Canvas

Instructors and students can access the Canvas, our learning management system, from the JCCC home page or by going to online.jccc.edu.  The username and password that you use to log into your email or myJCCC account will work with Canvas. The Educational Technology Center (ETC) at JCCC has many resources for helping you get started with Canvas if you’re unfamiliar with the software.  This page on the ETC blog provides links for Canvas training as well as instructions on completing some basic activities in Canvas: http://blogs.jccc.edu/canvas/.

With Canvas, instructors can send email to students, post announcements, publish assignments, create online quizzes, set due dates on a calendar, maintain an assignment drop box, and give access to an electronic grade book. 

At a minimum, JCCC requires all to use Canvas in their classes for the following items:

1. Every instructor must upload a copy of their syllabus into Canvas. 

To add your syllabus as a PDF or Word file, first upload the document into the Files section of your Canvas course.  Most instructors will then make this file visible in one or two places in Canvas.  You can provide a link to the syllabus in Files by using the Edit feature of the Syllabus tool.

You can also add the syllabus file to the Module page.

2. Every instructor must maintain a grade book in Canvas. 

This second requirement is somewhat controversial because it can be viewed as an infringement on pedagogy, but each year, faculty must respond to a College-initiated online form confirming that grades are visible to students through the Canvas grade book. The College does not state specifically how you should manage the grade book, but ideally, an instructor should keep the grade book up-to-date and visible to the students throughout the semester.  However, instructors have the freedom to choose how they’ll use the grade book.  Some instructors use the grade book strictly to record points or grades for each assignment in the class, leaving it up to students to factor their own class grades.  Other instructors configure the grade book to provide students with their overall class grade throughout the semester.  

Instructors must set up the grade book in Canvas a little differently than they would in other LMS programs.  Canvas does not allow an instructor to create grade book columns in the grade book itself. Each column in the grade book must be created in the Assignments or Quizzes section of the course.  If you’re having students submit their essays and other work to an assignment drop box, you’ll automatically be creating grade book columns when you set up an assignment.  However, what happens if your students aren’t submitting work electronically through Canvas?  If you’re collecting paper essays, you will still go to the Assignments section of Canvas and create an assignment that you’ll be collecting. When you create the assignment, though, select “On Paper” from the Submission Type pull-down menu.  Now, Canvas creates a column in the grade book for that assignment, but it doesn’t create an online dropbox for students to submit the assignment.  Let’s say you’d like to have a grade book column for participation or attendance points.  Again, access the Assignments section of Canvas, but this time choose “No Submission” from the Submission Type menu. 

When it comes time to enter points for paper assignments or participation points, you can go to the Canvas grade book and enter the points in that column for each student. 

Finally, access Settings to make sure that you’re satisfied with how the grade book will appear to students.  At the very bottom of the Settings page, click on “Options” and you’ll see some boxes related to grade book that you can check or uncheck.  For example, if you want to make the points for every assignment visible to students but you want to leave it up to them to figure up their own class grades, you would check the box that reads “Hide totals in the student grade summary.”

Other Uses for Canvas

At a minimum, all faculty members are required to upload their syllabus in Canvas and to maintain a grade book in Canvas.  However, should you desire, the Canvas learning management system can be integrated extensively into your course.  Below is a brief overview of some of the most commonly used tools in Canvas.  If you want fuller descriptions of these items or instructions for how to integrate them into your classes, please go to the Canvas Guides online at https://community.canvaslms.com/community/answers/guides/canvas-guide.  This web page will provide you with an extensive Instructor Guide, which contains an overview and instructions for every single tool in Canvas.  If that’s too overwhelming at first, though, just access relevant pages on the Canvas Basics Guide. 

Global Navigation Menu in Canvas

1. Account: Clicking on Account lets you log out.  From Account, you can also adjust your Profile, Course Settings, and Notification alerts.  For example, going to Notifications in the Account settings will allow you to select the kind of alerts you want set for the course.  Furthermore, you can set notifications to be delivered by email, text message, or both.

2. Dashboard: Clicking on this icon will take you back to the screen where all your current courses are listed.

3. Courses: Instead of always returning to the Dashboard to access a different course, click on “Courses” to skip to another course to access a pop-up menu that lists your courses. 

