CourseWorks (Canvas) Faculty Guide
Introduction to CourseWorks (Canvas)
CourseWorks (Canvas) is Barnard and Columbia's learning management system. For courses held online, hybrid, or in-person, your CourseWorks site can serve as your virtual classroom, a home base where students can find all the relevant information for your course.
To clear up some confusion about the name: At Columbia and Barnard, the names CourseWorks and Canvas are often used interchangeably, and essentially refer to the same thing. Technically, Canvas is the brand name for the learning management system, and is the name used by others outside of Columbia University. CourseWorks is the name for the Columbia's specific set up of Canvas.
Logging In
You can log into CourseWorks by using your Columbia UNI and password at courseworks.columbia.edu. Once you're logged in, you'll be taken to your dashboard, where you can see all your courses. You can also access your courses through the My Courses or Courses buttons on the left-hand navigation.
If you are an alumnae who needs access to CourseWorks (Canvas) to audit a course but do not have a Columbia UNI, please reach out to Alumnae Relations at alumnaerelations@barnard.edu for more information.
For other CourseWorks (Canvas) guest access needs please contact courseworks@barnard.edu with the details of your request.
Setting Up Your Course
Once you've found your course, you can start adding information! Below, we'll go over some key features, integrations, and tips on putting your course together.
Assessment & Grading Tools
You can use the assignments feature for anything in the course that you'd like students to submit to you. Students can turn in assignments in a wide-variety of formats, and assignments can be graded or ungraded. You also set up your grading system through using assignments and assignment groups.
Tip: When creating an assignment that will be submitted through Canvas, you can choose what sort of file types students are allowed to submit. We recommend allowing as many as file types as possible for assignment submissions - this is helpful for students who might not easily have access to specific types of technology or software.
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The Gradebook feature lets you enter student grades and will calculate a final grade for your students. You can also use this tool to set your late policy and set your grade posting policy (which determines when students can see grades). The link to access the Gradebook is entitled "Grades."
Tip: By default, students will be able to see their grades as soon as you post them. If you'd like to prevent that from happening, take a look at Canvas' guide to grade posting policies.
Grades Resources:
- Canvas Instructor Guide - Grades
- Assessment and Grading in Canvas 2.0: This training from Columbia provides an overview of how to use the Gradebook in module 4, as well as best practices around grading
- Using the New Gradebook in CourseWorks (From Columbia)
The quizzes tool can be used for both short quizzes and full-length exams, though it generally works best for assessments that use multiple-choice, true/false, fill-in-the-blank or other question styles that have a single-correct answer. Quizzes using those types of questions can be graded automatically by CourseWorks. However, you can also use the quizzes feature to create essay-style or short answer exams.
Tips:
- For online courses, take-home exams are recommended when feasible. This makes it easier to take into account student testing accommodations, varying time zones, and any technical issues (like an internet outage) that may occur during the exam period.
- Become familiar with how to give students extra time on quizzes
- You can use the question bank to ensure students don't all receive the exact same quize
Resources:
Speedgrader is a tool that lets you grade assigments, quizzes and discussions within the Canvas interface. Using Speedgrader, you can leave comments and annotations for students, as well as a final grade.
Similarly, rubrics can be used with graded assignments, quizzes and discussion. With the rubric tool, you can create an online rubric with categories and point values. Rubrics can be accessed from the speedgrader tool.
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Content & Organization Tools
Modules are ways of grouping and organizing your course content for students. You may want to use modules to separate your course into units or topics; this can help make it easier for students to understand relationships between content and find relevant information. Modules can contain all types of CourseWorks content such as assignments, discussions, pages, and quizzes.
Tips:
- Consider starting your course with an "Introduction" module that contains information such as the syllabus and course expectations
- At the beginning of each module, present the learning objectives and topics for the module
Modules Resources:
Pages are where you can include all sorts of information that you want to share with your students, whether it's instructional content, course policies, or anything else. You can easily add text, images and video to pages.
