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Click here for Canvas instructor tutorials

For additional Faculty Resources not listed on this page, please click one of the articles to the left.

Table of Contents for Common Information Below:

  1. Common Canvas Questions

  2. Common Gradebook Questions

  3. Common Turnitin Questions

  4. Common Quiz Questions

  5. Common Conferences (BigBlueButton) Questions

  7. Common Panopto Questions

  8. More Help



Common Canvas Questions

Why are my courses not showing on my dashboard?

To make the courses you want appear on your dashboard, you have to star them on your courses list. Find out how to do so here: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-10570. You will have to do this for every new course.

I need to set up my global course. Where do I start?

The first place you'll want to go is to the course's Faculty Course Startup Checklist. To reach this page, navigate in your course to Modules, then click the Faculty Course Startup Checklist at the top of the "Faculty Resources (Non-student use)" module.

How do I show or hide Canvas items/modules?

When a Canvas element is visible to a student, it is referred to as being “published.” Published items are marked with a green checkbox  and unpublished items are with a gray no symbol.
To hide a Canvas element, click on the green checkbox to unpublish it.

To hide a course module, click the green checkbox to the right of the module name. Note that any items within a module are hidden when the module is hidden – even if the individual items are still published!

Please see the following guide on publishing: How to Publish Items

How do set due dates for my assignments?

Please visit the following page for information on adding due dates to assignments: Add Due Date to Assignment

How do I add a file for my students to access?

Generally speaking there are two ways you can make files available to a student: As a direct link on the Modules page, or as a clickable link in the body text of a page, assignment description, or quiz/text description. Here are the Canvas guides on each of these ways:

Students are accessing course material earlier than I wanted them to. How do I prevent that?

All LETU courses (both Residental and Global) are made available to students one week prior to the official course start date. If you do not want to allow students to see your course content, you will need to make sure those items are either unpublished or have start and end dates set in settings.

How do I add accommodations for individual students?

Canvas allows you to set accommodations for both assignments and quizzes. Please visit the following page for more information: Allowing Accommodations for Assignments and Quizzes in Canvas

We have a video tutorial on adding accommodations available here: Canvas Instructor Training: Moderating Live Assignments

I need to extend a course for a student who had an incomplete. How do I do that?

Because of the way that Canvas's settings works, extending a course is something that must be done by CDT.  Please email cdt@letu.edu with the course number, section, and semester (ex: ABCD1101, section 2, fall 2011). Please also include when you want the incomplete period to end. With this information we will change the end date of your course.  

My students are receiving the following error when they try to access a page or file in Canvas, but everything looks correct on my end.

This message usually means that the link you're trying to use directs to another course. This can occur when an instructor improperly copies from a previous iteration of a course, and the link still directs back to content in the old course instead of to the current course. Sometimes when this happens, an instructor can still see the page/file because they're enrolled in the old course, but students cannot since they are not enrolled in that course.

To correct this error, you will want to edit the link so that it correctly links to content in the current course. For more information on linking to other content in Canvas, please see How do I link to other Canvas pages in a course? and How do I create a file link in a page in a course?


Common Gradebook Questions 

How do I grade in Canvas?

Please see the following guides on grading in Canvas:

We have a video tutorial on using grading available here:  Canvas Instructor Training, Grading

What do all the colors mean in my Gradebook?

To provide more options and clarity for graders, Canvas recently introduced several icons and colors to their Gradebook. Canvas notes the following default colors:

To learn more about Gradebook colors and icons visit How do I use the icons and colors in the Gradebook?

How does grade visibility work in Canvas? I want to hide input grades from my students.

A recent update to Canvas has complicated the way that grade visibility works, and now depends on the posting policy set for the assignment. For a flowchart on how this now works, see Student Grade Visibility in My Canvas Course. For more details, see the following:

I have an assignment that I don't want to count for one or more students. How do I exclude that assignment?

By default, Canvas's grade book automatically excludes items with no grade entry from the final grade calculation. Therefore, to exclude an assignment from a student's grade, you simply don't edit any grade. 
Do note that this means you will manually have to enter a "0" for an assignment if a student deserves to receive a zero.

To disable this for your class, please visit How do I treat ungraded assignments as zero in the Gradebook?

My grades are not calculating correctly. What's going on?

Typically the reason grades are not calculating correctly is because of one of two reasons:

  1. The instructor has not input zeroes (0) for missed grades. As noted in the question above, Canvas does not factor in ungraded assignments when calculating a student’s grade. It is critical that you input a “0” grade for students’ missed assignments when grading.
  2. Your course is set up using assignment group(s), and a group that contains your assignments is either incorrectly weighted or weighted at 0%. 

How do I add TAs or graders to my course?

Please visit the following page for information on adding TAs or graders: Add TAs or Graders

I'm trying to download assignments from Speedgrader that I've annotated, but the annotations are not displaying properly. Is there a solution to this?

Unfortunately this is a known issue that is related to how Adobe prints PDFs. Adobe annotations/comments are appended to the end of documents instead of printed as they appear on screen. Canvas is aware of the issue but does not have a solution for it just yet. Some workarounds are discussed on the following Canvas Community page, although none are ideal: Printing from Speedgrader. As a worst-case scenario, Canvas recommends utilizing screen capture software (such as CloudApp) to take screenshots of papers with annotations and print those screenshots.


Common Turnitin Questions

How do I change an assignment's Turnitin settings?

Please visit the following page for information on changing Turnitin settings: Turnitin Settings in Canvas

My students are receiving the following error when submitting their assignments to Turnitin. What do I need to do?

This error message ("This assignment does not have a valid assignment title, start date, and / or due date") means that you have not properly set up the Turnitin assignment. Turnitin assignments require instructors to sync the assignment between Turnitin and the course in addition to setting up the due dates in Canvas itself. For instructions on setting up a Turnitin assignment, please visit Turnitin Settings in Canvas. 

