Canvas

Whether it's by chat or calling in, you can always get help with Canvas any time of the day or night. To get help, find the help icon in the bottom of your Canvas' left Navigation menu. Call (844) 384-5742 at any time for help, or see the following links for visual instructions.

• View the Canvas troubleshooting guide to find and solve your issue
• Instructors/Teachers/Course Facilitators: How do I get help with Canvas as an Instructor?
  • Chat with Canvas support (Instructor)

What is Canvas?

Canvas is the learning management system (LMS) for UIW. It provides instructors with the ability to distribute course materials, interact with students, and provide memorable learning experiences all in one place! It has assessment tools, student and teacher apps for mobile access, and detailed analytics for monitoring usage.

How to access Canvas

1. Login to Cardinal Apps with your UIW username and password
   1. See the 'Access and Management' section of this page to learn how users are granted access to UIW recourses.
2. Find the Canvas app either on your 'Popular Apps', 'UIW Apps', or 'Apps' tab.

Where do I start?

Once you're familiar with logging into Canvas via Cardinal Apps, you can start by going through the two training's below to jump in!

• Personalize the UIW Canvas Blueprint Training: Instructions for editing your Canvas course blueprint items.
• Canvas Basics Training: A simple introduction to Canvas and its basic features.

Canvas Resources and Handouts

• Canvas Highlights and Best Practices
• Written Canvas walkthroughs by Instructure
• Growing with Canvas - An online, asynchronous course
• Canvas video tutorial series on Vimeo
• Canvas Instructor guides by Instructure

Canvas doesn't have to be convoluted or cumbersome. Once you've been acquainted with the 'Canvas Basics and Overview' tile above, follow the steps below to fully build your course from start to finish. Now, you'll be well on your way to creating a rich online learning experience for your students. If you get stuck, reach out to us by contacting the Instructional Designer associated with your school or area as designated in the right sidebar of the page.

• Start here for a focused, progression-based, step-by-step walkthrough on building your first Canvas course.
  • 'Build Your Course' Training Module

• Below are the companion handouts for the course above, which offer reference and checklist-type materials for building your Canvas course.
  • Build a Course - Step 1 Organization and Settings
  • Build a Course - Step 2 Edit and Build Content Areas
  • Build a Course - Step 3 Prepare Graded Assignments
  • Build a Course - Step 4 Create Modules and Structure
  • Build a Course - Step 5 Finalize and Publish

Finished learning the basics and want a place to practice? Request a Canvas sandbox! A sandbox is a new, empty course shell created with you as the teacher that nobody else can see. Use your sandbox to learn, experiment, or build an entire course. Later you can copy any and all of your work to your live course.

Request a Sandbox Course

Canvas Studio is a built-in media tool that allows students and instructors to upload, create, edit, manage, share, and discuss with audio and video files. Existing files can be uploaded, or new videos can be created with Studio's capture and editing tools. For recording purposes, some notable features are as follows:

• Video recordings can be created with screen capture, webcam, or both.
• Users can upload existing video files to their studio library.
• Canvas Studio has a robust set of tools for adding captions, which can be added in multiple languages.
• The quiz tool exists to insert questions into your videos, which can be graded items that push right to the grade book.

To learn more about Canvas Studio, you can view the entire guide on Instructure's website. For more specific guides to get started:

• What is Canvas Studio?
• How do I use Canvas Studio in a course?
• How do I record my screen with Canvas Studio?

Check out the selection of on-demand video content from the Office of Teaching, Learning, and Technology (OTLT), which is recorded and archived from past trainings, professional development sessions, and tutorials over the years. The Video Resources Stream page will be the forever home for recorded content from OTLT so check back often to find new content!

OTLT Video Resources - Stream Page

Need face-to-face instruction or training? We're here for you, virtual or in-person. Reach out to the instructional design professional assigned to your school or department from the list located in the right side bar of this page.

Love Canvas and want to stay on top of new features? Check out what new feature updates will be rolling out in Canvas by viewing the release notes below.

Upcoming Canvas Updates

The Canvas mobile app is a version that helps you stay current with your courses anywhere you go. It's FREE and offers some convenient functionality such as...

• Grading assignments on the go
• Send messages/announcements to your classes from anywhere
• Edit pages, files, and upload content to your course

Download the Teacher app on your desired platform with the links below!

