Canvas FAQs

Visit the guides from Instructure (the vendor) for a comprehensive list of features:

• Canvas Basics Guide
• Canvas Instructor Guide

Three access options exist for manually created courses. These can be found under the visibility option within the course settings.

1. Course level access – if your course access authoriser has given you ‘Course Access Coordinator’ role, you can manually add additional staff to the course. Enrolling students is done automatically for credit-bearing courses.* If you have externals requiring access, please see: Requesting course access for interns and visitors.
   • Anyone enrolled in your course will see the course tile on their Canvas dashboard.
   • Participants are able to take part in course activities such as a quiz or a discussion.
2. Institution level access – all staff and students (current and past) can view the course.
   • No enrolment process is required though the course access coordinator can add staff manually if required.*
   • Anyone enrolled in your course will see the course tile on their Canvas dashboard.
   • Course activities like quizzes and discussions are available only to those who are enrolled.
3. Public access – the course is made publicly accessible.
   • Activities like quizzes and discussions are not available.
   • No enrolment process is required.

* Note: Course access coordinators and course access authorisers can add staff or student roles for manually created courses (see course types and templates) but they can only assign staff roles to credit-bearing courses; students have to enrol in these courses through Student Services Online. Find out who your course access coordinator is via the People section of your course.

View a comparison chart of Canvas features for course level, institution level, and public level access.

View the information on cross-listed courses.

This pertains to an officially recognised manually created course where the course can be published and course access authorisers can add staff; students can be added through SSO. Please obtain an approval for your course from your faculty’s course management authoriser before submitting your request.

View the list of course management authorisers.

Staff with the role: Teacher, Teaching Support and/or Course Director are able to add and delete dummy/sandpit courses.

To add a dummy/sandpit course:

Teachers can create a dummy course using the 'Start a New Course' button from the Canvas dashboard. This course allows teachers to add additional staff to the course and to use it for testing various features.

Note: Students cannot be added to the course and the course cannot be published.

To delete the dummy/sandpit course:

Teachers will see the 'Delete this Course' button in the course settings for those courses that were created or started from the dashboard only and are part of the sub account 'Manually-Created Courses':

The 'Delete this Course' button has a confirmation and an alert message advising you to save the course ID in case the course needs to be restored in the future.

If you need to restore the course, fill out the Canvas Assistance for Teaching form.

Please see the Knowledge Base article for this topic.

Courses access authorisers (CAAs) are a Group Services team who are nominated by their faculty to approve or provide bulk access for people in Canvas courses. View the list of course access authorisers for your area.

Twice a year CAAs will use the Staff Access Upload Tool in their Canvas Management Console to 'bulk upload' instructors (teachers, teaching support staff etc.) to the course shells within their area, including course access coordinators for the various courses. The recommended timeframe for this process is:

• For the first half of the next academic year (Summer School, Semester One, Quarter One, Quarter Two) the suggested timeframe is November to December.
• For the second half of the current academic year (Semester Two, Quarter Three, Quarter Four) the suggested timeframe is April to May.

If you haven't received access as part of this process, you should ask your course access coordinator in the first instance to add you to the course; look for your course access coordinator in the list of people in your course. Alternatively, please raise a request with your course access authoriser.

To understand what role type you should request, please review the various role types.

1. Go to the Canvas course and click the People menu item.

2. Click the Add People button.

3. Search for a staff member via email address, login ID, or SIS ID.

Canvas' people search screen has options to search by email address, login ID or SIS ID.

4. In the Role drop-down menu, assign the person a role for the course based on available course roles.
5. In the Section drop-down menu, assign a person to the default title section of the course.

Canvas' add person to course screen showing the role and course section drop-downs.

6. For any course access, always provide access by selecting the course section that includes both the course code and the course title.

Canvas' add person to course screen showing the course section drop-down. Highlighted is A C C T G 222: Accounting Information Systems.

