Canvas FAQ for Teachers

(last updated on 20 August 2024)







Hardware and Software Requirements


Please visit the link below for details.

Additional information can be found at Canvas Basics > General Information.


Safari (Mac) users: Safari may cause issues with downloading files, displaying images, and playing chat alerts in Canvas. Please try another supported browser, such as Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.




Please try the following options if content cannot be loaded or shown in a Canvas course on your computer.


Safari (Mac) users: Safari may cause issues with downloading files, displaying images, and playing chat alerts in Canvas. Please try another supported browser.








Course Management


In the new Canvas course, please make use of the Import Existing Content in "Home" or Import Course Content in "Settings" (Canvas instruction: How do I copy content from another Canvas course using the Course Import tool?).

All new Canvas courses have the updated settings. "Import Course Content" may overwrite the new settings. After copying content from a previous Canvas course, please check those settings and update according to your preference in the destination Canvas course.




Items in the Course Navigation menu can be reordered and hidden from students. See "How do I manage Course Navigation links?" for details.

The default Home Page (entry page) in Canvas course is Course Activity Stream. One may change the Home Page to Course Modules, Syllabus, Assignment List, Pages Front Page by clicking the "Choose Home Page" button. Please view Canvas instruction "How do I change the Course Home Page?".




With regards to Canvas instruction "How do I manage Course Navigation links?", you can hide all Course Navigation items (except "Home").




After clicking "Courses" and then "All Courses" from the left panel, previous semester courses can be seen under Past Enrollments.




Canvas courses have "Terms" which give a default set of start and end dates to any course assigned. After the end of term, you can read but not edit the courses (i.e. contents, grades).

If the current term course site will need to be edited after the end of term, please visit Settings of your course site, select Participation: Course and specify a later date in End field (see screen capture see screen capture ).

If you are unable to set the end date, please contact us (dl.support@cityu.edu.hk or 3442-6727) for support.








Announcements


Email notifications of the announcement (including body message) will be sent to students after creating announcement in published course. The default notification option "Announcement" for each user is "Notify immediately". You can check your own notification preferences (top left panel: Account > Notifications).

However, please note that students can modify their own notification preferences as shown in Canvas instruction "How do I set my Canvas notification preferences as an instructor?".

To ensure information being sent to students via email, you are advised to use Class List in AIMS.




The default notification option for Announcement Created By You is Notifications off so you won't be able to receive any email notification after creating announcement in Canvas course.

To receive your own copy of the email notification, please modify notification option for "Announcement Created By You" from Canvas instruction "How do I set my Canvas notification preferences as an instructor?".








Assignments


Assignment with File Uploads will not accept file larger than 5GB while Media Uploads will not accept media file larger than 500MB.








Turnitin Assignments


If an assignment is set to allow any file type, Turnitin will accept any file:

  • That is less than 100MB;
  • That has a minimum of 20 words; and
  • That is less than 800 pages.



Turnitin accepts the following file formats:

  • Microsoft Word® (.doc/.docx)
  • OpenOffice Text (.odt)
  • WordPerfect® (.wpd)
  • PostScript (.ps/.eps)
  • HTML
  • Hangul Word Processor file (.hwp)
  • Rich text format (.rtf)
  • Plain text (.txt)
  • Adobe® PDF *

* Turnitin will not accept PDF image files, forms, or portfolios, files that do not contain highlightable text (e.g. a scanned file - usually an image), documents containing multiple files or files created with software other than Adobe Acrobat®.




The percentage range is 0% to 100% with the possible similarity groupings being:

  • Blue: No matching text
  • Green: One word - 24% matching text
  • Yellow: 25-49% matching text
  • Orange: 50-74% matching text
  • Red:: 75-100% matching text







Quizzes / Surveys


You can copy quiz/survey by using the Import Existing Content in "Home" or Import Course Content in "Settings" (Canvas instruction: How do I copy content from another Canvas course using the Course Import tool?).

Please note the following steps in "Import content" (see screen capture see screen capture):

  1. Choose Select specific content, not "All content";
  2. Tick Adjust events and due dates, choose Remove dates in "Date adjustment";
  3. After clicking blue button "Import" then "Select Content", tick the specific quiz/survey and submit on the popup.

The quiz/survey will be duplicated with same name in the Quizzes area. Please contact us (dl.support@cityu.edu.hk or 3442-6727) if you have any issue carrying this task.








Groups





You can download the group member list in CSV format under the group set tab.

  1. Click "+ Import" button;
  2. Click the Download Course Roster CSV link on the "Import Groups" screen.

(Canvas instruction: How do I import groups in a group set?)





In Canvas course,

  1. Click Settings from left Course Navigation;
  2. Under the "Course details" tab, scroll down the page;
  3. Remove the "tick" in the option box Let students organise their own groups;
  4. Click "Update course details" button.