• Canvas,  Teaching & Learning

    Beginning of the Semester Reminders and Tips 

    Reading Time: 2 minutes Welcome to the start of a new semester! Today we’re going be chatting about some tips and reminders to make this first week (and the rest of the semester) easier. We know there’s a big gap between semester starts, so it’s easy for some of these things to slip your memory.   Combining Canvas sections  You may be teaching multiple sections of the same course but want to combine all your students into one section so you have a single place to work on the course. Canvas makes it simple to combine those multiple sections into one. A brief note: you’ll need to combine them before students…

  • Canvas

    Submitting Final Grades from Canvas to the Registrar

    Reading Time: < 1 minute It’s a simple process to submit your final course grades to the registrar from Canvas. Before you start this process, however, you’ll want to follow these three tips for checking your Canvas gradebook to make sure you’re all squared away. Once you’re ready, follow these three steps:  1. Click the “Submit Grades to Registrar” link in your course menu.  If you don’t see the link there, click “Settings” in the course menu then the “Navigation” tab. Drag and drop “Submit Grades to Registrar” from the inactive items list to the active items list and click “Save.”  2. Scan the information on the “Submit Grades” page. …

  • Canvas

    Three Tips for Checking your Canvas Gradebook before Submitting Final Grades

    Reading Time: 2 minutes We’ve reached finals, so it’s time to think about wrapping up your courses and preparing to submit your grades. Submitting grades is a quick process, but there are a few items you’ll need to do before you click that button. 1. Check your course grading scheme You should have a grading system defined in your syllabus with the values defined for each grade letter. Canvas can display that letter grade to both you and your students, but you need to make sure you have this setting enabled with the correct values set. 2. Check your grade breakdown The grade breakdown is different from the grading scheme! Go…

  • Canvas,  Educational Tools,  Teaching & Learning

    Canvas Update: New Quizzes Can Build on Last Attempt 

    Reading Time: 2 minutes Canvas has allowed instructors to give students multiple attempts on quizzes for a while, but they recently modified this feature. Now, Canvas allows instructors to choose whether a student must re-do the entire quiz in subsequent attempts or if they only need to answer questions they had previously gotten wrong.   Accessing this feature  This feature is already live in Canvas and can be accessed in the settings page for a New Quiz. Toggle “allow multiple attempts” on, then check the box for “Build on last attempt.”   When this feature is enabled, students can reattempt questions until they either get it correct or run out of allowed…

  • Canvas,  Educational Tools,  Teaching & Learning

    Canvas Update: Canvas Links 

    Reading Time: 3 minutes Canvas is improving how linking works throughout courses. One of these changes that we’ll be talking about has already been implemented, but the other two have yet to be released.   Course link sidebar displays name of current link  The first change Canvas has made is already present in your courses. Previously, if you wanted to change a link that you’d already added to the Rich Content Editor, it was faster to just remove the link entirely and create a new link. Now, Canvas has made it simple to replace the link – and it shows the name of whatever you currently have linked in the sidebar.   To…

  • Canvas,  Educational Tools,  Teaching & Learning

    Canvas Update: New Quizzes Rich Content Editor and Hiding Quizzes Worth Zero Points in Gradebook 

    Reading Time: 2 minutes Canvas is updating New Quizzes once again on June 17. With these updates, the Rich Content Editor (RCE) will now be available to both instructors and students, and instructors can choose to hide New Quizzes worth zero points in the gradebook.   Rich Content Editor  Canvas is finally enabling the Rich Content Editor in New Quizzes! With this change, the content editor you use everywhere else in Canvas will be what you use as you create New Quizzes – and it’s what students will use when they need to type any answers.   Having the RCE in New Quizzes means that all features specific to it will be…

  • Canvas,  Educational Tools,  Teaching & Learning

    Canvas Updates: Publishing and Unpublishing Content in Modules 

    Reading Time: 2 minutes Canvas is updating how content is published in modules – and simplifying the process for publishing/unpublishing multiple items in their June 17 release.  Previously, instructors would need to set the published/unpublished status on each module and each item within a module. So, if they wanted to unpublish an entire module to work on it, they would need to unpublish each item individually, then republish each item when they finished. Now with this update, the status of an entire module and its items can be changed at once!     To use this new feature, click the drop-down publish/unpublish button for a module. You’ll see three items in…

  • Canvas,  Educational Tools,  Teaching & Learning

    Canvas Updates: Accessing SpeedGrader for New Quizzes 

    Reading Time: 2 minutes In its May 20 update, Canvas has made it easy to access SpeedGrader for a New Quiz. Previously, you’d have to find the New Quiz in the gradebook or in your “to-grade” list to get to SpeedGrader. Now, you can access it through just about anywhere you can access a New Quiz in Canvas – including inside the build pages for the New Quiz itself!   From Canvas modules or the Quizzes/Assignments pages, click the three dots for the quiz and select “SpeedGrader” from the drop-down.   From both the New Quiz overall settings page and the “Build” page where you can edit the quiz questions,…

  • Canvas

    Preparing for Finals: How Turnitin and Proctoring Exams Can Help

    Reading Time: 2 minutes We’re quickly approaching the end of the semester, so it’s time to make sure you have all the info you need to finish strong. Today we’re going to be talking about finals, and make sure you check out our post about reviewing your gradebook and submitting your grades as you prepare to do that.   Because of the unique challenges of this year, your finals may look different from the norm. Whether you’re having your students write a final paper or take an exam, here’s a few features to consider as you make your plans.   1. Use Turnitin for written final projects  Turnitin integrates seamlessly into Canvas assignments – you only need to select “Turnitin” from the…

  • Canvas,  Educational Tools,  Teaching & Learning

    Turnitin Adds AI Writing Indicator to Similarity Report 

    Reading Time: 3 minutes It’s no secret that ChatGPT’s popularity is growing. And plagiarism detecting tools are aware of that – and the need to adjust their offerings to help identify when student work may have been supplemented or entirely created by AI. Turnitin recently announced that it will now display a score to instructors within the Similarity Report to indicate what percentage of a paper is highly likely to be generated by AI.  Turnitin is quick to say that their detection isn’t foolproof and the percentage displayed “should not be used as a definitive measure of misconduct or punitive tool.” The AI percentage is presented to inform instructors and…