Please refer to the information for submitting Assignments, taking Quizzes in Canvas, using Canvas Studio, reporting problems, and more!
Building a Student-centered Canvas Course: Start of Semester Checklist End of Semester Checklist
- Import a previous course, or
- Create a new course
Adding links to
Navigate to: Teaching Toolkit Homepage
or other Teaching & Learning Services
Use a current version of Chrome or Edge on Mac and PC. Other web browsers may cause problems for displaying uploaded course files, posting to the discussion board, submitting online assignments and taking quizzes and exams in Canvas.
Navigate to https://canvas.rmc.edu and login with your RMC username and password. If you have problem signing in, please contact ITS.
Start with Global Navigation to manage the following if you are new to RMC Canvas.
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Instructors should communicate regularly and clearly with students about each course. In hybrid or online teaching, frequent communication is especially important for student learning. For in-person teaching, Canvas Announcements can be an effective communication tool. Announcement messages can be received by students in the Canvas App and their RMC email.
Canvas Announcements (video | text) allows the Instructor to send announcements to the whole class. Students by default cannot post new announcements. Students can view announcements when logging into the course site. The default Notifications setting allows the student to receive the announcement in their RMC email.
Conversations/Canvas Inbox (video | text) can be accessed by clicking on "Inbox" in the global navigation. Canvas Conversations is essentially email within Canvas. It allows the faculty member and the student to send private messages to another individual in the course, or to send to a group of users within the course as well as across Canvas course sites. Note: Conversations do not get archived as the semester ends. Removal of old conversations is done manually by the author.
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Two weeks before a new semester begins, students enrolled in the class are imported from MyMaconWeb into your Canvas course shell.
The class roster is accessible from the "People" link on the Course Navigation. During the semester, when students are added to or drop from the class, the Canvas course roster is usually updated in one business day. If the roster does not get updated in one business day, the instructor or the student should report the problem using Help (the question-mark icon) on the Global Navigation.
The Groups tab in the People allows the instructor and students to form groups.
The Attendance tool in the Canvas course is also called Roll Call. It allows the instructor to keep track of class attendance. When instructors take attendance using Roll Call, Canvas automatically adds Attendance as a student assignment that appears in the Gradebook.
The instructor needs to enable the link in the course navigation in order to use Attendance; see details on managing the course navigation.
Learn how to use the Attendance tool (video from University of KY | text).
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You can import a course from a previous semester and then bulk update assignment Available and Due Dates.
A well-organized Canvas course makes it easy for students to find materials for review and to keep track of due dates for tasks. Refer to the
Quick Guide to add content and use the gradebook, or the self-paced course for building a learner-centered, organized Canvas course.
In a new course shell, start with cleaning up the course Navigation. Disable course navigation links that you do not plan to use in your Canvas course.
Next, use Modules to organize the course by topics, weeks or other thematic units. In a module, items can be added to link to Files, Pages, Assignments, Discussions and Quizzes.
Note: Modules can be expanded or collapsed for easy browsing. For instance, clicking the triangle for Week 2 module (illustrated above) will expand it to display the module items.
More information on creating modules: video guides (4-min or 2-min)
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An assignment, discussion or quiz can be added as a New Item or Existing Item.
Refer to the sections below for creating assignments, discussions and quizzes. Then in a module, add module items for content.
Textbook publishers and other vendors develop teaching resources that can be integrated in Canvas courses. The instructor can add a link in a course module to connect to the resources.
Share Accessible Links
When sharing content through email or Canvas, it is preferable to link to readings found through the library catalog, library databases, or content that is open access. Use of these links guarantees access to material and helps the Library see that materials are being used. If there is no access through the library or via open access, use Interlibrary Loan. Be cautious about sharing material found on the open web, as sharing it with your class may violate copyright law. If you are concerned about whether content may be in violation of current interpretations of copyright law, please content Laurie Preston at lpreston@rmc.edu.
When linking content from a library database, make sure you use a persistent link rather than the url in the address bar.
Persistent Links show up in various places, depending on the database, for instance, in ProQuest the persistent link shows up on the abstract/details of the record:
The persistent link is also known as a document URL, persistent URL, PURL, durable link/URL, or stable link/URL. Locate persistent links in other databases.
To ensure that links are available for use off-campus, add the following prefix to the link: https://rmc.idm.oclc.org/login?url=
For example: https://rmc.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A240097363/LitRC?u=vic_randolph&sid=LitRC&xid=28b8792d
The prefix will route any off-campus user to login with their Randolph-Macon College username and password.
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Use Discussions (text guide) to encourage students to participate in class-wide discussions outside of synchronous class sessions. Default Notification settings allow students to receive discussion board posts in their R-MC email.
Instructors can:
Learn more about working with discussions in Canvas (text)
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Assignments include student work that can be graded inside a Canvas course or off-line.
Submissions such as text entry, file uploads, media recordings, Google Docs, URLs, or work completed on a 3rd-party web resources are assignments, and so are presentations, online quizzes and paper and pencil tests. The Assignments tool in Canvas can accommodate a wide variety of assignment types. If you haven't used Assignments extensively, start with this overview video (4:29)
There are many more options and details related to Assignments in Canvas. Learn more.
Rubrics
Rubrics can be useful in Canvas because they communicate clear expectations to students and can speed up the grading process.
Rubrics can be added to assignments, graded discussions, and quizzes.
Learn how to create a rubric (video | text)
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Canvas Quizzes offers sophisticated tools for creating online quizzes and tests. Question types include multiple choice, fill in the blank, short answer, true/false, essay questions, questions requiring a numerical answer, formula questions, and more.
Canvas does not include proctoring software, and existing online proctoring tools do not guarantee that a student cannot or will not cheat. So what can instructors do to accurately measure student learning?
Canvas classic Quizzes is being deprecated. We encourage instructors to begin using the New Quizzes tool.
To enable New Quizzes in a Canvas course,
When adding a quiz to the course, you will be prompted to choose between the Classic or New quiz. You may want to set New Quizzes as default.
How do I migrate a Canvas quiz to New Quizzes?
How do I create a quiz using New Quizzes?
How do I grade a quiz in New Quizzes?
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