Tip: When designing pages, please keep the layout and formatting simple. This will help ensure that your pages are easy to read for students with learning or visual disabilities, as well as students who may be accessing your pages from devices other than a computer (such as a phone or tablet).
Pages Resources:
The syllabus feature lets you post your syllabus to your CourseWorks site. A syllabus in CourseWorks will have two parts:
- On the top of the syllabus page, you can put whatever information you want. You can attach your course syllabus as a document, copy and paste the information, or write your syllabus directly in CourseWorks.
- On the bottom of the syllabus page, there is a chronological list of all assignments and due dates in the course. This is generated automatically by Canvas and can't be turned off.
Tip: For accessibility purposes, it is often best to write your syllabus directly in CourseWorks.
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Files are where you can store all sorts of documents you want to share with your class: photos, slides, text, pdfs, etc. You can also use your files throughout your Canvas site, such as in your pages or assignments. To add files, you can just drag and drop them from your computer in the files interface.
Tip: Organizing your files into folders will help students find important content, such as lecture slides.
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Community & Communication Tools
The discussion feature allow for students to engage with each other in an asynchronous manner. Students can reply directly to the prompt, or to other students. Discussions can be graded or ungraded.
Tip: While most people type text into discussions, students also have the option of uploading video or audio. This is something you may want to encourage, as it may be easier or more natural for some students to contribute using those formats.
Resources:
- Canvas Instructor Guide - Discussions
- Online Discussion: Tips and Strategies
- Assessment and Grading in Canvas 2.0: This training from Columbia provides an overview of how to use Discussions in module 3
- Best Practices for Online Discussions in CourseWorks
The announcements tool lets you send an announcement to the entire class. This is useful for important reminders, or when there's a change in plants. Students will receive notifications when announcements are sent out - how they'll receive these notifications will depend on their notification settings. Announcements will also show up on the Announcements page, which is hidden when are no announcements.
Resources:
Collaborations allow students to work together on a single Google doc or Google Drive file through CourseWorks. You can assign a document to a group of students, or to the whole class. When using the feature, you will be asked to authorize Google Drive to have access your account; you'll need to grant access for the feature to work. Students must also register their Google Drive account with CourseWorks for this to work; they can do so through their account settings.
Tip: Because of certain gBear settings, Columbia students may have difficulty accessing Google Drive collaborations through CourseWorks. So, the collaborations feature works best in classes with Barnard students only.
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Groups can be used to help students collaborate together. When students are placed in groups, they can participate in discussions within just their group, and also submit assignments as a group. Groups can be set up and managed from within the People page. You can manually assign groups to students, have CourseWorks automatically sort your students into groups, or allow students to select their own groups.
Tip: When teaching online, you may want to consider assigning groups to students based on their time zone so they can more effectively work together.
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Video & Recording Integrations
Zoom Class Sessions is where you will set up and access your synchronous Zoom calls for your course. For more information on Zoom, take a look at our Zoom Faculty Guide and Columbia's Teaching with Zoom guide.
The Class Video Recordings (Panopto) tab is where you'll find your Zoom course recordings. Panopto can also be used for hosting additional instructional videos. Panopto has unlimited video storage, along with tools for editing and captioning your videos. For more information, see the Course Recordings section of our Zoom Faculty Guide and Columbia's Teaching with Panopto guide.
Learning Technology Integrations (LTIs)
Learning Technology Integrations (LTIS) are educational technologies that can be used within CourseWorks (Canvas), even though they're not initially included with Canvas.
Here's the list of LTIs currently available for use at Barnard.
Tools for Course Engagement & Student-Facing LTIs
Instant message students and other class participants though CourseWorks. Note that you may only send messages to people who are currently online
Lets you use files from your Google Drive account in CourseWorks, and allows students to submit Google Drive files for assignments. Please note that Columbia students will not be able to see your Google Drive files on CourseWorks, unless you have individually shared the document with them in Google.