7. For cross-listed courses, look for the A/B section; this will avoid problems later. For example, if a teacher was only added to the A course, they would loose access when the course term ends mid-year, even thought they would still required access to the end of the B term.

Canvas' add person to course screen showing the course section drop-down. Highlighted is S O C W O R K 734 A/B: Professional Social Work Research in Practice.

8.  Click the Next button.

For more detail, please see the Canvas Instructor Guide for this topic.

After logging into Canvas, in the global navigation click the 'Courses' link, then select 'All Courses' and scroll down to 'Past Enrolments'.

For more information about accessing your courses, visit the Instructure Canvas guide.

If you need access to a past course, as you are teaching the current course, contact the course access authoriser (CAA) for your area (e.g., via Staff Access enrolment tool or directly in Canvas if they are the Faculty Admin).

Only those with a UoA identity can have a Canvas account. 'LMS affiliation' is then added to their profile so they can be granted access to a course.

1. Please ask any visitors to self-register for a UoA identity and then send you their assigned username and ID. Ask them to visit: how to register with the University.
2. Request Canvas assistance for teaching and provide your visitors' usernames and IDs in the notes field of the request form (this can be done as a bulk request). Ask to have them added to the Canvas Ad Hoc User Group; this adds 'LMS affiliation' to their profile. Also explain the reason and duration for their access.
3. Once they have LMS affiliation—an overnight process—your course access coordinator can add them to your course as students, but only for manually created courses. For credit-bearing courses, course access coordinators (and course access authorisers) can only add staff roles.* Find out who your course access coordinator is via the People section of your course.

With 'LMS affiliation', your visitors can also view any courses published with institution level access. See: Manually created courses.

*Note: For credit-bearing courses, students have to enrol through Student Services Online.

In this case, please create a dummy course in Canvas; see How to create dummy course. Please name the dummy course appropriately so that you are able to distinguish it from the official course when you are given course access.

Once the official course has been created and you have access, import the content of dummy course into the official course. See: How do I import content from another Canvas course?

All new students are 'bulk enrolled' into the Academic Integrity course in Canvas (ACADINT A01) by Academic Services. If a student has somehow missed out on being enrolled, course access authorisers can enrol them retrospectively. Please email the student's username and ID number to: academicintegrity@auckland.ac.nz.

The Observer role in Canvas plays a crucial role in providing access to course content, including assignments.

• Observers cannot view assignments that are unpublished, ensuring confidentiality until the teachers makes them accessible.
• Published assignments, even if locked or restricted with availability dates in the future, are visible to observers, allowing them to preview upcoming assessment tasks.
• Observers receive email notifications for published assignments and new assessment updates.
• In specific scenarios, students with pending enrollment may be granted observer access when there are delays in CS9 official enrolment and the course has already started.

It is imperative to remove the Observer role from a student once they are officially enrolled to prevent unauthorised access to restricted assessment information. Similarly, remove observers once the course ‘census date’ has lapsed (i.e., the grace period for paying course fees and moving between courses has ended), regardless of whether their student role has been assigned or not. Otherwise you are essentially allowing them free access to a course that they may not be entitled to. Course coordinators can use a provided workaround to remove the Observer role from a student in the course.

This comprehensive approach ensures the integrity of data security and promotes a streamlined process for teachers and coordinators.

Canvas always prioritises a staff account (@auckland.ac.nz) if it exists, even if another email address is prioritised in their Identity profile. Therefore, if a Graduate Teaching Assistant has been provided with a staff email address, all Canvas emails will be going there instead of their student account.

They can access their staff email directly via the Microsoft Office site:

• Go directly to outlook.office.com.
• Enter your staff email address if prompted.
• Log in at the Single Sign-On screen.

Once in, they might like to set up a forwarding rule to send all messages to their preferred email address.

Read the Knowledge Base article for more information about staff email.

You may have been granted the course access coordinator role on the course (enabling you to have access to the course) but you don't also have a role that allows you to add/edit content. Roles that enable this are teacher, Course Director (there should only be one Course Director assigned to a course) and teaching assistant. With course access coordinator role, you can grant yourself with addition roles on the course.