• Download the Canvas Instructor App for iOS
  • Canvas Teacher for iOS guide

• Download the Canvas Instructor App for Android
  • Canvas Teacher for Android guide

A user must have UIW credentials to get access to Canvas. When a new student is accepted to UIW through Admissions, or staff and faculty are hired through Human Resources, they'll receive communications providing them access to Cardinal Apps. Canvas is an option to choose in Cardinal Apps, although not everyone will see Canvas as an option right away.

Information Technology provides support for issues with access, passphrases, and Cardinal Apps. Contact the Help Desk at (210) 829-2721, helpdesk@uiwtx.edu, or use the Service Portal to submit a ticket if you have access or UIW credential issues. The Help Desk will ensure your request gets to the appropriate person.

Student access to Canvas depends on their course enrollment.

Faculty and staff have access to Canvas after receiving their UIW credentials, but they will see an empty dashboard with a message they have no courses until they have enrollments. Once faculty and staff are enrolled in Canvas courses, as either Teachers, Students, or another role, their dashboard view will change accordingly.

Note: How UIW users get access to courses in Canvas is covered further along in the proceeding tiles.

People who are not students, staff, or faculty but work with the university for a variety of reasons are called affiliates. An affiliate might include a captionist assisting a student with accommodations or a vendor who is partnering with a program to build course materials.

Affiliates get UIW credentials through Human Resources rather than IT. You must fill out an affiliate data form and send it to Human Resources. Using Adobe Sign is the most secure way since a social security number is requested. After Human Resources receives the form, they enter the person in Banner and send their UIW credentials. Contact Human Resources with questions or to check the of pending forms at (210) 829-6019 or uiwhr@uiwtx.edu.

Academic, support, and sandbox courses are the three main types of courses available to faculty. Many faculty use Canvas for more than teaching their academic courses and it’s important to understand the different types as they are managed in unique ways.

1. Academic courses are those managed through the Registrar and entered in Banner. Banner feeds information to Canvas several times every day to both create courses and manage enrollments of instructors and students.
2. Support courses are not managed through Banner. They are handled manually by the Canvas administrator and the person requesting the course. Support courses are used in a variety of ways to support the academic efforts of the university. If graded assignments and other Canvas features are not necessary for your situation, Microsoft Teams is an alternative to using Canvas. MS Teams allows groups of users to chat, videoconference, share files, and more. You can request a support course through a Help Desk ticket or contact your instructional designer to explore options that best meet your needs.
3. Sandbox courses are blank courses faculty and staff use for training, practice, testing features, and building Canvas components outside of courses where students are enrolled. You can request a Sandbox course through a Help Desk ticket.

1. A few months before a new term, the Registrar creates the schedule of classes with instructor assignments for the upcoming term and the information is entered into Banner.
2. 60 days before the term, Banner begins communicating course and enrollment information to Canvas. Canvas uses the information sent from Banner to create the academic course shells and enroll the instructors with Teacher access.
3. If there are changes to the instructor, departments update the information in Banner. Banner continues to communicate with Canvas several times every day to update the course enrollments throughout the term.

If you need to edit or build a course earlier than 60 days out, request a Sandbox space through a Help Desk ticket. The Sandbox course will be empty, and you can import your academic course content to edit it there. Once the next academic term courses are available, you can import the edited Sandbox content to your new academic course and have a head-start

How are users enrolled in academic courses?

Instructors of record and student enrollments must be managed in Banner. Canvas imports Banner information several times each day. Users added through Banner cannot be edited or removed by the Canvas teacher role, these changes must be made in Banner.

Instructors can add roles other than students in their courses manually to share content and collaborate with colleagues.

Banner is an origin system that manages data for the university, while Canvas is a learning management system (LMS) which allows you to provide instruction online. A feed is created to allow Banner and Canvas to communicate. The process runs several times each day to cause changes made in Banner to update over in Canvas. The feed is not an immediate connection. When a change is made in Banner, the update will occur after the next time the feed runs. It may take several hours for your changes to be seen.

Important Note: The Canvas course SIS ID is built with information in Banner. Specifically, the subject code, course number, section code, part of term, semester abbreviation, and 2 digits for the year. If the Banner feed has already ran to create Canvas academic course shells, changes made to these details in Banner will cause Canvas to create a new course shell. Contact the Canvas administrator if you have additional questions.

After a term ends, the feed connecting Banner and Canvas is turned off. Your Canvas course becomes read-only and is retained for the academic record with the enrollments that existed at the end of the term.

Before the term ends, an instructor can edit the Canvas course participation end date in the course Settings to extend the ability for existing enrollments to continue activity in the course.

Read-only is the state of a Canvas course after the participation end date has passed. This date can be proactively changed by the instructor before it passes. After the end date passes, contact the Canvas administrator to request a change.

