Canvas Course Navigation

The Course Homepage serves as the initial gateway to your course. Typically, it is configured to the default homepage provided in the Canvas Blueprint template. This page offers essential information about the course and provides links to key resources within the course.

Canvas announcements are a feature in the Canvas Learning Management System that allows instructors to communicate important updates to students. These announcements can include text, images, videos, and links, making them versatile for various types of content.

For more information on how to use Announcements in your courses, please visit the Canvas Announcements Guidance.

Module information is stored within the Syllabus page and is populated automatically using information from the Module Outline
Form (MOF) system. For Parent Child Modules, the Canvas Syllabus page will no longer be populated from the MOF database.

If there is any incorrect information in your Syllabus page, please contact your school office regarding any amendments to your MOF.

Canvas Modules are a tool for organising course content in a structured and sequential manner, allowing instructors to group related materials, assignments, quizzes, and other resources into cohesive units.

For more information on how to use modules in your course, visit Canvas Modules Guidance.

ReCap is Newcastle University's institutionally supported lecture and event-recording service. It allows audio and visual material, including the presenters' voice, presentation slides and visualised documents, to be recorded and published online in an automated, easy-to-use process.

ReCap is powered by software called Panopto and can be used in teaching spaces to record live events and on personal devices to make recordings at any time.

This link provides access to the Recap folder for the Canvas course were lecture recordings are stored. 

For more information on Recap, please visit the Recap Guidance pages.

The assignments section of a Canvas course is where instructors create and manage assignments for their students.

For more information on Canvas Assignment, please visit Digital Assessment: Canvas and Turnitin.

The Library Reading List provides students with easy access to essential and recommended resources for their modules. These lists include books, e-books, e-journals, and other materials recommended by module leaders. Students can access their reading lists through Canvas via this link.

For more information on Library Reading Lists, visit Library Reading Lists for Academics.

The Canvas Gradebook is a tool within the Canvas that allows instructors to manage and record student grades for various activities like assignments, quizzes, and discussions. It supports different grading formats, such as points, percentages, and letter grades. Instructors can customise the Gradebook with grading schemes, weight grades, and apply late policies. Students can view their grades, feedback, and comments from their instructors through the Gradebook.

Ally is an external tool integrated into Canvas that automatically checks course materials against WCAG 2.0 accessibility standards, and provides feedback on the accessibility of the content. It's important to note that it doesn't pass judgement on the quality of your course content, it's checking how well the content meets accessibility standards.  

In addition, a course report can be run to provide useful feedback on the accessibility of content across the entire module, giving you a really useful quick-glance at what issues need addressing.

Ally measures the accessibility of each file attached to your course and shows you at-a-glance how it scores. Scores range from Low to Perfect. The higher the score the fewer the issues. As well as identifying the issues, it tells you about why it is an issue, and how to fix it, even giving you space to upload a corrected version right on the page, which replaces the existing file.

For more information on the Accessibility Report and Ally, please visit Ally for Canvas.

Canvas Discussions are a feature of the Canvas designed to facilitate interactive communication between instructors and students. They serve as a platform for students to engage in meaningful dialogue, share ideas, and collaborate on projects.

For more information on how to use Canvas Discussions in your courses, please visit Canvas Discussions Guidance.

Canvas Quizzes are a feature within the Canvas that allows instructors to create and manage online quizzes. These quizzes can include various types of questions, such as multiple-choice, true/false, short answer, and essay questions. Instructors can set time limits, control the number of attempts, and provide immediate feedback to students. Quizzes can be used for formative assessments to gauge understanding during the learning process.

Rubrics within Canvas are assessment tools that help instructors communicate expectations for assignments and provide consistent, transparent grading criteria. Rubrics typically consist of rows and columns, where rows define the various criteria being assessed, and columns represent different levels of achievement for each criterion. Instructors can create custom rubrics and add them to assignments, discussions, and quizzes. Rubrics can include point ranges or individual point values.

For more information on Rubrics, please visit Writing Assessment Criteria and Rubrics.

The People section within a Canvas course displays all the users enrolled in the course, including students, instructors, and teaching assistants. Instructors can use this section to manage user roles, create and manage student groups, and view user activity and interactions.

Enrolments onto courses are typically managed through a data feed from the student records system. Students are enrolled based on their module choices recorded in the SAP Student Record system. For Canvas communities, enrolments are handled differently. Please refer to the communities guidance for more information.

For more information on Course Enrolments visit the Canvas Blueprints and Course Enrolments section.

For more informaiton on Community Enrolments visit the Canvas Communities section.

Collaborations in Canvas allow multiple users to work together on the same document simultaneously. These collaborative documents are saved in real-time, meaning any changes made by users are immediately visible to everyone. This feature is useful for group projects, shared notes, and other collaborative activities, fostering teamwork and efficient communication among students and instructors.

BigBlueButton is a web conferencing tool integrated into Canvas LMS, known as Canvas Conferences. It allows instructors to create virtual classrooms where they can hold live, interactive sessions with students. Features include video conferencing, screen sharing, real-time chat, and recording capabilities.

We do not advise using this tool as this is not supported by Newcastle University.

The Files section of a Canvas course is where instructors and students can store and manage course-related files. Instructors can upload multiple files, organise them into folders, and set permissions to control access. This section supports various file types, including documents, images, and media files. Users can preview files, publish or unpublish them, and set user permissions. Please be mindful of these settings when publishing your content. 

Pages in Canvas are used to store and display content and educational resources that are part of a course or group. They can include text, videos, images, and links to files and other course content. Instructors use pages to create and organise materials such as lesson overviews, weekly agendas, and additional resources. Pages can also be linked to other pages within the course, making it easy to navigate through related content.

Outcomes in Canvas are tools used to track and measure student mastery of specific skills or knowledge areas. They allow instructors to align assessments with learning objectives and track student progress towards these goals. Outcomes can be linked to assignments, quizzes, and rubrics, providing a clear framework for evaluating student performance. This data can be used to identify areas where students may need additional support and to improve teaching strategies.

Smart Search in Canvas is an advanced search feature that leverages AI and semantic algorithms to understand the context of queries and provide more accurate and relevant results. This feature allows users to find content faster within their Canvas courses by interpreting the intent behind search queries, rather than relying solely on keyword matches. This search is currently limited to Canvas based items such as content pages, announcements, discussion prompts and assignment descriptions.

The Canvas Settings link in a course allows instructors to manage various aspects of their course, such as updating course details, managing sections, and adjusting navigation links.

If you don’t hide inactive links on your Canvas courses, your course visitors could be clicking on links that have no content.

Your course navigation bar in Canvas should only include links to active items.

Hiding unused navigation links in a navigation bar has several benefits:

• User Clarity: When showing only inactive navigation items, users might mistakenly click on items with no content. Hiding non-active items prevents confusion and frustration when no content appears.
• Cleanliness: By hiding unused links, you declutter the navigation bar, creating a cleaner and more visually appealing menu.
• Canvas Mobile App: As all links are displayed in the Canvas App, by including only active items, you will improve the usability of your course navigation.
• Accessibility: Hidden links are less distracting for screen readers and visually impaired users. It ensures that the focus remains on relevant content.

The below video from the Canvas Baseline Requirements guidance demonstrates best practice and how to customise your Canvas course navigation: