Course Additions

What do you do when you have an idea for your course that doesn’t fall neatly into the constraints of a Canvas page, discussion, assignment, or quiz? In many cases, the solution may be to use external integrations and other third-party content. A Canvas “integration” or LTI refers to a third-party tool that can be accessed and used within Canvas. The extent of the integration and how you access it varies from application to application.

This page outlines some key Canvas integrations that are available to you and your students. We’ve organized these tools into four categories based on their principal function(s): creating and sharing content; communication; student engagement and collaboration; and reviewing your course. We’ve also included some of Canvas’s lesser-known tools and features that fall into these categories.

Tools for Creating and Sharing Course Content

Integrations

Canvas Tools & Features

  • The Rich Content Editor (RCE) allows you to build and customize content in Canvas pages, assignments, discussions, and more. You can use it to add and format text; insert photos, audio, videos, and documents; and link or embed web content in many areas of your course.
  • Canvas Commons is a public repository of Canvas content created by other instructors. You can browse and import content from Canvas Commons into your own course, such as a Student Resources module and Name Pronunciation assignment created by CATL staff.
  • Sometimes a company or publisher will have content that you can use in Canvas that can be imported, rather than accessed through an integration. One common example of this is textbook publisher question banks. If your publisher has a question bank that you want to use for a Canvas quiz, your contact will need to send you a QTI zip file. These zip files can be imported into Canvas as question banks and then used in a quiz. 

Tools for Communication

Integrations

  • Zoom is a video conferencing tool. With the integration, you can schedule Zoom meetings inside your Canvas course. You can easily share meeting recordings through the Zoom integration as well.
  • Microsoft Teams is a platform for video conferencing, collaboration, and file sharing. You can use Teams to set up virtual meetings for your class or create a Teams site where students can call one another, send chat messages, and make posts.

Canvas Tools & Features

  • SpeedGrader comments allow students, instructors, and peer reviewers to leave feedback on Canvas assignment submissions. You can leave comments in the form of text, audio recordings, or video.
  • Announcements are a quick and easy way to send out timely messages to your students, such as reminders about deadlines or updates about your next class meeting. You can also schedule announcements so they are posted at a specific time. If students have email notifications turned on, they will receive an email when you post a Canvas announcement.
  • The Canvas Inbox allows you to send messages to students within Canvas, helping you and your students keep communications related to a course all in one place. If you have email notifications enabled, you will receive an email when you receive a Canvas Inbox message and can reply from your email inbox.
  • Message Students Who… is a feature that allows you to send targeted Canvas Inbox messages to students who meet certain criteria, such as those who have not turned in an assignment or received a certain score.

Tools for Student Engagement & Collaboration

Integrations

  • PlayPosit can be used to create interactive video content and add quiz questions, polls, URLs, and more to videos. Use the Rich Content Editor to embed an ungraded PlayPosit bulb or use Assignments to create a graded PlayPosit bulb.
  • Hypothesis lets instructors and students collaboratively annotate a digital document or website as a class or in small groups. Hypothesis annotation activities can be completed synchronously, such as over a Zoom call, or asynchronously on students’ own time.
  • Besides its web conferencing features, Microsoft Teams can be useful for asynchronous collaboration. If you need a collaborative workspace for students that offers more flexibility than Canvas, you might consider making a Teams site for your course.
  • One of the features of the Office 365 integration is that you can create collaborative documents for your class using the “Collaborations” link in the course navigation menu.

Canvas Tools & Features

  • Canvas Discussions allow students and instructors to create discussion threads. Users can reply to a discussion thread with text, images, audio, and video, leading to a high degree of flexibility. Group discussions are also an option to consider for facilitating group work and collaboration.

Tools for Reviewing Your Course

Integrations

  • The UDOIT Cloud Accessibility Checker can scan your course for common accessibility issues. After scanning, it will generate a report and provide steps for fixing each potential issue, many of which can be addressed without leaving the UDOIT interface.
  • The Atomic Search Tool lets you perform keyword searches within a Canvas course or across all of your courses, allowing you to quickly locate certain files, pages, or other content in Canvas.

Canvas Tools & Features

  • Canvas’s Link Validator scans your entire course for broken links. The validator will generate a report with all the links that appear to be broken as well as which pages or areas where each link appears.
  • The Canvas Accessibility Checker is an accessibility checker that is built into the Rich Content Editor. As you build out your Canvas pages, assignments, discussions, and quizzes, click the accessibility icon at the bottom of the RCE to review potential accessibility issues and correct them.
  • Once your course has begun, New Analytics can be useful for getting a pulse on students’ interactions and visits to the Canvas course site. You can look at recent trends and data for individual students or the whole class based on page views, submissions, grades, and more.