Canvas is a learning management system (LMS) that lets instructors, facilitators, and students collaborate and participate in a course. You can use it to deliver resources, post assignments, grade assignments and interact with students.
Canvas is more than a system that houses course content. It is also an online community space that keeps students engaged.
Once you're officially confirmed to teach, you’ll be provided with your own course site.
If you're new to Canvas
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Check out the QuickStart training site for a comprehensive overview
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Telephone/live chat with the Canvas Support link directly through your course site
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Schedule a consultation with a Platform Support Specialist by submitting a request to our helpdesk
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Register for a training session
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Browse the Guides below
Canvas Guides
Canvas Instructor Guide offers guidance for general features. There's a guide for almost everything. Keep in mind your course may look different from the examples provided, depending on design and features enabled by Columbia University.
Canvas Video Guide for Instructors offers video explanations of the most common Canvas tools
Canvas Conferences, Moderator Guide highlights the a web-conferencing tool that is fully integrated with the Canvas LMS. Conferences makes it easy to conduct real-time meetings for all users in a course. Conferences allows users to broadcast audio and video, share presentation slides, or demo online resources or applications. These features make this tool ideal for online class sessions, lectures, group discussions, and office hours
The tool behind Conferences is called BigBlueButton. More information is available in the Creating Big Blue Button Conferences article from the School of Continuing and Online Learning at Cardinal Stritch University.
Find guides for moderating Canvas Discussions and Group Discussions
No time to browse? Simply Search the Guides by typing a few keywords related to your question
Canvas is a robust platform that's made richer by a variety of outside tools you can use directly through your course site.
Depending on your Instructional Designer and your program you may use:
- Panopto for video creation and storage
- VoiceThread for asynchronous multimedia discussion and collaboration online
- TurnItIn to prevent plagiarism
- Proctorio for online exam proctoring
If you have questions about these integrations, please reach out to our helpdesk