Read-only for students: Students can see all materials and grades but are unable to post, submit, or interact with the course, teacher, or students in any way.

Read-only for instructors: Instructors can see all materials and copy them to another course, view grades, and manage course files, but are unable to make edits to pages, discussions, announcements, assignments, quizzes, grades, settings, or add new users.

Read-only for guests: This can be setup through the Observer role, another type of read-only role. Enrolling a guest with an observer role allows access to the course without being able to affect any course data or participation. When paired with a student, this role cannot submit work on behalf of the students they observe, but they can see student grades, assignments and events, and course interactions. Instructors can generate a pairing code for a student or link a student to an observer in a Canvas course.

Important Note: If you collaborate with other instructors on courses, add them to your course before the participation end date passes. A course is read-only passed the end date and you’ll need to submit a Help Desk ticket for assistance.

As a reminder, you'll need to submit a Help Desk ticket to request a support course and/or sandbox. When you submit a ticket through the Help Desk for Canvas support, it gets assigned to the Canvas administrator. The Canvas manually creates support courses and sandboxes. If you are looking for a way to manage an organization, program, department, or study group, Microsoft Teams is recommended - contact a software specialist to learn more at software@uiwtx.edu.

How are users enrolled in Support courses or Sandboxes?

The Teacher role can add all roles to support courses and Sandboxes. Any users you want to add to a course must have UIW credentials beforehand.

For academic courses, the course information your department submits to the Registrar is entered in Banner. That information is used to create the Canvas courses automatically each term. If you have an error in the name, number or some other detail, the change needs to be made in Banner to see the correct information in Canvas.

If you have access to a course that you are no longer teaching or do not see a course you will be teaching, contact your department to have the information corrected in Banner.

Whether it's by chat or calling in, you can always get help with Canvas any time of the day or night. To get help, find the help icon in the bottom of your Canvas' left Navigation menu. Call (844) 384-5742 at any time for help, or see the following links for visual instructions.

• View the Canvas troubleshooting guide to find and solve your issue
• Students: How do I get help with Canvas as a student?
  • Chat with Canvas support (student)

Getting stuck while you're using Canvas? Find guides, ways to contact the right help, and more by clicking on the Help icon in the bottom of the left-hand global menu inside Canvas.

New to Canvas? Check out the various student guides below to get familiar with your new Learning Management System

• Start here: Complete Student Guide for Canvas
• Canvas resource documents for Students
• Once you've logged into Canvas, visit the 'Canvas Cards' course to learn about Canvas from within the app

The Immersive Reader is a free tool, developed by Microsoft, that uses proven techniques to improve reading and focus for people regardless of their age or ability. Use the Immersive Reader in Canvas and many other Microsoft apps to have text read to you or displayed a number of different ways.

In Canvas

You can use the Immersive Reader in Canvas. If you do not see the immersive reader button at the top right of your Canvas course window, you can turn it on. Click on your account button in Canvas. Click on Settings and scroll down the page to Feature Options. Search for Immersive Reader and change the State to a green checkmark instead of a red "x" by clicking on it.

Click here for Immersive Reader Instructions.

Click here to learn how to find the Immersive Reader.

Please view this short video to see the amazing features of the Immersive Reader.

The LockDown Browser, by Respondus, is a custom browser that can prevent cheating while taking online tests. It works by locking your computer, so that you are not able to use the menu or web address line. You will not be able to use the function keys or shortcuts and you will not be able to save a screenshot or print.

Important: The link to download the browser is unique to UIW. No other download will work. Download the browser here.

When the Monitor is required, you will be required to allow your face to be recorded while you take the test. You will be required to show your ID, and record the environment where you are taking the test. The video will be available to your instructor, it will include warnings that point out any time you look away from the screen or leave your chair.

Check out the Student Resources at Respondus. You will find helpful videos and Student Quick Start Guides.

Respondus Resources

Download and save these Test Taking Tips provided by Respondus

Test Taking Tips

The Canvas mobile app is a version that helps you stay current with your courses anywhere you go. It's FREE and offers some convenient functionality such as...

• Viewing grades and comments on the go
• Respond to discussion boards and classmates from anywhere
• View, read, and access entire modules and assignments in your Canvas course

Download the Student app on your desired platform with the links below!

• Download the Canvas Student app for iOS
  • Canvas Student app for iOS guide

• Download the Canvas Student app for Android
  • Canvas Student app for Android guide

How much online storage is available to me through Canvas?