Collaborative annotation tool for use within modules and assignments. Helpful tutorials: Using the Hypothesis LMS App with Assignments in Canvas and Using the Hypothesis LMS App with Modules in Canvas. Please note: the Google Drive feature does not work with gBear accounts.
Lets you send emails to your entire class or individual students through CourseWorks, developed and managed by CUIT.
Collaboratively annotate video, images and text and use those annotations in compositions and essays. Note: This tool is not in your course navigation by default - you must add it to your navigation in the course settings.
Lets students record pronunciations of their names so you can listen to them and learn them. Also allows students to select their pronouns.
Bulletin-board style app that can be used within Canvas or on its own. Before you can use it, you must request an account with Barnard's Padlet Backpack.
Enter textbook information for students. Note: Filling this out is required under the Higher Education Opportunity Act
Robust discussion board with a social-media tool that includes dashboard analytics, automatic grading, and other features (reach out to courseworks@barnard.edu to request for your course)
Robust discussion board tool with a focus on Q&A. Features include ability annotate photos, endorse posts, and run/preview code.
Course Management & Administrative LTIs
View both individual student data and aggregate course data.
View students photos and names together, and practice remembering their names with flashcards
Mark when students are present, late or absent, and set grading policies related to attendance. Please note that this tool is called Attendance in your course navigation
A way to import data from other learning design tools (such as Articulate 360) into Canvas. SCORM is not often used at Barnard.
Allows you to submit grades directly to SSOL
Checks submitted assignments for possible plagiarism
There are also a few LTIs that have been approved for use by CUIT, but are not installed on our account. You are welcome to install these LTIs for your own course: Codio, Wikipedia, Redirect Tool, Vimeo, YouTube
Interested in installing a different LTI? Reach out to courseworks@barnard.edu. Please note that it can sometimes take several weeks or months to go through the LTI approval and install process. Since most educational technologies can be used without integrated them into CourseWorks, we recommend trying out any new tools outside of Courseworks before requesting them as an LTI.
Putting it All Together
There are a few settings and features that can help you make sure all your course pieces are in place and that students can easily navigate your course. For more things to consider before the start of your course, please see Columbia's Course Set-Up Checklist (CourseWorks login required).
Editing Your Course Description
Your course description appears both in CourseWorks and in Vergil. Please update it before the semester begins, with information about your intended course modality - this is very helpful for students deciding on courses during the shopping period. To edit:
- Login to CourseWorks, and navigate to the course that you want to edit. Once in the course, click on the settings link [1] in the left-hand navigation bar.
- Write information about your course modality and any other details you want to share in the course description box [2].
- Click update course details [3]. The changes should be reflected in Vergil / Directory of Courses within 24 hours.
![Course Settings page, showing locations the settings link [1] on the left-hand, the course details box [2] on the bottom-center, and update course details button [3] on bottom right](/sites/default/files/2020-12/Course%20Description%20in%20Canvas.png)
Publishing Your Course
You'll want to make sure any content you want students to see is published. Published content will be marked with a green checkmark icon, while unpublished content will be marked with a gray no sign icon. Click on the icon to switch content from unpublished to published, and vice-versa.
Course Navigation
You can customize your course's left-hand navigation by reordering items and hiding items you don't use. To do this, navigate to your course settings (in the left-hand navigation) and then click the navigation tab at the top of the page. Click and drag on items to rearrange; move them to the bottom column to hide them.
Choosing A Home Page
You have a few options for your course homepage; We recommend using the syllabus, course modules, or a custom page introducing the course. You should make it clear where students can find important class materials on your homepage. To change your homepage, navigate to your current homepage and click the Choose Home Page button on the right side. For more help, see: How do I change the Course Home Page?
Student View
We recommend taking a look at your course in student view, which shows your course as a student would see it. This can help you make sure everything is showing up as intended. To enter student view, click the Student View button on the right side of your homepage. For more information, see: How do I view a course as a test student using Student View?
Additional Resources
Feel free to email us at courseworks@barnard.edu, or stop by our Academic Technology Drop-In Hours. The guides below may also be helpful!