How often do you view your course through the eyes of your students? Is your course organized in a logical manner? Can students easily find the content they need?  Is content placed into modules? Are titles of content explicit, pointing to lesson, to...

This blog post describes how to batch upload quiz questions to Canvas Quizzes using the Respondus 4.0: Exam Authoring Tool.

Hello Everyone,I'm currently using Canvas as the platform for a resource development project for some of the staff at our university. In essence, what we've done is taking an traditional training manual and moved all this information into Canvas so t...

I don't know many people, especially teachers, who are not pressed for time. However, Canvas can help you save this precious commodity. Here's how:Canvas Quizzes Can Score Themselves: Use a variety of questions from matching to multiple choice to fil...

We’ve all had that teacher, lecturer, instructor,  or seminar presenter who lost us within the first couple of minutes of their presentation. Perhaps you worked hard at paying attention but the complexity, monotone delivery, PowerPoints filled with t...

If your institution opts to have a log-out period for security/privacy reasons there is currently no log-out session warning due to inactivity. This means that when a user is in the Canvas system, they are not alerted when their session expires or if...

Since Thanksgiving is coming soon, I thought I would share a feature in Canvas for which I am thankful (& perhaps the Community team will see fit to make this a mission/badge for November :smileylaugh: ).Over the weekend, I had a student in one of my...

Rules, procedure, specifications, method, description, directions, or scoring guide; these are just a few synonyms used interchangeably with what we know as the rubric. As an instructor I tell the students if they want to earn an “A” on their assignm...

Below is a simplified glossary for many important terms used in Canvas, along with the relevant links in the Canvas Guides. Wording is taken from the Canvas Guides​ and Where can I find a list of Canvas terminology?​ along with some of my own. This i...

I'm always looking for innovative yet elegantly simple and straightforward strategies for teaching and learning with technology. A decade ago I used to hand out in-class pop quizzes to make sure students read and understand course content. In theory,...

SynopsisThis blog post will show how to look up values in a formula question that can't be generated directly. In particular, it will show how to look up critical values from a student's T distribution to generate a confidence interval. It is extenda...

We started revamping our science curriculum a couple years back as a part of a big STEM push as an institution (complete with a new building). Lovingly called STEM 1 initially, now Science 9: Chemical and Physical Systems, the course Freshman take co...

The obvious benefit of Canvas for assignments is the “green” benefit of going paperless for papers, assignments, tests, and quizzes. A feature which has been used in some of our Psychology and Counseling courses are group assignments. It is great to ...

I was speaking with a high school metal shop teacher the other day.  He had what I thought as a neat way to use Canvas in his lab.  The students must demonstrate how to safely use various pieces of equipment throughout the semester.  When a student i...

I had a teacher request that tests in her class not be available in Canvas unless students were using Safe Exam Browser.   SEB is a free open source lock down browser similar to Respondus, but free!So I slapped together a quick little snippet of java...

Update: The New Quizzes feature is now available in production. Content from the classic quizzes must be migrated to new quizzes. Currently New quizzes cannot accept publisher QTI files so content must be imported in the classic quiz tool and then mi...

I LOVE the use of Rubrics within Canvas!Scenario: Previously, I would print out dozens of copies of a rubric- I use rubrics to provide clear expectations for my students. Traditionally, I make copies to handout when I assign a project and ask for stu...

I'll start off this blog post by stating that I am not, by any means, an expert in creating professional looking newsletters.I decided to start sending out a newsletter to our full-time faculty and adjuncts via e-mail this semester.  To date, we've s...

This is probably the most frequently asked question that comes through our help desk. A lot has changed in Canvas recently that makes it much easier to accommodate students but also a bit more confusing. I created a slidedoc to give to faculty a gene...

I can't tell you how often I have trained faculty where the whole climate of the room changes when I share design tools and assets. Eyes light up, jaws drop, and the room is filled with oohs and aahs when I share a tool as simple as Da Button Factory...

This collaborative document is provided in connection with this blog post: Connecting With Students: Consider Their Point Of View. All registered users can "Edit" this doc and add valuable instructional design resource links.   IMPORTANT: this is a c...

While I love working on Canvas and teaching others how to use the platform, one thing that I found confusing that also seems to regularly confuse the new users I work with is that the term "Group" is used in a lot of different circumstances.I recentl...

The beginning of a new semester is an exciting time for institutions, admins, instructors, and students. We’ve compiled a checklist of frequently seen issues during this time that will help you avoid any hiccups to ensure your semester starts smoothl...

Introduction to this SeriesThis is the second document in a series that I will be writing in regards to using the Canvas Styleguide. If you are unaware, the Styleguide is a public tool used by our engineers to make Canvas look and feel consistent acr...

Update: The style guide has been deprecated and replaced by InstUI. For more details, please see InstUI: Instructure’s Style Guide 2.0Introduction to this SeriesThis is the first document in a series that I will be writing in regards to using the Can...

A new semester is upon us and this provides a great opportunity to get moving on your health goals. This summer my husband and I started juicing! I had the crap scared out of me while watching two documentaries (currently available on Netflix), Fat, ...

SynopsisThis document will show you how to use Microsoft Excel and the Canvas Provisioning Report to generate a list of all courses with their teachers that are Unpublished (or Published). Three solutions are presented: a recommended approach using E...

Canvas I will share an "Academic Apple" with the Instructional Design group.  Every beginning to an academic year is different than the other, however many things remain the same.  For instance our institution uses master courses that populate the on...

Amongst other things, here are five things I do before the start of the September term:Prepare face-to-face Canvas orientation sessions for new and returning students.Provide advice and support to new and existing academic and professional services s...

Our institution has a distributed campus model that follows the traditional semester structure for courses, while our Distance Education program utilizes the rolling registration model for courses. The DE program is easy because it is more of a “set ...