Course Home
Course Navigation Links

Course Home

The course home page is the first thing shown when accessing a course in Canvas. The content of this page can be customized by the instructor. The default for this page is the Communication Stream, but other options (Front Page - shown below, Course Modules, Assignments List, or Syllabus) might be better for you and your students. In most cases the recommended Home page layout is the Course Modules.

The parts of the Home page include:

1. Course Navigation links - Instructors customize which links are shown in a course.

2. Content Area - Instructors customize what is in this area, but normally it is the Course Modules.

3. Sidebar - Shows course tools for managing your course, "To Do" list (what needs grading), and Coming up (Assignments that are coming up).

Collapsing the Course Navigation Menu

The expanded view navigation includes a navigation menu to access files, grades, and other course specific information and files. Expanded View The collapsed view navigation hides navigation menu to access files, grades, and other course specific information and files. Collapsed View

To collapse or expand the Course Navigation Menu click on the menu icon .

Course Navigation Links

Course Navigation is a series of links on the left side of your course that help you get to where you want to go inside of a Canvas course. Instructors have access a number of links (the Home link is a constant) and can reorder them and decide which links to make visible/invisible to students; students are never able to see Attendance, Settings, or Dropout Detective.

Below is basic information about each link. Additional information about the links will be provided later in the training.

Announcements - add and view all course announcements
Assignments - gradebook setup
Attendance - take attendance
Chat - chat with students; students can chat with each other
Collaborations - add and view course collaborations
Conferences - schedule and conduct online conferences with your students
Discussions - add and view a list of all course discussions
Dropout Detective - provides student analytics for ONLINE courses
Files - add and view course files
Grades - course gradebook
Modules - where all course content is contained
Outcomes - add course outcomes and create course rubrics
Pages - add and view course pages
People - view course list and information about what students are doing in your course
Quizzes - add and view a list of all course quizzes and exams
Settings - individual course settings
Syllabus - list of all graded assignments as well as your course syllabus

Why Customize?

It's important to customize your links to make sure students are provided the best online environment possible. In general, Online Learning recommends only making links visible that you are using in your course. In addition, it might be confusing to students if you leave the Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes links available, since students might go there instead of Modules and miss important course content and other information.

Recommended Customization

The best bet is to make as few of the links as possible visible to students because this cuts down on confusion and makes navigating your course easier.

In general, Online Learning recommends Instructors make the following links VISIBLE to students: Home (default), Modules, Syllabus, & Grades. Additional links that could be added to this includes: People, Announcements, and Attendance (if you plan on using them). Other links should only be added based on the use of those links in your course and/or the set-up of your course. To learn how to customize your links see the following guide - How do I reorder and hide Course Navigation links?

Reminder!

After reviewing the information from each tab above click on the Next button to continue with the Orientation!