Canvas is UWM’s campus-supported digital learning environment. UWM’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) has several ways to support your use of Canvas as an instructor! Feel free to contact CETL for specific help, finding teaching resources and training, or review the Canvas Made Easy guide.
The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) Support Commons provides support:
Monday through Wednesday: 9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Thursday: Appointment Only
Friday: Closed
After Hours Support for Canvas
You have several training options available to you as an instructor!
Canvas Made Easy for Instructors
Below you will find in-depth documentation on how to use the most important features in Canvas as an instructor.
Logging into Canvas
You will need to use your ePanther credentials to log into Canvas.
Global Navigation
The black navigation menu on the left when you log into Canvas is the Global Navigation area. You can add only the courses you want to see on your Dashboard but still access your full list of courses under Courses.
Home
In Home, you can add files, pages, links, and assignments to modules, which are like buckets that can organize your course into weeks or item type.
- How do I add a module?
- How do I move or reorder a module?
- How do I add assignment types, pages, and files as module items?
- How do I add an external URL as a module item?
- How do I view a course using a test student?
Announcements
Announcements allow you to post relevant news and updates for your students.
Assignments and Grades
The Assignments area allows you to create grade items for your grade book. If you want to make an assignment that students submit online, like a dropbox, you will need to create an Assignment and choose the “submission type” to be “online.”
- How do I create an online assignment?
- How do I add an assignment group in a course?
- How do I weight the final course grade based on assignment groups?
- How do I enter and edit grades in the Gradebook?
- How do I add a rubric in a course?
- How do I use SpeedGrader?
Quizzes
Quizzes are online quizzes or exams that could include a variety of question types, including multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, matching, and short answer questions. Quizzes may have a time limit and other restrictions. When you create a Quiz in Canvas, an item for that quiz is automatically added to the grade book.
- What options can I set in a quiz?
- How do I create a quiz with individual questions?
- How do I create an Essay quiz question?
- How do I assign a quiz to an individual student?
- How do I create a question bank in a course?
Discussions and Groups
Discussions are online spaces within Canvas in which students and instructors can engage in asynchronous conversations related to course topics and questions.
- How do I create a discussion as an instructor?
- How do I reply to a discussion as an instructor?
- How do I add a group set in a course?
- How do I create a group discussion in a course?
Administrative
Before students can see your course, you will need to Publish it.
Canvas Quick Start Guide
Tutorials and videos to help you get started with Canvas.
Online Canvas Webinars
Canvas provides a series of one-hour online webinars for instructors. These webinars are good for instructors who would like to attend training online but want to ask questions in real time.
Click the “About Canvas Webinars” button to learn more. To register, login to Canvas, then click the Help icon. Lastly, click “Training Services Portal”. Be aware that the version of Canvas presented in these webinars may look and feel different from what is available at UWM.
Please contact CETL with any questions about the Canvas Webinars.
Here are some of the webinars that Canvas provides for instructors:
- First Look
- Course Basics
- Course Design Considerations
- Assignments
- Gradebook and SpeedGrader
- Quiz Basics
- Managing Quizzes
- Group Work and Collaboration
- Course Communications
- Outcomes and Rubrics
Students cannot be added manually to official Canvas courses but must be added through the automatic integration with PAWS. Therefore, students need to make sure they are enrolled in the course in PAWS to be able to gain access to the Canvas course site.
Canvas provides a list of supported browsers.
For Canvas help, instructors can visit the Instructors navigation link on the Canvas login page. The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) provides support for all UWM instructors. In addition, CETL has partnered with many UWM school and college support offices to assist instructors with Canvas.
You may see courses in your Canvas Dashboard titled “Blank – Your Name – #”. These are simply empty courses without enrolled students that you can use to explore the Canvas environment. Master courses are also empty courses without enrolled students that you can use to develop courses in Canvas to later transfer to official course sites. You can request additional Blank or Master course sites by submitting a course site request form.
Some external tools are already available for integration in Canvas. Here is the current list:
- Blackboard Collaborate Ultra
- Cengage MindLinks
- Films-on-Demand
- Kaltura (MyMedia)
- McGraw-Hill Campus
- Norton InQuizitive
- TurningPoint Clickers
In your Canvas course, click on “Instructor Tools” in the main navigation bar to learn more and to request external tools.
A blueprint course is a course that houses content you want to share to any number of associated courses. Note that blueprint courses exist outside of the semester and do not contain students. Content added to a blueprint course is synced to all courses associated with the blueprint course, and content can be locked or unlocked for editing in the associated courses.
Instructors can use a Canvas blueprint course as a template that contains the standardized course content, assignments, structure, and settings for associated courses. Blueprint courses are typically used when a large number of sections of the same course must contain identical content and assignments to maintain consistency.
Once semester courses are automatically created in Canvas, you can use the Combine Courses Form to request that separate Canvas courses be combined into a single Canvas course. For example: You might request to have the Canvas courses for two sections combined.
These courses can be created for credit and non-credit certificates and community development.
These courses can be created to create course templates, experiment with Canvas, and organize course content. Sandboxes can be used to share content with other instructors without compromising student data.
These courses are created for student-oriented non-credit courses.
These courses are created for professional development and non-academic student cohorts.
University administrators can use this form to request for an announcement to be placed on the Canvas Dashboard. Once the request is submitted, it will be reviewed by a Canvas Administrator, and a member of Academic Affairs leadership to ensure it meets the following guidelines:
- The announcement must promote information that contributes to student success.
- The announcement must be of a university-wide nature.
- Canvas is not the only method used to reach the target audience.
- The initiative or project prompting the announcement must be managed by staff at UWM or UW Administration.
UWM offers a variety of external tools that integrate with Canvas to extend its functionality. Use the External Tool Request Form to review the list of external tools and request to enable a tool in your Canvas class.