What is Canvas?
Canvas is a space for course materials, communication, assignments and activities. It is the centralized location for all courses, and it is the system that students are familiar with using for courses at UC Santa Cruz.
What is Canvas good for?
Canvas puts everything in one place for your students (and you). It gives students a way to engage with the course and one another at any time or place. It’s a convenient method for students to submit work. It lets you provide timely and private feedback. It lets you incorporate other “things,” like electronic textbooks. It gives you helpful ways to see student activity.
Canvas is the best centralized place to place all content related to your course — digital texts, videos, assignments, etc.
Key Resources
- Let’s Get This Canvas Started (enroll here): New to working in Canvas, or just need a place to practice some basic skills? Let’s Get This Canvas Started offers a self-paced, asynchronous course, on the basics of using Canvas. You can use this course as reference guide or take it as a course, completing the homework assignments at the end of each Module. A Canvas expert will give you feedback on your submissions, and be available to support you with any questions you have. You can also access the course instructions outside of Canvas in the Let’s Get This Canvas Started Google doc.
- Adding the Introduction Module to your course in Canvas: a fully customizable module to insert into your course; includes campus resources, tips on succeeding in courses, guidelines on communication and academic integrity and more.
- Adding the Course Design Template to your course in Canvas: includes the Introduction module above as well as 10 built modules to easily import files or assignments into
- Canvas Visual Language
- Canvas guides for faculty
Technical Support
Visit our daily office hours or email tlc@ucsc.edu to schedule a consultation.
- UCSC ITS Support: canvas.help@ucsc.edu (opens a ticket with ITS) or call 459-HELP (4357)
- 24/7 Instructure Canvas Support: Click the Help icon on the left hand vertical menu in Canvas. Click on “Chat with Canvas Support (Faculty)” or call by phone.
Note: Instructure is the developer and publisher of Canvas; they cannot help with integrated tools such as Zoom or YuJa.