Review the various role types, then under the People section add yourself with one of the additional roles; see the Canvas Instructor Guide.

If you are not a course access coordinator but need to author content, ask your course access coordinator in the first instance to edit your role; look for your course access coordinator in the list of people in your course. Alternatively, please raise a request with your course access authoriser.

Lecture theatre recordings resources provides insights into the University's approach to recording teaching materials. It covers tools and strategies for recording lectures, enhancing the learning experience through technology.

The Lecture Capture Release Policy and Procedures page on the University of Auckland's policy hub outline the specific policies and procedures governing the release of lecture capture materials. It covers aspects such as student consent, privacy considerations, and the university's approach to recording and distributing lecture content.

For further inquiries or support related to lecture recordings, including the use of Panopto, you can submit a request through the IT portal form.

Managing course storage is crucial for optimal performance and resource allocation when adding content into your Canvas course. Some tips to address course storage and enhance storage management within Canvas are as follows:

1. Monitor storage usage within your courses in the Files function. All courses are given 5.2GB storage within Canvas.
2. Effectively reduce storage consumption by utilising tools like Panopto, Zoom, Microsoft OneDrive and Google Drive.

Instructure Support provides assistance for various tools within Canvas.

Canvas utilises Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) to seamlessly integrate third-party tools, enhancing the overall educational experience. The University of Auckland offers a range of centrally supported learning technologies for staff.

The course navigation menu provides access to various LTIs and apps, including but not limited to Talis Reading Lists, H5P interactive content, UDOIT accessibility assistant, Collaborations (Microsoft OneDrive), BigBlueButton Conferences, Zoom video conferencing, and more.

Certain LTIs and external apps are accessible through the rich text editor Apps menu, including H5P interactive content, Khan Academy, Microsoft OneDrive, Panopto Video, Vimeo, YouTube, and UoA Canvas icons.

Specific LTIs and external apps are accessible in Assignment settings under the ‘external tool’ option, such as Inspera assessment platform, Turnitin plagiarism detection, and FeedbackFruits peer review.

For an updated list of integrated LTIs, apps and plugins, please refer to Canvas apps/LTI tools and plugins.

External tool guidance in Canvas involves exploring various integrations and technologies to augment the teaching and learning environment. Here’s a guide to utilising external tools:

1. Canvas apps/LTI tools and plugins: This resource provides an overview of functionalities that seamlessly integrate with Canvas.
2. Other tools: Beyond Canvas-specific tools, explore additional technologies that can complement teaching practices.
3. Turnitin Integration: Turnitin is a tool commonly used for plagiarism detection and feedback. Understand how Turnitin integrates with Canvas to enhance assessment processes.

If you encounter issues or need support with external tools, submit a request through the IT portal for assistance.

Access tokens grant third-party applications access to Canvas data/resources through the Canvas API (Application Programming Interface). They:

• enable applications to access Canvas resources on your behalf, as though the application was you
• grant an application access to the same Canvas resources that you can access (i.e., has your role permissions)
• are stored under your Canvas user profile

Access tokens align with Canvas permissions. For example, if you have a Teacher role on a course, your tokens will grant an application the same permissions to access Canvas data as a teacher does. Conversely, if you have a Course Designer role in a course, your access tokens will not be able to manipulate Gradebook data. See roles and permissions.

Course Director, Teacher, Teaching Support, and Teaching Assistant roles have access to confidential student data through the Canvas API, therefore these access tokens must be handled securely.

When using an API access token:

• Record the token in a secure manner.
• Keep it secret, keep it safe.
• Do not send the token information via email.
• Do not provide your API access token to another individual or external vendor.

Any individual or application that has your access token will have full access to your Canvas data, just as if you gave them your username and password!

It is good practice to review access tokens at least annually and expire or delete unused tokens.

For more information, please see the guides:

• How do I manage API access tokens as an instructor?
• How do I manage API access tokens as a student?

