Canvas

• OIT's Canvas webpage has good practices, how-tos, resources, and self-help guides.
   
• For instructors: Canvas’ How To Instructor Guide
   
• Canvas Essentials, is an asynchronous micro-course that reviews the Canvas interface, tools, features, and guides you through general course design decisions and activities to get your site ready for the start of the semester.

The CLA Canvas template is based on weekly pages and based. Feel free to explore the Psych CLA Canvas template (self-enroll). 

To import the Psych CLA Canvas Template, follow these steps:

1. On the Canvas homepage, select Import from Commons from the right-side menu.
2. In Commons, enter "PSY CLA Template" to the search field.
3. Open the Template course tile, and click the blue Import/Download button.
4. On the right side of the next screen, under Import into Canvas, select the course into which you want to import the template.
5. Click Import into Course. Allow a few minutes for the template to appear in your course.

Canvas course sites can be reset (all content be removed), but the link of the site (the Canvas ID) will change. 

CLA has created a video on how to use the CLA Canvas Template. A helpful resource is the Canvas Design for Student Success self-help guide.

For support to apply the template to your specific Canvas site, contact Silke Moeller ([email protected]).

• Canvas: Getting Started for Students
• Where to find feedback
• What-If Grades allow students to calculate their total grade
• Online Learning Tips
• Learning Online 101, a self-enroll, self-paced Canvas site for students. Students earn a badge for completing this course.
• How to view feedback on Canvas assignments, [Video 1:31]
• Watch AI Ethics & Efficacy, April 2024 [Video 28:00] 

• What is cross-listing in Canvas and how do I do that as an instructor?
  • If you have multiple sections to cross-list, contact Silke Moeller ([email protected])
• How do I use colors and icons in the Canvas Gradebook?
• How to use Speedgrader?
• How can I give Feedback to Students?
  • Leaving comments for students in the Gradebook
  • Adding comments for students in Speedgrader
  • Quickly send a message to students directly from the Gradebook
    • creates individual messages to students who have not yet submitted, scored above or below a specific grade, or haven’t been graded
• Canvas Assignment Rubrics
  • Adding a Rubric to an Assignment
  • Rubrics Troubleshooting with Tips and Examples
• How to request a non-academic Canvas site?
  • Contact Silke Moeller ([email protected]) to allow self-enrollment for a Canvas site
• Understanding Roles Types in Canvas
• How to update course material in Canvas, supported by the Libraries

For a comprehensive checklist to get your Canvas site ready for your students: Canvas Start-of-Semester Checklist.

• The 7 Core Skills and the Foundations Training
• In Canvas:
  • Accessibility checker UDOIT
  • Accessibility checker in Canvas Editor
  • Enabling Immersive Reader in Canvas
• Self-paced training on Digital Accessibility:
  • Create Accessible Canvas Course Sites
  • Slide Presentations
  • Documents
  • PDFs
  • Web Conferencing/Zoom (in development)
• Universal Design of Instruction (UDI), Definition, Principles, Guidelines, and Examples
• Guide for Inclusive Teaching (Columbia University), Moving Toward Inclusive Excellence - Checklists (MCAT)

DesignPLUS is made up of three time-saving, easy-to-use Canvas tools that help to create and style high-quality courses that make learning engaging and accessible for all students: The Sidebar, the Upload/Embed Image Tool, and the Multi Tool.

• 2025 DesignPLUS Summer School for Educators, a video playlist explains the DesignPLUS tools
• Design Tools for Canvas (overview and resources)
• DesignPLUS Multi Tool: Make a Page or Assignment Template (step-by-step)

Instructors should order all of their course materials via the "Course Works Order and Request Form." The University Bookstores, Campus Stores, and Libraries will work together to obtain your course materials and ensure copyrights, newest versions, and digitally accessible materials. Contact [email protected] with any questions, or contact the Bookstores or Libraries directly. 

Instructors who would like to add to their reading list in Canvas–to appear under the "Library Course Materials" tab in the Canvas navigation– should also use the "Course Works Order and Request Form" to do so.

The following Q&A with Shane Nuckerud (Libraies Director of Affordable Learning and Open Education) provides information why to use the library services for course materials for Canvas:

• What’s the advantage of using the Library Course Materials page for readings? (E.g. inclusion of alternative file formats)
  • It makes it easy to link to library resources. Linking to library resources makes them more accessible. Vendors are working, just like us, to make their content more accessible, such as with HTML versions.
  • It also ensures that students are getting the most recent version of an article or book.
  • It also helps with copyright concerns, gathering analytics on library usage.
• How do licensed content vendors (JSTOR, Elsevier, Wiley) address accessibility of PDFs?
  • A lot of the vendors are creating HTML versions. They are also scrambling to make their PDFs more accessible. As they make these updates, if a course is using the LCM page, the students will get the most recent, up-to-date version.
• What does the library do to clean up the accessibility of scans? (e.g. OCR, tags, reading order)
  • Can’t always get around using scans, although we may like to. We (Libraries and Interlibrary Loan) have OCRed the content and are working through processes to tag and create reading order; however, it is very time-consuming.
• What is the University looking into for PDF remediation? And what is the preliminary outlook
  • A tool is coming and it may help all of us remediate PDFs (4/10/2025)