Finding your way around Canvas

Canvas video overview

The video below provides a demonstration of basic Canvas features and functions.

For further information on customising Canvas, including adjustments for improved accessibility, see Accessibility in Learning@Griffith.

Canvas dashboard and global navigation

Your Canvas Dashboard is the first thing you see when you log into Learning@Griffith and helps you to see what is happening in all your current courses.

The Dashboard is made up of:

1. The global navigation bar on the left hand side of the screen that will stay with you no matter where you are in Canvas;
2. A centre panel which displays your courses in either card, list or recent activity view; and
3. A right hand panel which shows your To-Dos and Coming Up.

The Dashboard will also highlight new announcements to help you keep up to date.

For further information on the dashboard, see How do I use the Dashboard as an instructor? (Canvas Guides).

Notifications settings in Canvas

By default, you will receive notifications when updates happen in your Canvas courses. For information on how to view and change what notifications you receive for all your Canvas courses, see How do I manage my Canvas notification settings as an instructor? (Canvas Guides). It is also possible to have different notification settings for specific courses. For information on how to achieve this, see How do I manage notifications for a single course as an instructor? (Canvas Guides) .

Visit Use inbox rules in Outlook.com (Microsoft Support) for instructions on how to automatically move all emails received from Canvas into a separate folder.

Student View

To view your course from the perspective of an enrolled student, click on the 'View as Student' button on the top-left of select pages in Canvas. As a Test Student, you can view the course, post and reply to discussions, submit assignments, view marks, view quizzes, view the calendar, and anything else that's been made available for student view. You can reset Test Student data anytime, however, any activity that involves interactions with other students cannot be removed (e.g. discussion replies).

Student View can be accessed from a number of places throughout your Canvas course site including:

• Home
• Modules
• Assignments
• Announcements
• Discussions
• Quizzes
• Pages

Note: Attendance, conversations inbox, collaborations, external apps, groups, peer reviews do not work for the Test Student. You will only see what you, as the instructor, have enabled/published for your students to see.

For more information, see  How do I view a course as a test student using Student View? (Canvas Guides)