Navigating Canvas

On this page you will find:

Dashboard Navigation
Course Navigation

Dashboard Navigation

The Dashboard is the first thing you will see when you log in to Canvas and displays everything that is happening in all of your courses.

Click image to enlarge

The Dashboard consists of four main elements:

Global Navigation Menu: The Global Navigation menu is the primary menu for navigating throughout Canvas. This bar runs across the top of every page and includes four links:

Courses: Dropdown menu that links to all of the Courses in which you are teaching or enrolled.
Assignments: Dropdown menu allows you to see the assignments that need grading or what assignments need to be done for all of your courses.
Grades: A page that allows you to see the grades for all of the courses in which you are teaching or enrolled (if grading is used by the instructor.)
Calendar: A page that allows you to see the calendar events for all of the courses in which you are teaching or enrolled.

Global Stream: The Global Stream contains a stream of recent activity from all of your courses. There are announcements, discussions, assignment notifications, and conversations.

Sidebar: The Sidebar contains three helpful feeds:

To-Do: Lists the next five assignments on your calendar that you need to turn in (if you are a student) or you need to grade (if you are an instructor).
Coming Up: Lists the next five calendar assignments or events in the next week.
Recent Feedback: Notifies students when their instructor has left a comment or a grade for one of their submissions. The same feed will notify instructors when students have left comments about work they have evaluated.

Help Corner: The Help Corner provides several links to access your profile and get help with Canvas.

Your Name: Links to your Profile page.
Inbox: Links to your Conversations, which are private messages separate from your Course Announcement and can be sent to any Canvas user.
Settings: Links to your Settings page.
Logout: Log you out of Canvas.
Help: Links to our Canvas help documents on ITS Online.

For more information, visit the Canvas guides on the Dashboard
OR
Watch a video on the Dashboard

Course Navigation

To access a course you are teaching or enrolled, click the Courses drop-down and then the course name. Click image to enlarge

There are three main sections in a Canvas course:

Course Navigation Menu: The Course Navigation Menu provides links to menus containing course content. Different tools can be included in each course, but there are some more common than others.

Announcements: Provides a feed of all of the announcements that have been posted about your course.
Assignments: Assignments include Quizzes, graded Discussions, and online submissions (i.e. files, images, text, URLs, etc.)
Files: Files are where you upload and access course files, syllabi, readings, or other documents. Files can be placed in Modules, Assignments, or Pages.
Modules: Displays a list of links to assignments, quizzes, files, content pages, discussion topics, and other material, all organized under topic headings.
Syllabus: Contains the course syllabus document and a list of any events or assignments listed in the Course Calendar.

Body: Displays the content of the menu selected in the Course Navigation Menu. The content can be a page, the syllabus, discussions, announcements, quizzes, or imported content.

Sidebar: The Sidebar provides the tools available for the menu selected in the Course Navigation Menu. This will change dynamically depending on the selected menu.

For more information, visit the Canvas guides on Course Navigation