Getting Started with Canvas
Whether you're creating a brand-new course or refining an existing one, the tutorial below will guide you through the essential steps to set up your course effectively, ensuring a smooth and engaging experience for your students.
Navigate to your Canvas Course
- Log in to Canvas at https://montana.instructure.com/login/saml.
- When you log in, you will be in your Canvas dashboard.
- Select the desired course by clicking on the course card.
Update Your Homepage Template
If you used the MSU-branded homepage in previous courses, it will carry over when you import content into a new course. You’re welcome to keep using it, customize it, or create an entirely new page. For guidance on personalizing the MSU-branded homepage, check out the Update Your Homepage Tutorial. Once you've created and selected the page you'd like to use, be sure to set it as your front page using the steps in How Do I Set a Front Page in a Course?
Organize Your Course
Before adding content to your course, creating an organizational structure using Modules is a good idea. These Modules can align with topics, weeks, or any other format that works best for your course. To begin, review the tutorials on our Organize Your Course page.Create New Content
Some migrated content elements may not transfer well and will require rebuilding. Canvas offers a versatile toolkit for creating new content, including pages, assignments, discussions, quizzes, links, documents, and external tools.
Canvas Content Tutorials
Use the links below to the webpage and video tutorials to learn more about each content item.
Announcements
are a quick way to communicate with your students.
Pages
provide a platform for presenting course materials.
Assignments
track student progress and facilitate feedback.
Quizzes
assess student understanding with various question formats.
Discussions
foster collaborative learning environments.
Modules
structure the flow of your course and its content.
LTIs,
like Panopto, are integrated external tools to support your course.
Set Up the Gradebook
Each assignment's grades can be calculated as points, percentages, complete or incomplete, pass or fail, GPA scale, and letter grades. Assignments can be organized into groups for weighting. Only graded assignments, discussions, quizzes, and surveys published are shown in the Gradebook. “Not Graded” assignments will not be shown.
To get started, review the written Gradebook Tutorial or the Gradebook Video.
Weighting Grades
You can organize your graded Canvas activities into groups such as "quizzes" or "homework." When you select this option, you assign a weight to the assignment group rather than to individual assignments. Canvas calculates the grade by dividing the total points a student has earned by the total possible points for all assignments in that group.
For detailed instructions, refer to the Weight Your Gradebook Tutorial or Video.
Copy Course
Once your content is complete in your shell and your live course becomes available before the start of the semester, you can copy your content over using the Copy a Canvas Course Tutorial.