4. Calendar: When you create assignments or quizzes with due dates in your Canvas course, those activities are placed on the Calendar as well.  Instructors can go to the Calendar and create events that are not related to assignments or quizzes.  For example, if instructors want to list reading assignments or set dates for a field trip, they would do so within the Calendar tool. Because the Calendar is global, it will also contain due dates and events for all your classes that are using Canvas.  Each course has its own unique color on the calendar. However, if you wish to hide all entries for a particular course, just click on the course that you want to hide in the menu to the right of the calendar.

5. Inbox: Go here to access email. 

6. JCCC Assistance: This link will reveal a pop-up menu that will take you to several more links related to the JCCC Technical Support for Canvas. 

Other Popular Tools in Canvas

• 1. Announcements: If you need to send a reminder to your class, you could use the email tool in Canvas, but using Announcements is another option.  Go to Settings to make it possible for Announcements to appear on the Course Home screen.

  2. Modules: Many instructors use Modules for posting class notes, assignment sheets, and other helpful resources.  It’s also possible to make the modules a one-stop shop for everything related to a particular assignment.  For example, instructors could create an Essay 1 Module that would hold class notes and assignment sheets related to Essay 1 in addition to links to any quizzes, discussions, or assignment drop boxes.  Students can then go directly to that module to see all activities related to the essay and not have to worry about whether they need to go to Quizzes or Assignments to complete an activity. 

  3. Discussions: Many instructors will use Discussions in place of a reading journal.  It’s also possible to create a Discussion called “Essay Questions” or “Class Questions” so students can post a question to the class as a whole rather than just emailing the instructor. 

  4. Quizzes: Canvas Quizzes allows for a wide variety of question types (multiple choice, matching, short answer, etc.) and delivery methods (one question at a time, randomized questions, etc.)

  5. Assignments: With Assignments, instructors can have their students submit all their work (prewriting, rough drafts, and final drafts) electronically.  Depending upon how you set up the Assignments tool, students can upload their work as files or directly from Google Docs. The SpeedGrader tool in Assignments makes it possible to mark comments directly on the student work. 

  6. Pages: Most likely, you’ll find it easiest to upload files to Canvas, but it’s also possible to create a document within Canvas itself with the Pages tool.  If you want to make the Home Page more like a web page, then you would have Canvas default to a specific Page rather than the Course Activity Stream or the Assignments List. 

Turnitin

Turnitin provides three tools for instructors and students:

• 1. Originality Reports

  2. Feedback Studio

  3. PeerMark

The paragraphs below provide a brief overview for each of the Turnitin tools above, but a much more detailed overview of how to integrate Turnitin with Canvas is available here: https://community.canvaslms.com/groups/plagiarism/blog/2015/04/18/canvas-and-turnitin

Originality Reports: Beyond Plagiarism Checks

The majority of instructors and students use Turnitin as a plagiarism checker.  Of course, the originality reports provided as part of the plagiarism check on a student paper can help to prevent cheating, but they can also be useful for teaching students how to incorporate outside source material correctly.   First, it’s important to let students know that an originality report that shows a certain percentage of copied material from another source does not mean that they’ve cheated or done anything wrong.  If a paper is quoting outside material, the paper should not have a 0% originality report.   In fact, it’s not uncommon for a research paper to have a 20% or 25% match with other sources--especially if the Works Cited page is counted in the report.  However, it’s important for students to review the originality report to make sure that highlighted passages from the originality report are indeed cited properly.  Also if a “paraphrase” of an outside source is highlighted as being mostly copied, that’s a signal to the student that rewriting needs to take place to make that paraphrase a true paraphrase.  Finally, instructors can use the originality report to help students understand if they might be relying too heavily on direct quotations, particularly if a high percentage on the originality report indicates as such. In that case, students can be advised to use more summary and paraphrasing of source material. 