To request a Canvas API Access Token, please fill out this form on the SSC Portal: Canvas Assistance for Teaching.

SpeedGrader pre-loads all assignment/quiz submissions, therefore large classes can be unwieldy.

We suggest splitting your class into smaller groups using the Groups feature in Canvas (you will find that under the People page). Create a Group Set and name it according to the Assignment or Quiz. When creating or editing the Assignment/Quiz, select the Group Set that you just created. This does not mean that students will work in groups to submit the Assignment/Quiz, it’s just to make SpeedGrader more manageable.

Then in SpeedGrader, filter the submissions Group by Group. This will load much smaller batches of Assignment/Quiz submissions and SpeedGrader should be much more responsive.

Yes but with a caveat – if two or more markers use SpeedGrader to grade the same student’s script at the same time, it is possible that they may overwrite each other’s work. Therefore clear communication between markers is important.

SpeedGrader with Assignments
Consider creating a Final Assessment ‘Group Set‘ so you can divide the class into Groups. If you have three markers, you could create three Groups (make sure all students are assigned to a group, i.e. there are no unassigned students). In the Canvas course Settings, enable Launch SpeedGrader Filtered by Student Group.

The markers should select which group they are going to mark. Marker One can grade, say, questions 1-6 in Group One while Marker Two can grade questions 7-11 in Group Two etc. When they are done they can switch groups. Note: this has nothing to do with setting up the Assignment as Group Work (students working in groups), you’re only grouping students for the convenience of marking.

SpeedGrader with Quizzes
If your markers are grading a Canvas Quiz, SpeedGrader allows for grading one Quiz question at a time, therefore you can allocate markers to certain questions.

Yes, the original submissions are always available and can be downloaded.

We recommend downloading and opening the PDF document in Adobe Acrobat*, to compare it with the uploaded version in SpeedGrader.

Sometimes a student’s PDF document contains layers—think of information written on stacked layers of glass—which will look fine when viewed with Adobe Acrobat. But when students submit their PDF to a Canvas Assignment, some layers may not display within SpeedGrader.

To avoid this, instruct students on how to create their PDF file, e.g.,

• A4 page format.
• Page orientation, portrait.
• Instructions on how to flatten their PDF, i.e. how to merge the layers into a ‘flattened’ document.

As a marker, how will I know if they have not ‘flattened’ their PDF?
This may not be obvious but if you suspect the PDF contains layers that are not displayed, download it—SpeedGrader has a download button above the document window—and view it with Adobe Acrobat.* You can compare that with the view in SpeedGrader.

What if a student has submitted a PDF with layers?
We suggest that you mark the PDF submission ‘manually,’ using Adobe Reader. Transfer the marks to their assignment submission in SpeedGrader.

* Adobe Acrobat is available to download from the staff Software Centre, or the free Adobe Acrobat Reader is available from Adobe.com.

Image adapted from Sagibalter / CC BY-SA.

Yes, the University has developed a tool for this very purpose. More information can be found in this Guide to Booklet Generation and Processing.

Yes, this is a feature of Canvas that the University has allowed. Use cases might include: submitting a late assignment on a student's behalf after the deadline, or where a student has encountered technical difficulties in submitting their document.

View details on the Canvas instructor guide or watch this video.

Video - Submitting an assignment on behalf of a student.

From your Canvas course, go to Grades, locate the assessment. Click the three dots beside the name of the assessment.

Click Grade Posting Policy and choose Manual, scroll to the bottom and click Save.

Watch a video demonstration of setting the Gradebook's Grade Posting Policy to 'manually'.

If a TA has been added to the course, then the TA and the teachers have the same access for marking purposes. However, if the TA is added to a specific section of the course (e.g., a cross-listed course), then the TA will only have marking access to that section.

