New User Interface

Canvas has a new User Interface as of May 2016. The new look matches the mobile app better, and has a cleaner look to it. The main difference is that the main menu has moved from the top to the left.

To find your courses: the "Dashboard" will show all your current courses, or you can click on "Courses" to see a link to "All Courses"

After you click "All Courses" you will see a list of all current, past, and future courses. Click on the little star to the left of a course name to make that course appear on your "Dashboard" for quicker access:

To log out, or to update your account profile, click "Account"

When you are viewing course pages, you can hide (or show) the course menu by clicking the symbol to the left of the course name:

On the Dashboard, click the switch on the top-right to change the view:

This new user interface mainly changes global navigation items. For the most part, pages in classes work the same way they used to.

For more detailed information, see the official Canvas Documentation:

Timing of this Change

"Okay... but why change right now, in the middle of grading!?"

Yes, we recognize that change is never convenient. Canvas let Biola decide the timing of the switch over to the new user interface - as long as it was done before the end of July 2016. To minimize the effect on students, we chose Memorial Day weekend, when there are no classes in session (between Spring graduation and summer session). We recognize that this is during the time than many professors are finalizing grading, and we apologize for any inconvenience and undue stress this may cause, but it was the best time to minimize impact on students, so the interface wouldn't change in the middle of their online classes. We believe that once you familiarize yourself with the few changes mentioned above, the change will be fairly easy to get used to.