Setting Up Your Course on Canvas

These instructions are for Biola instructors who want to use Canvas for their classes.

Logging In - Finding Your Course - see Welcome to Canvas.

Basics of Canvas at Biola - Videos - A series of eight short videos introducing you to Canvas at Biola (3 to 4 minutes each)

Courses & Rosters Created Automatically

When the Biola Registrar's Office creates a course in their "Banner" system, that course will automatically appear on Canvas in a few hours. When they assign an instructor or enroll a student in a class, that enrollment will automatically appear on Canvas. These updates happen four times daily: 12:00 a.m., 6:00 a.m., 12:00 p.m., and 6:00 p.m.

Students: If you are missing a course, check your list on my.Biola. The Registrar's Office will need to add you to the class before you can get access. If a class is grayed out on Canvas, that means the teacher needs to "publish" the course before students get access.

New Employees: Welcome to Biola! For new teachers, there are several steps that need to happen in this specific order before you can log in to your class on Canvas. First, Human Resources needs to approve all the paperwork, officially hire you, and create an ID number for you. Next, I.T. needs to make a NetID account and password and biola.edu email address for you. Next, your department needs to notify the Registrar's Office that you are assigned to teach a class. Once the Registrar's Office officially assigns you to a class, an automated process will give you access on Canvas within six hours. Sorry for the long process, but due to FERPA regulations, only Biola employees can have access to student data, so you have to be officially hired and assigned to a class before you have access on Canvas.

Setting Up Your Course and Getting Help

These are some basic steps for setting up your course:

1. Organize Content.

   1. Upload files or write Content Pages. See Content Storage.

   2. Organize the content. There are two places to put content:

      1. Create Modules then attach content to the modules (recommended)

      2. Create Content Pages and link them together

2. Create Assignments for students to turn in. This also sets up your Gradebook.

3. Arrange Navigation Menu. Hide parts you're not going to use.

4. Maybe set up discussions, collaborations, conferences for online student interaction.

5. Publish the course so students can see it.

For each of these steps, see some Canvas Instructions here.

In addition, the Department of Digital Learning will have some workshop seminars throughout the semester - see Training Schedule or contact us.

Finally, don't forget that sometimes a simple Google search can answer your questions. Add the word "Canvas" to a search. For example, to find information about adding extra credit assignments, do a search for "canvas extra credit assignment".

Adding TAs and Students to a Course

Because your roster on Canvas is tied to the Registrar's official Banner roster, instructors cannot add or remove students from the roster on Canvas. Unfortunately, this also means instructors cannot add TAs to their Canvas courses on their own. By the end of Fall 2022, we hope to have a more automatic system in place that will allow instructors to add any student employee (cleared by H.R.) as a TA to a class. A TA cannot be a student in the same class.

Adding TAs: For now: email Matthew Weathers to request that a TA be given access to a class. (It will be helpful to include the TA's Biola email address or Biola ID number and the CRN for the class (Here's a list) - but we can look it up if you don't have it. It may take a couple of days. Students need to first complete their paperwork with H.R. and we need to receive confirmation from H.R., then we can add them on Canvas.

Adding Students: If a student is not appearing on your Canvas roster, the student will need to add the class in the Registrar's Office or online. Students who are auditing a class do not have access to Canvas. People who are not official students in a class do not have access on Canvas.

Combining Sections on Canvas

If you teach more than one section of a class, you may find it convenient to combine all your sections into one single site on Canvas. This means you won't have to duplicate all your work. You can still view students separately by section, and you can assign different due dates by section, and you can email the students separately by section, if needed.

If you would like to combine sections, email Matthew Weathers (it will be helpful if you include the CRN numbers of the courses). Eventually, we hope to have a more automated system to let you do this on your own - but for now, just send an email.

For more details about working with courses set up like this, please see: Combined Courses.

Publish Your Course to Students

Once your course on Canvas is ready for student to see, it will need to be "published" - the Canvas term for turning on a course. Once students have access, you cannot "unpublish" a course. To publish a course, click the gray "Publish" button on the home page.

In addition, you will need to publish each individual content item (modules, pages, and assignments) before students can view that item. Here's how:

The gray cloud means that this particular item is unpublished - not visible to students. Click it to turn it green if you are ready for students to view it.

To see what students see, click on "Settings" on the left, then the "Student View" button on the right to view the course from the student perspective. (When you're done, click "Leave Student View" at the bottom.)