl_colan ...

There are three areas of Canvas that I am aware of where a time zone can be configured.

First, your school's local Canvas administrator can set the time zone for the entire Canvas account.  For example, I work for a Technical College in Wisconsin.  So, we are in the Central Time Zone.  When we first got Canvas several years ago, we used this Guide to configure the account time zone: How do I set a time zone in my user account as an ... - Canvas Community.

Second, if you are an instructor, you can set the time zone for your course.  So, for example, if your Canvas course had an in-person component to it where your students met face-to-face one day a week together but the rest of the class time was online, you might want to set the class time zone based on where you meet.  Check out this Guide: How do I set a time zone for a course? - Canvas Community.

Last, you can set your time zone as a user.  So, for example, if you live on the West Coast but take courses at a school in the Mid-West, you would set your time zone to the Pacific Time Zone, and Canvas would figure things out accordingly...even if the course time zone was in the Central Time Zone.  Here are a couple more Guides:

• How do I set a time zone in my user account as an instructor? - Canvas Community
• How do I set a time zone in my user account as a student? - Canvas Community

I hope this will be of some help to you.  Sing out if you have any other questions about this...thanks!  Take care...be well.

[cheryl_colan]

Thanks for your reply, but I don't need to know how to configure the time zone. I'm just asking about the hover behavior that the guides say exists, but that I can't reproduce. It would be helpful to see the course time via hover when it's different from the user time zone setting. 

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hello again, @cheryl_colan ...

I reached out to some folks on the Canvas Documentation Team.  Here are a few places that you can see the "course time" displayed when you hover your mouse over the date/time:

Syllabus page:

Assignments index page:

Individual Discussion topic (not on the Discussions index page)

I was looking through some of the Canvas documentation to see if I could find any examples like the ones shown above, and I wasn't able to find anything, either.  I even looked in the Guides for the "Assignments" index page for both instructors and students.  So, if you think that one or more Guides could use some clarification, you can always submit a request at the bottom of any Guide, and the Documentation Team will take your comments into consideration.  They are always willing to take our suggestions to help clarify anything that is not clear.  So, for example, if you went to this Guide, How do I set a time zone for a course? - Canvas Community, and then scrolled to the very bottom of the screen, you would find a link to "share your feedback".

I hope this will be of some help to you.  Take care...

[cheryl_colan]

Very helpful, @Chris_Hofer - thank you. I'll provide feedback on the relevant Guide page.