To use Turnitin within Canvas, you will need to make use of the Assignments Tool in Canvas.  Follow these steps when creating an assignment:

Feedback Studio

If grading papers online, the SpeedGrader in Canvas allows an instructor to annotate an essay with highlights and text.  With the drawing tools in SpeedGrader, it’s possible to circle words or sentences as well.  However, the Feedback Studio feature in Turnitin is a more robust tool.  Just as with SpeedGrader, with Turnitin’s Feedback, instructors can insert comments anywhere in the student paper; however, Feedback Studio provides a number of “prewritten” QuickMarks that instructors can use for grammar and punctuation issues.  For example, if you spot a comma splice, you can go to the Punctuation QuickMark section and drag the C/S icon to the error in the student paper.  The student will see the C/S, and hovering over the icon in the paper will provide the student with an explanation of the comma splice error.  Turnitin continues to add QuickMarks to its grading tool, including ones for source credibility, plagiarism issues, and common narrative expressions (e.g. “paint the picture”).  If there’s a comment instructors are always making on student papers that’s not already covered by QuickMarks, they can create their own QuickMarks and save them to a section called “My Clipboard.” 

PeerMark

Finally, Turnitin can be used for peer review workshops.  With PeerMark, instructors can assign rough drafts for students to read and critique.  Instructors can assign specific drafts to specific students, or they can let Turnitin assign rough drafts randomly.  Students can write responses directly on the student paper, using the PeerMark tools palette, but they can also fill out a peer review form that the instructor creates for each paper. 

Canvas also has a peer review tool that students can use to mark a student paper or fill out a rubric. However, it is not nearly as user friendly as PeerMark.  On the other hand, the Canvas peer review tool allows a student to complete the work entirely within Canvas.  Turnitin’s PeerMark requires instructors and students to go outside of Canvas. Realize also that PeerMark will not work within the Canvas Plagiarism Framework.  If you’re interested in having students access PeerMark from Canvas, you’ll need to set up Turnitin as an LTI with the External Tool option, as you would to use Feedback Studio. 

More information about using PeerMark can be found in the Canvas/Turnitin LTI Instructor Guide here: 

https://help.turnitin.com/feedback-studio/canvas/lti/instructor/instructor-category.htm

InQuizitive for Writers

In the Fall, 2019, the English Department tried something new.  By giving instructors the option of adopting Norton’s InQuizitive for Writers, students purchased the first online handbook and quiz tool adopted by the department.  Furthermore, students bought InQuizitive for Writers with DayOne access, meaning they paid for it when they enrolled in the class -- another first for the department. 

The $15 cost of InQuizitive for Writers gives students access to the ebook version of the Little Seagull Handbook and the InQuizitive program, a formative adaptive quiz tool.  With their one-time purchase, students can access the Seagull Handbook and InQuizitive for up to four years, even if they transfer to a different college. 

InQuizitive features more than twenty gamelike quizzes that cover everything from comma splices to evaluating sources.  At any point during a quiz, students can access relevant sections from the Seagull Handbook that relate to the questions they’re answering. Students can also use the Seagull Handbook separately, outside of the InQuizitive activities. 

InQuizitive and the ebook version of the Seagull Handbook can be adopted for any of the core writing classes.  If you require the book for your classes, you’ll receive a link to include in your Canvas course. With that link, students will automatically go to InQuizitive or the Seagull Handbook from Canvas without having to use an additional login.  Because students purchased these materials when they enrolled in the course, they have access to InQuizitive and the Seagull Handbook on the first day of class. 

OER

Fall 2019 also marked the first time that the department selected an OER (Open Educational Resource) textbook as a Composition I option.  This textbook titled, The Word on College Reading and Writing, is available free to instructors and students here: https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/wrd/. Feel free to review the book, and if you decide that you wish to use it in your Composition I class as the official textbook, choose that option the next time you’re asked to make your official fall, spring, or summer textbook selections.  

OER books are widely available on the Internet, and they are worth exploring as additional supplements in your classes or simply for your personal use as an instructor.  If you’re interested in seeing the variety of OER books available, start with the JCCC Library’s OER page at https://jccc.libguides.com/oer. While you’re free to make use of OER books in your classes, realize that at this time, The Word on College Reading and Writing is the only OER textbook that can be used as the main textbook in your course.  There is no OER adoption for Composition II, for example, so that class still requires that instructors adopt one of the traditional published textbooks adopted by the department.