One of the submitted papers received an exceptionally high similarity report score. How do I verify whether or not the paper was plagiarized?

Please visit the following guide: Turnitin Similarity Report (Plagiarism Check)

I have an assignment that I want to check for plagiarism using Turnitin. How do I do that, without having to set up a Turnitin assignment?

Please visit the following guide: Direct Submission to Turnitin


Common Canvas Quiz Questions

Is there a way to create quizzes from a Word document?

To do this, you will need to utilize Respondus, a software program that allows for importing quiz questions into Canvas. Please see the following section below for help utilizing Respondus.

How do I grade quizzes in Speedgrader?

Please see the following Canvas guide: How do I grade quiz questions in SpeedGrader?

How do I moderate a quiz?

Please see the following Canvas guide: How do I use the Moderate Quiz page?

How do I provide accommodations for students who have a legitimate reason to have extra time or extra attempts on their quiz?

Please see the following LETU guide:  Allowing Accommodations for Assignments and Quizzes in Canvas

I had the wrong answer marked as correct on a question in a quiz that students have already taken. How can I correct that and regrade my students?

Please see the following guides from Canvas on how to regrade multiple choice quizzes:


Common Conferences (BigBlueButton) Questions

Is it possible to host a live conference in Canvas between me and my students?

Canvas has a built-in Conference feature that allows you to easily start a live conference in your course and invite either all students or particular students. For more information on Canvas Conferences (also known as BigBlueButton) please visit Conferences in Canvas.

Can I record a conference so students can access it later?

Canvas Conferences does allow your conference to be recorded. However, do note that Canvas only stores the conference for 14 days; after that, the conference is automatically removed.

For more information on recording conferences see How do I Record a Conference?

Some of my students can't see a conference that's live or recorded. What's going on?

Students can only see conferences and/or conference recordings when they are included in the original conference invitation. Unfortunately, it is not possible to grant access to a recording to a student after the conference has concluded. 

If none of your students can see the conference, be sure that you set up the conference correctly and that the Conferences tab is correctly enabled by following the steps listed in Conferences in Canvas. 

If only some of your students cannot see a conference, or none of your students can see it but the settings above were correct, it's likely due to those students having missed the conference invitation. When you create a Canvas Conference, Canvas automatically creates an associated "access control list" (ACL) of course members that access the conference and view its subsequent recordings. By default, the ACL for a conference is all students enrolled in the course at the time you create the conference. Once the conference is started, the ACL is fixed, and any students who were not invited will not be able to access that specific conference. To avoid this issue, we recommend not creating a conference until you are certain all participants are enrolled in the course. For more information please visit Students are not able to see/join their Canvas Conferences.

Due to the limited nature of Canvas Conferences, we do recommend you utilize Panopto instead of Conferences/BigBlueButton whenever possible.


Common Respondus Questions

How do I create and upload exams to Canvas using Respondus?

Please see the following guide: Canvas Creating and Uploading a Test Using Respondus

How do I install Respondus on my computer, and how do I set it up properly after it's installed?

Respondus installation instructions are available at the following page: https://courses.letu.edu/courses/16786/pages/respondus?module_item_id=594783. Depending on your access, you may need LETU's IT Department to help you set up Respondus. 
Once you've installed Respondus on your computer, please see the following guide: Steps to Take After Installing Respondus

How do I connect Respondus to Canvas?

Please see the following guide: Connecting Respondus to Canvas

I'm having issues getting to Respondus to connect to Canvas. Is there any other way to import my quiz?

It's possible to manually import to Canvas using Respondus. Please see the following guide: How to Manually Import Respondus files into Canvas


Common Panopto Questions

How do I record using Panopto?

Please see the following guide: Recording a Panopto Video

Do you have any tips on effectively using Panopto to create videos?

Panopto has a number of very helpful how-to guides:

4 Simple Online Video Presentation Tips

5 Easy Tips for Improving Your Lecture Recordings

5 Tips to Improve the Audio Quality in Your Video Presentations

How do I integrate PowerPoint into my Panopto video?

Please see the following guide: The Best Way To Record A PowerPoint Presentation

One of my students is having issues with Panopto videos in my course.

Typically, Panopto issues stem from one of two places:

  1. You have to authorize Panopto to access your Canvas account. If you are having trouble authorizing Panopto, please refresh the page, and before you click the blue authorize button, click the box for "Remember my authorization for this service."
  2. You are using an iOS app. Open Canvas in a browser (Google Chrome is recommended, but Safari should also work) and view the videos there. Panopto does not work in the apps.

When my students try to view a Panopto video in my course, they receive a message that they don't have access, such as the following:


This typically means that your video is located in the wrong location – it is in your personal folder instead of your shared folder. You'll need to move the video to your shared folder, which is typically located under Department Videos > Your Department > Your Name.
For instructions on how to move a Panopto video, please see How to Move a Panopto Video. 

When I try to utilize a feature on Panopto's website (such as the analytics page), all I'm getting is a blank screen.

Often this means that your browser's ad blocker is preventing the content from showing. Panopto is currently working on having its pages excluded from adblock filters. For now, you'll need to disable your adblocker for Panopto in order to access that blocked page.

I'm having an issue with a video in my course that is not a Panopto video. What do I do?

Please email CDT@letu.edu and let us know the course name, number, and section as well as what page in the course you are having an issue with and we will look into it for you. A screenshot of the error you are receiving would also be helpful.


More Help

Who do I contact for more help?

There are a number of different ways to obtain help, depending on your needs. To see a list of available options, please click on the Help" button on the far left side of your Canvas page. 


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