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This sounds very similar to where we were two years ago.  What we did is trained about 8 of our 60 some faculty (including adjuncts) as super users.  We made magnetic stars that they stuck to the frame of their doors to make it obvious where others could go for help.  Next we offered training in multiple ways but left it up to the faculty to chose the best way for them. Ultimately, faculty had to sign-off that they knew some basic tasks and either I or the superusers had to sign off that we observed some skills in Canvas (set up gradebook, customized their home page, created modules, posted an announcement, etc.).  The options were to come to the one day, all day training that was done on site, complete a self-training module I created (better ones can be found in the Commons now!), work on it themselves in a sandbox type course, or come to several small group, hands on sessions that the 8 super-users and I put on over the month before classes began.  We also had an orientation module for students to complete and student helpers ( like super users) around to answer questions the first week.  The student resources were barely used - the students had no problems adopting the system.  And faculty did well with having the options to train how they chose.  Everyone had a due date for their documentation and that meant they were ready to do the most basic tasks before the semester began. ... View more

We are doing this now too for math placement testing. ... View more

Thanks Stefanie.  Will do.  We are doing fine with our individual rooms and just posting the link in the course or emailing it to students. It is going very well and thankfully no firewall issues at last! ... View more

We started Canvas last fall.  We are a small (700+ students) health sciences college with a tight budget also. I had created our own training modules in Canvas for faculty to complete - but you could do the following plan with the materials that others have directed you to already.  What worked well for us was to get a small group of six faculty who had decent computer skills and were excited about the new LMS, and trained them as super-users. Then we had a roll-out in the fall before classes began, after 10 month faculty where back.  Faculty could attend group training sessions that I and/or the super-users did on specific topics, the one day all day training Canvas provided, they could do the independent modules in Canvas I created, or they could just explore and figure it out themselves.  The end result was to be the completion of a basic skills checklist.  Faculty checked themselves off to document that they had learned these skills and then the super-users or ed tech staff (all 2 of us!) checked that they had indeed performed the mandatory functions in their course (uploaded a syllabus, put contact information on the front page, created assignments/gradebook, and made a welcome announcement.)  This checklist was to be turned in to their supervisor and they kept a copy for their portfolio. Canvas useage is mandatory for all for our college, but with individual deans/directors tracking completions of the training I was a little worried about how well enforced the training would be.  I have to say that this worked very well and we had many fewer questions or requests for help than we had in a typical semester start up in our old system (ANGEL).  It really helped to have the super-users as faculty scattered around the building both for convenience and for modeling effective use purposes.  Faculty saw themselves as owning the learning experience which is exactly what I had hoped for. ... View more

Are you licensed for just individual rooms? Did you get your license through a 3rd party distributor?  If so I'd contact them.  I had some difficult with how I had my rooms set up (I hadn't added the teacher whose room it was as the host).  MeetingOne our distributor was great in helping me find the problem.  Once set up correctly, the teacher just posted the link to their room in all the courses where they teach.  Students then just need to click on the link to join the session at the appointed time.  I'm not sure that is what you need - but maybe that can help. ... View more

Our spring evaluations were 63% which really is very good. That was with no effort beyond what was set up through evaluationkit on our part to Encourage participation.  Even more significant were our summer returns which historically are abysmal. We have received only about 25-30% of summer evals in the past and we averaged 55% this summer.  Our courses start and stop at all different times all summer so capturing these varied dates has always been a nightmare. Because EvaluationKit uses the imported course start and stop dates and you can set the evaluations to start and stop based on these dates we were able to make certain that all courses were captured in a timely manner.  And with the pop-ups set to remind students it appears to be much more effective than emails used in the previous system for catching student attention. ... View more

I will chime in with Adam.  As a small college with little resources to devout to customization, we went to EvaluationKit this last spring and it has been awesome.  Because it integrates so well inside Canvas and it can create a pop-up box that students get when they enter Canvas to remind them to do their evaluations, our completion rates have vastly improved.  The time spent to create the evaluations semester to semester is much, much less than our previous product. It uses the enrollment in the actual courses in Canvas for the evaluation enrollment so the evaluation enrollment is always correct - whew!  We've used another system before, SurveyMonkey and we did evals within ANGEL prior to this through separate Evaluation Courses that duplicated the live courses.  This is by far the best option I could have asked for. ... View more

