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Canvas course shells are made available to faculty according to the following schedule:

1. Summer Courses: March 1
2. Fall Courses: May 1
3. Spring Courses: Nov. 1

If you are just starting with Canvas, you might want to take a look at the full Canvas Documentation.  Or, if you just need to find a quick answer, these are the most commonly asked questions we see.  

Common Canvas Course Setup Tasks

• First Steps in Canvas
• Communicate with your Students
• Create Course Materials
• Using Microsoft Office Features
• Grading
• Quizzes
• Working with Publisher Tools
• Make Your Course Available To Students

First Steps in Canvas

• Get the Apps Canvas Teacher (IOS), Canvas Teacher (Android), Canvas Student (IOS), Canvas Student (Android), Zoom, Microsoft Teams
• Login to Canvas at http://una.instructure.com using your UNA username and Password
• Visit the How to Use Canvas and CIDILabs course  (CIDI Labs allows you to use themed templates in your course.)
• Canvas Video Guides
• Canvas User Guides (manuals, videos, etc.)
• Setup your Profile and Notifications
• Control which courses you see in your course list
• Give your courses nicknames
• Add an image to a course card in the Dashboard

Communicate with your Students

• Send Course Announcements
• Canvas Inbox (course messaging)
  • Messaging everyone in a course.
    • Your course must be published to send messages to your class.
    • The Send an individual message to each recipient checkbox prevents users from seeing who else is being messages

Create Course Materials

• Upload your Syllabus into Simple Syllabus
• Copy/import a course or course content
• Adjust Assignment Dates in Bulk
• Use Canvas Studio to create videos (Don’t forget to generate captions!)
• Use Modules to organize material such as handouts, files, and links. 
• Duplicate a module
• Duplicate a module item
• Create an Assignment. Creating an Assignment creates a gradebook column.  Be sure to select a Submission Type of “No Submission” if you do not expect students to submit work in Canvas.
• Use Turnitin to detect plagiarism in student submissions.
• Assign Assignments/Quizzes to individual students
• Adjust Assignment Dates in Bulk
• Hide Navigation elements you don’t use
• Use the Attendance Tool (Roll Call). Be sure to decide if you want it to count as a grade
• Export a course  to share with colleagues

Using Microsoft Office Features

• How do I create a hyperlink from Microsoft Office 365 in the New Rich Content Editor as an instructor?
• How do I create a Microsoft Office 365 collaboration as an instructor?
• How do I view my Microsoft Office 365 files in Canvas as an instructor?
• How do I create a cloud assignment with a Microsoft Office 365 file?
• Share OneDrive files in Modules: Click on the Modules link, select the + icon under the desired Module, and choose External Tool. Click on the link for Office 365, choose the file, and click Attach File.

Grading

• Use Assignment Groups (categories) and Weighted Grades
• Use SpeedGrader to grade and comment on Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes.

• Use the Gradebook
• Specify if grades are automatically visible to students by setting a grade posting policy.
• Use the Anonymous Grading and Moderated Grading features

• Using Points versus Percentages in the Gradebook

• Set Default Grades for an assignment
• Set automatic grade policies for missing submissions or late submissions
• Exporting Grade to CSV/Excel
• Give extra credit in a course
• At the end of the semester, sync your Canvas Grades with Banner.  
  • Check Banner to make sure all grades have synchronized. 

Quizzes

• Use Respondus Campus-Wide Test Generation software to create quizzes 
• Give a student extended time to take or access quizzes 
• Create a quiz with a question group to randomize quiz questions
• Require the Respondus Lockdown Browser or Respondus Monitor (automated proctoring) for your quizzes. (Don’t forget to add a test policy and instructions for students)
• Check out the Respondus Webinars and Product Training
• When copying a course or making changes to quizzes that use Lockdown Browser or Monitor, you must visit the Lockdown Browser Dashboard in your course to automatically update the Lockdown Browser settings.
• Once your students have taken quizzes, you can use Quiz Logs to troubleshoot/analyze their Quiz access  

Working with Publisher Tools

• Connect Your Canvas Course with Various Publisher Tools

Make Your Course Available To Students

• Check your course content for broken links with the Canvas link validator
• Once the semester starts, don’t forget to Publish your course so students can see it!
• Don’t forget to publish your Modules and other Materials
• Give students early access to your course or extend course availability. Even if published, courses open and close for students based on term dates, unless you change those dates.
• Send students a welcome message (Course must be published in order for students to receive messages). Choose “Send an individual message to each recipient” to Blind Carbon Copy
• View your course as a student