UM Math Canvas Intro

First, where is Canvas? You can always find it from the link at, yes, canvas.umich.edu (look at the top right of the page). Or you can go directly to umich.instructure.com.

From the Canvas site, select your Sandbox course to play with. You can do all of the following to that; when you have a regular course site, you can work with that instead.

• Importing a Course
  1. You can download a template course export file here: general math course template
  2. Go to Settings, and look on the right sidebar for "Import Content Into This Course."
     • For Content Type select "Canvas Course Export Package."
     • Select the course export file you downloaded for Source.
     • For Content, select "All Content."
     • Click "Adjust events and due dates."
     • And then click "Import" (and wait a moment).
• Updating Syllabus Information
  1. Click "Syllabus" on the left side bar.
  2. Click "Edit," above the calendar on the right side-bar.
  3. And update the obvious information...
• Updating Settings
1. Click "Settings" on the left side bar.
2. Scroll through the course details information to see what you can update there. Click the "more options" at the end. There are two options that you may want to select:
   1. "Hide totals in student grades summary": This will make it so Canvas doesn't calculate a "total grade" based on assignment scores. You should definitely check it if you're teaching 105/115/116 so students don't think this number is giving them their overall course grade. (Course scores include additional components and are more complicated than this.)
   2. "Hide grade distribution graphs from students": If you don't check this box, students can see average, high, and low scores. In a perfect world, we'd be able to turn off the low score part, but we can't, so we highly recommend that instructors check this box. Note that if you do, then students can no longer see average scores for assignments either, and you'll have to tell them the average yourself.
3. Click the "Navigation" tab. Note that you can move applications around in the course navigation, and hide items from students. To find out what the different navigation items allow you to do in your course, enroll in the Canvas at Michigan Canvas course, and see this resource page.
• Managing Students and Other Users
  In general, you will not need to add users to your course, as the course enrollment is managed by Canvas and the University. If you want to add other users, which for the purposes of this session you do want to do:

  1. Click "People" on the left side bar.
  2. Click the "+People" button.
  3. Add the people at your table as students to your course.
• Importing Grades
  If you have assignments in your course which you have graded by hand (e.g., quizzes or homeworks), you can create an assignment under Assignments, and then go to the Gradebook to enter scores. You can also upload scores if you have them saved in another spreadsheet. To do this..

  1. You need to upload an appropriately formatted CSV file; this csv file is a template. Change Assignmentname to the name of the assignment, Last, First to the student's name, uniqname to her/his uniqname, and score to her/his score. Add more student rows for additional students.Get CSV file, change name and add students and scores. Create entries for an assignment for the people you added in "Managing Students" above.
  2. Then click "Grades" on the left sidebar of your Canvas site, and then "Import."
  3. Select the file, and click "Upload Data."
  4. Select "new assignment" for the "Assignment in Question."
  5. Click "Continue."
  6. Click "Save Changes."
• Student View
  Finally, have the people you added as students view the site to see how things appear. Note that you can also look at the site as a student—click "Settings" on the left sidebar, and then "Student View" on the right.

Where to go from here? The Canvas at Michigan site has a bunch of information. ISS provides support for Canvas, including drop-in and one-on-one support. Or ask your fellow instructors!