Got it!  Thanks Scott! ... View more

I concur with your observations.  I am seeing more faculty adopt online grading as they observe their peers doing so. I think the ability to download all the papers and grade them offline and re-upload them has added to the satisfaction and use.  I have only seen one reason that has caused some to go back to on-paper grading, or grading within Word rather than Speedgrader.  The difficulty of printing a paper graded in Speedgrader so that the comments are captured has been the catch.  This isn't a problem if they have written on the body of the paper, but is only a problem when using the text bubbles to the side. Sometimes they can successfully print the comments at the end of the document and other times depending on what I imagine is their individual computer setup or browser, this doesn't work.  I've been able to get most to return to using the Speedgrader by asking them to mark only in text.  You might wonder why you would want to print the graded document.  Sometimes it is needed for documentation reasons when a grade is disputed, for use in the faculty's professional portfolio as an examples, and other times for assessment committee purposes.  In any case, once we got past that bump people have indeed persisted to grade online and truly see it as an advantage. ... View more

I would like to be added to CanvasHacks Classroom.  Thanks! ... View more

 @kmeeusen , that is wonderful! Thank you for creating such a thing.  Please add me as a student. At this point I wouldn't have anything to contribute, I'm sure!  Thanks again.  I'll message you my email. ... View more

We have opted for purchasing 20 individual rooms.  Faculty place the link to the room when needed in Canvas.  So far this seems to be working very, very well.  Having had all manner of difficulties with firewalls with other products, this has required no exceptions to be made to the firewall so far and it has worked 100% every time.  Of course we have only had a handful of sessions so far - but that is still better than in the past. ... View more

I'm tagging in on Kona's thinking also.  They need 1 on 1 support.  We have had a very similar situation as to "experienced" faculty with very low tech skills.  There are only a few but they can take the majority of your time.  Systemically, it works to require everyone to complete some minimal level of training and then document that they possess these skills ( alter home page with contact information, upload syllabus, create modules, add content to modules, make an announcement, set up grade book, etc.).  We did that with a lot of success.  The super - users and the Learning Lab staff (more on that in a minute) did the check offs and the skills sheet went to the faculty's dean or director.  That said, these struggling learners are the ones who had the most difficulty retaining that information but it least got their feet wet.  We are different in that we require everyone to use Canvas, and we have only Canvas as an option.  We are small (less than 750 students).  So maybe too unique to generalize well.      But I've created this Learning Lab approach and this has worked well.  I was able to get into one of the larger offices and on all available desktop space I've accumulated otherwise rejected laptops.  These have 3 uses.  Faculty who need support come in the office and work on things with me, our Instructional Designer and some student workers on hand to help them as they work.  That way they have help when they need it but I can also keep working on things in between times instead of hanging out in their offices for hours when they only need a minute every now and then.  It works especially well for those for whom lack of confidence is the biggest issue.  Secondly, I've hired work study students to be in the Learning Lab for this very purpose.  They sit with faculty and work with them individually.  Or they go to the persons office and sit with them for long stretches as they set things up.  Staffing is a bit of challenge - I thought I could cover most days and times with four students - but that is only covering about 1/3 of the regular hours, so I am looking for more workers all the time.  These student workers use a different email and password to log into Canvas in the student assistant role, and I've created a customized set of authorizations for them.  They are on their honor to not enter any current or future courses and I do randomly check what they have accessed.  But these are all healthcare workers and are very familiar with HIPAA level security and not accessing anything you don't have direction to do so. And I've been pretty careful about my selections as well.  Thirdly, faculty can check out the laptops over night if needed.       My student workers do a lot of other things for faculty other than help with just learning Canvas.  They create content on Raptivity, quizzes, discussion forums, groups, pages with images and links - anything that faculty aren't comfortable with or don't have time to do so long as they have had the course, isn't in their program, or is a non-graded item. In some situations they create content in a Learning Lab course where I keep up the Learning Lab schedule on a google doc and track other things.  Then I move what they make into a course where they shouldn't go.  I don't know if that is an option for everyone, but it has worked for me.  The Learning Lab isn't anything official anywhere, its just my creation, but the concept has been very successful.  My student workers are always busy. ... View more

 @James ​  Thank you very much for your explanations and offers of sharing as a way of helping.  I'm sure these instructions will make sense as I begin diving in and working to learn more about them.  I do know and have used a pivot table before!  So I know something to start with!  You make a good point if we sit back and wait for native function the wait might be very long and finding a work-around is a realistic alternative.  @kmeeusen ​ Thanks for reminding me that we aren't the only small college out there plugging away to make it all work with what we have. I hadn't thought of myself as someone who had the skills to hack the UI - but when I think of how we have a test instance - why not try.  And there is wisdom in not creating everything that everyone wants - it was the simplicity of Canvas over other LMS's that created part of the appeal. Very good an useful conversations and insights all! ... View more

Good point   @kmeeusen ​  I'm in the world of private colleges and I hadn't thought of the impact of state definitions where state colleges need to maintain identical definitions.  Of course those definitions apply to us as well but we can have different definitions internally.   Until state's widely adapt that language however, I can see that movement will likely be slow.  ... View more