Navigating the Gradebook and managing final grades in Canvas is crucial for teachers to ensure a smooth assessment process. Here's guidance to help you manage the Gradebook and finalise grades:

• Marking and grading: The page provides valuable insights into the assessment process. It covers essential aspects of marking and grading, offering guidance on effective evaluation strategies for instructors. Whether it is understanding assessment criteria or implementing fair and consistent grading practices, this resource serves as a comprehensive guide for teachers seeking to enhance their assessment practices.
• Feedback tools in assessment: The "Feedback Tools in Assessment" page explores various tools and techniques for providing constructive feedback to students. Instructors can find information on diverse feedback methods, including digital tools and traditional approaches. This resource is tailored for educators aiming to improve the feedback loop, fostering a more engaging and supportive learning environment for students.
• Canvas Gradebook: Teachers can find information on using the Gradebook effectively for tracking student progress, managing grades, and providing timely feedback. This resource is particularly beneficial for teachers looking to optimise the use of digital tools for efficient grading and assessment management within the Canvas.

The SSO Grade Submit (Final Grade Submission Tool) facilitates the addition of special grades and the submission of final grades to Student Services Online (SSO). This tool is conveniently accessible through the Canvas Gradebook as well. Read further guidance for the Final Grade Submission Tool.

Even though they won't be able to access grades via the Grades menu in navigation, they can still see their overall grade so far for each course by clicking the View Grades button on their Dashboard. Use the Manually Post Grades policy in Canvas to properly hide grades from students before they are finalised.

From your Canvas course, go to Grades, locate the assessment. Click the three dots beside the name of the assessment.

Click Grade Posting Policy and choose Manual, scroll to the bottom and click Save.

Watch a video demonstration of setting the Gradebook's Grade Posting Policy to 'manually'.

You can find the View Ungraded as Zero option under 'View' in Canvas' Gradebook. Once the option is ticked, "Ungraded as 0" will display in the headings of assignment group columns and the total column.

Canvas gradebook. The view options tab is open and the view ungraded as zero checkbox is ticked.

When the option is ticked, the assignment groups and total columns will display grades as if all ungraded assignments were given a score of zero. Only the instructor who enabled the option will see the affected grades.

Please note that:

• Each time the option is ticked, a pop-up window will show the details about the option.
• The option won't populate zeros in assignments or affect grades for students.
• Other instructors in the course will not see any change in their view of the Gradebook.

Yes, this is a feature of Canvas that the University has allowed. Use cases might include: submitting a late assignment on a student's behalf after the deadline, or where a student has encountered technical difficulties in submitting their document.

View details on the Canvas instructor guide or watch this video.

Video - Submitting an assignment on behalf of a student.

• For unsubmitted assignments – you have the option to leave a dash or hyphen (-) in the Gradebook. Use the “Treat Ungraded as Zero” (view-only) function. Enabling this setting shows the total score that has calculated the ungraded assignments as scores of zero. This feature only has a visual impact. Regardless of whether you have enabled or switched off the feature, Canvas will send the grade that has factored in all scores of zero for each student.
• Alternatively, by giving the student a zero (recommended), the students’ Total in Canvas will match the grade to be sent to the Final Grade Tool.

Here are screenshots of the various options. Notice that the total score changes.

Unsubmitted assignment marked as ' - ' only.

Unsubmitted assignment marked as ' - ' with the 'Treat ungraded as 0' feature enabled.

Unsubmitted assignment marked as '0.'

Remember – Special grades such as DNS, DNC or NA cannot be applied at this point (they can be entered in the Final Grades Tool).

Do not excuse students from final exams; leave the column blank.

• This should follow a different process where the student's grade can be submitted to SSO as they are (most likely a failed grade) or as a DNS via the Final Grade Tool, with paperwork to follow up.

You could do this from the course gradebook.

1. In your course, click Grades from the side menu.
2. Click the Export drop-down list (top-right).
3. Click Export Entire Gradebook or Current Gradebook View (if you have applied filters).

This will download an Excel file to your desktop containing the students’ names, ID numbers, email addresses, etc.

1. In Excel, delete any columns that you don’t need and add additional columns for activities that you want to track.