Resources

As a faculty member it is a good idea to make yourself familiar with Canvas so you can know what tools are available to you as you build your courses.

Find Canvas Help

Canvas help is available at your fingertips using the Canvas Help icon on your Canvas homepage. Take a look at this step by step video tutorial on how you can get support right at the time you need it.

Watch Canvas Overview 

Canvas Interface Overview Script 

Set up your Notifications 

By default, your notifications will go to your organizational email address. If you would like your notifications to go to an additional email address and/or if you would like to add notifications via text message, you can add these options to your notification preferences in the Account tool on the left of the page and then choose “Settings”. Once you are on the Settings page, you will see a place to the right of the page to add a new email address or an “Other Contact” which would be your cell phone number if you would like text messages.

TIP: An important thing to note is that students set their own notification preferences.  They can choose what notifications they want to receive immediately, daily, weekly, or not at all.   It is recommended that you remind your students to set up their notification preferences too so they receive the messages and feedback you and your colleagues send them.

Canvas Guide on Setting Notifications

Use Announcements to Communicate with Your Students 

One of the best ways of communicating with students is through Canvas Announcements. You can create an announcement to share important information with all users within your course and with users in sections of a course. These announcements will also trigger an email message to be sent to the VU email addresses of your students.

How do I add an announcement in a course?

Add Your Profile Picture 

Whenever you send a message in the Canvas Inbox, post to a Discussion, or send an Announcement your message or post will feature your profile picture. It is very helpful to have a picture there so students easily recognize what messages are coming from you versus what messages are coming from classmates. 

To add a profile picture, click Account and choose “Profile.” Click the grey placeholder profile picture icon to get a pop-up window where you can add your picture.  Click the Upload a Picture tab and either choose a picture or drag one from your desktop and drop it into the uploader. Canvas will automatically store a copy of the new profile picture in your personal files.

Canvas Guide on Setting Your Profile Picture 

Communicate via Email in Canvas 

An important thing to note about the Canvas email (called Conversations) is that your Inbox is linked to all of your courses.  Email from all of your courses appears in the same inbox.  Your Canvas email will also forward to your external email and you can respond in your external email without going into Canvas.

Canvas Guide on Inbox (aka Conversations)  

The content found here was designed by Indiana University and adapted for use by the Institute for Faculty Development at Vanguard University. This content is offered under a CC Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license and should be considered under this license unless otherwise noted. The original content was imported from “Designing and Teaching for Impact in Online Courses” from within Canvas Commons.