Canvas at Evergreen

FAQs for Faculty and Staff

What is Canvas?

Canvas is a learning management system (LMS) by Instructure which features:

• A clean, user-friendly interface.
• A dashboard page that quickly summarizes assignments, announcements and other relevant information across course sites.
• Customizable notifications: students can get alerts via email, text message or social media at the frequency they desire.
• A working calendar that can be added to Google Calendar, iCal or other popular calendar tools.
• Support for embedded and recorded media content: images, audio, video.
• The power of the cloud.

Are Canvas sites private or visible to the public?

Evergreen's Canvas sites are private by default, and are NOT visible to the public.

• However, faculty can choose to make a site partially visible to the public, but it will not include any student data.

When is my course available? Can I create my course in Canvas in advance?

Canvas courses are not created automatically but can be self-selected by faculty through their Academic Resources page.

• A course may be requested by faculty once the offering has been made available in Banner.
• Your Canvas site should be available within 2 hours following your self-selection request.

I have requested a site, but I don't see my course in Canvas

In Canvas, please click on Help at bottom of the global navigation menu at far left and select Report a Problem to submit a help ticket.

What is the File Storage quota for my course?

• Each Canvas course site is allotted 500 MB for file storage and Canvas Groups have 50MB of storage.
• In addition, each individual Canvas user is allotted 50 MB for personal file storage.
• Concerns or requests regarding file storage quota? Please contact Academic Technologies.

Student Enrollment in Canvas and Conclusion Schedule

Students registered for your course or students you've made a signature override for will be automatically enrolled in your offering.

• Students with signature override who have not officially registered will be concluded at the end of the first two weeks of class.
• Students who un-enroll from the class will have their enrollment in the Canvas course concluded within 24 weekday hours.
• If you want to add students to your class who are not yet registered, please reference Add and manage students in Canvas using Sections below.

Concluded Student Enrollment by Term

For multi-term offerings using a single Canvas site for all terms, conclusion of student enrollment per term section occurs by Monday morning Week 1 of the following term.

For example:

• Fall enrollment is concluded Monday, Week 1, of Winter quarter.
• Winter enrollment is concluded Monday, Week 1, of Spring quarter, and so on.

Conclusion of an enrollment section means students:

• have read-only access to site content and course materials associated with the previous term(s)
• will no longer receive Canvas notifications related to the offering’s site activity (unless they are enrolled in a subsequent term)

See also Instructure's illustrated guide:

• Where can I find concluded student enrollments for my course?

Add and Manage Students in Canvas using Sections

Sections are used to organize students for administrative and assessment purposes.

These are the default sections created for single and multi-term offerings:

• a section for each quarter for student enrollment
• a section titled Manually add students here (please use this section for adding students)
• a section for faculty members associated with the offering
• a seminar section per faculty per quarter

How to Manually Add Students

1. Click on “People" in the Course Navigation menu.
2. In the "Add People" window, ignore the format example and ONLY enter the student’s Evergreen username (i.e., hoobel17) or "A" number. If entering multiple usernames or A #s, separate with commas.
3. For Role, select “Student."
4. For Section, select “Manually add students here” - if you do not place them in this Section, they will get bumped out of site enrollment.
5. Click blue “Next” button, Canvas should validate user(s), then you can follow through prompts to complete enrollment.

See also Instructure's illustrated guides:

• How are courses and sections related?
• How do I add students to a section?

Completed Offerings and Conclusion of Canvas Sites

Conclusion of Canvas sites occurs following an offering's last term by Monday morning, Week 9, of the subsequent term.

For example:

• A Fall-Winter-Spring offering is concluded Monday, Week 9, of Summer quarter.
• A Fall-only offering concludes Monday, Week 9, of Winter quarter.

When the offering’s Canvas concludes, the site will no longer appear on your my.evergreen page or Canvas Dashboard but is still accessible:

• From your my.evergreen page, click on Canvas Home
• At your Canvas Dashboard, click on Courses at left (just under the Dashboard icon) and then All Courses
• At the All Courses page, scroll down to view courses listed under Past Enrollments

Faculty retain access to their offering's Canvas site, although:

• The People index is depopulated of students, the Gradebook and assessment are kept intact.
• Viewing student submissions via SpeedGrader is no longer available, student submissions can be downloaded via the Gradebook and individual Assignment pages.
• Students have read-only access to concluded Canvas sites.

Use Content from a Previous Canvas or Moodle

• How do I import content from another Canvas course?

• How do I import content from Moodle into Canvas?
  • (Note: to import content from Moodle into Canvas, you will first need to make a backup copy of your Moodle course.)

If you would like help with migrating content, please contact Academic Technologies for assistance.