Courses: Each Canvas course has a limit of 2GB. Canvas courses are ideal for storing Word documents, smaller PowerPoint files, PDFs, and images.

Personal: Currently, each student and instructor has 52.4MB of storage. Files that students upload for a graded assignment are stored in their files area, but do not count against their storage limit.

However, if students are uploading a file as attachment, say, in a discussion thread, these attachments will count against their storage limit as Canvas does not consider an attachment as an uploaded assignment.

Larger media file types like audio, video, and larger Powerpoint files should be stored in Stream, OneDrive, or on a private YouTube channel and subsequently embedded or linked to within your course. These platforms have a near-unlimited amount of storage space and have the benefit of providing a single sharing link and not forcing you to re-upload a video per course for each semester.

For more information on how to store and share media in OneDrive, Microsoft Stream, or YouTube, please refer to the 'Storing and Sharing' section on 'Teaching with Video' page linked below.

Teaching with Video

Blackboard Ally is an integrated accessibility tool that seamlessly checks your course content and guides you to understand the process of making your content as accessible as possible. Currently, this feature is available on a per request basis. However, it will be launched globally for all courses and instructors starting in Spring 2023!

Interested? Check out the overview page below:

Ally overview

Want to turn Ally on in all your Canvas courses? Request with the button below.

Request to turn on Ally in Canvas

Echo360 is an online storage solution and automated lecture-capture tool that allows you to schedule recordings and/or livestream in a classroom or on a device and automatically upload and store them in an online library. The Canvas integration stores can store recordings in a convenient menu item so your students can find the recording, class, live-stream, or piece of media as quickly and easily as possible.

Echo360 is only available to HPS sites and programs... if you are a part of an HPS site or program, follow the guides below to get started with Echo360 and Canvas.

1. How to add Echo360 to your Canvas course
2. Lecture-capture request form
   1. Once you've connected your Canvas course in step 1, fill out this lecture-capture form and your assigned Echo360 scheduler (site-based) will make sure your course recordings are sent to the Echo360 tile in your Canvas course.

To learn for about Echo360 features and functionality, find the 'Echo360' tile on the Available Software page below.

Available Software for Faculty and Staff

Edpuzzle is an easy to use formative assessment tool that lets instructors cut, crop, and organize curated videos for students. Instructors can pull in personal and web-based videos, like YouTube, to be cropped and used with other content. Teachers can then check student progress in real time as they work through the given videos and their tasks throughout.

1. How to integrate Edpuzzle with Canvas
2. How to assign a video lesson in Canvas
3. How students can use Edpuzzle through Canvas

Flip, formally called Flipgrid, is a tool to create video discussions that can be integrated within Canvas. Flip is specifically designed for an immersive, colorful, and collaborative video experience for discussion facilitation. By following the guides below, you can integrate Flip into Canvas and learn how to create Flip assignments.

• Step 1: Create your Flip account
• Step 2: Setting up the Canvas Integration within your course
• Step 3: How to create Flip assignments within Canvas

LinkedIn Learning is an on-demand video learning platform to help you develop and enhance skills to attain professional and personal goals. While you can simply link or include LinkedIn Learning content within your course, the Canvas integration allows you to assign a video or course as a graded assignment within your Canvas course. Follow the links below to get started.

1. How to link or embed LinkedIn Learning content anywhere
2. LinkedIn Learning assignments in Canvas overview, FAQ, and troubleshooting guide

Padlet is an add-on that allows you to create an online bulletin board where students can add posts (YouTube links, files, pictures, etc.) in a visually appealing and interactive manner. Spice up your assignments by following the steps below to get started, today!

1. Request a Padlet account by emailing a Software Specialist
2. Learn the various ways to utilize Padlet
3. Create a Padlet assignment in Canvas

Poll Everywhere is an online engagement tool that allows students to respond to teacher-generated activities and polls in an asynchronous and synchronous manner. Teachers can use the program to receive responses in real-time during a synchronous lecture or event, or use a response link to passively collect responses over a period of time.

While you can place PE links anywhere in your course to gather responses, the Canvas integration allows instructors to create graded assignments from an activity. Follow the guides below to sync your course with Poll Everywhere and start creating grades from your activities.

1. Sync your Canvas course with Poll Everywhere
2. How to create a grade from a Poll Everywhere activity

To use Zoom in Canvas, simply add it to your course navigation bar through your course settings. View the resources below for an overview and how to get started!

• Get started by using Zoom in Canvas (PDF)
• Video overview of Zoom add-on within Canvas