X
Home UM3D Canvas Canvas Checklist

Canvas Checklist

Use this checklist to ensure your courses are ready for the new semester. You can also download this document as a pdf.

Check Personal Account Settings

  • Set Up Account Notifications - To ensure you receive communication from Canvas, set up your Notification Preferences and contact method in your Canvas Account. 
    • Trainer Tip: Show students how to set their own notification preferences.
  • Select Favorite Courses - Customize which course cards are displayed on the Dashboard by “Favoriting” courses based on preference,   date, semester, etc. Current semester courses will display automatically.
    • Trainer Tip: Once courses are displayed, you can also give the course a “Nickname” visible only to you.

Check Course Settings

  • Adjust Course Settings & Details - There are many different options under Course Details in Course Settings. Selecting More Options opens a 
    menu of extra features to turn on and off, such as allowing students to post their own discussion threads. 
    • Trainer Tip:  For optimum student course experience, hide unnecessary course navigation links.
    • Trainer Tip: If you adopted digital course materials through the TigersSmart Start Program, be sure to place “Course Materials” in your course navigation.
    • Trainer Tip: Choose if and how many announcements to display.
    • Trainer Tip: Use Validate Links in your Course Settings to ensure there are no broken links.
  • Choose Home Page - The Home Page is the first impression of a course. Select the Home Page option that best fits the needs of your course.

Check Functionality

  • Check Assignments and Grades - If you use weighted grading categories for your final grade calculations, you’ll want to Add Assignment Groups 
    to the Assignments Index Page and assign weights to each Group. Verify the Gradebook is arranged according 
    to your grading policy and your syllabus.
  • Verify Students in the People Link  - Select People to verify your Canvas roster (teacher, student, TA, etc.) for accuracy.
    • Trainer Tip: The People link also displays course sections (if applicable).
  • Set up Groups - Divide students into Groups for better discussions and assignments. 
    • Trainer Tip: Use groups for more active discussions boards.
  • Verify Calendar - Check the Calendar tool to verify Assignment due dates and Events scheduled for your course. 
    • Note: Calendar displays graded/published Assignments, Quizzes, Discussions and Events with due dates.
    • Trainer Tip: Calendar’s drag-and-drop options easily manipulate and change due dates.
  • Publish Content - Check visibility of individual items and modules as a whole. 
    • Trainer Tip: You can unpublish any items you don’t want students to see.
  • Review Course in Student View - Review your course content from Student View to experience your course from a student perspective. 
    • Trainer Tip: Student View adds a test student to Grades. After participating in Student View, enter your Gradebook as a teacher to view any Test Student entries.
  • Authenticate Third Party Tools & LTIs (If Applicable) - Third party tools, such as Office 365, must associate with an email address.  Ensure that you have logged in, authenticated, and tested these tools before assigning activities with these integrations.

     

Update Content & Check for Accessibility

  • Add Syllabus - Add the current syllabus to your course via the Course Syllabus tool, as a File link in your course, in a Course Page or any other way you would find useful.
  • Caption Video - Use Studio to caption new and uploaded videos.
  • Use Accessibility Checker - Detect and fix common accessibility errors within Canvas pages.
  • Convert Docs & PDFs to Canvas Pages - Copy and paste from Word directly into Canvas pages to create materials that load faster and are more 
    accessible than the original.

 

 This work is based on Canvas’ Start of Term Checklist and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.