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Optimizing Your Canvas Course Site

A well-organized course site in the learning management system (LMS) is essential for promoting student learning and ensuring grade transparency.

We know from our student surveys that students value structured and consistent use of Canvas to support their learning. Having clear communication with faculty, timely feedback on grades, and visible indicators of their progress is paramount to their self-efficacy. Additionally, our students emphasize the importance of having access to course materials outside of scheduled class times.

To support this, we recommend that, at minimum, instructors set up some kind of landing page/home page, organize instructional materials, and use the gradebook.

Accessing and Adding Templates to Your Course

There is more than one way to optimally use the LMS, so we have created some templates/examples for individual Canvas items using CidiLabs that can be accessed using Canvas Commons. The resources in this section introduce how to use them.

How-To Video

In this demo video, Brianna Stines,  senior learning designer in Notre Dame Learning’s Office of Digital Learning, walks through how to implement a template on your Canvas home page.

Additional Help Resources

Customizing Your Course

Templates are one option for your Canvas home page. Now that you’ve seen how to implement them, let’s look at additional options for customizing your course on the home page and beyond.

Home Page Options

Canvas includes a few home page options we’d recommend choosing from: 1) a front page, 2) the syllabus page, or 3) the course module list. Your home page may vary depending on your preferences and even timing of the semester.

How do I change the Course Home Page?

Option 1: A Front Page

A front page is a Canvas page you designate as the front page so it can be the home page. This page might include information about the course, you as the instructor, how to get started, and where to turn for help. As demonstrated in the how-to video in the first section of this article, there are several template options for front pages. You can preview each template (some elements may be altered in preview mode, but do show up as intended when imported) in Canvas Commons to decide which one you prefer. Be sure to edit whichever template you use to reflect you and your course. 

How do I set a Front Page in a course?

Templates

The easiest way to get to these templates is to:

  1. Click the Commons option in the global navigation from your Canvas Dashboard.
  2. Once in the Commons, click on the Filter menu, scroll down to "Shared With," and select "University of Notre Dame."
  3. Try searching these terms for example templates: text welcome from instructor, intro video, info buttons, module list, and module cards and course components

Need help implementing a template? Watch a video demonstration or consult this Knowledge Base article.

Option 2: Syllabus Feature

The Syllabus feature is like a page with some enhanced features, including a “Course Summary” with a running list of course items by due date. We do not recommend copying your entire syllabus to this page as plain text. Instead, consider adding a link to your full course syllabus—a view-only Google doc works well so you never have to update the file/link even as you make edits to the document—and a couple of other pieces of paramount information that tend to stay regular across semesters. We encourage you to explore options available with CidiLabs to optimize the layouts of the syllabus.

How do I use the Syllabus as an instructor?

Option 3: Modules List

If your course is well-organized using the Modules tool, you may enable Modules as your home page. That means when students go to your course from their dashboard they will land automatically on the list of modules. When choosing this option, consider having a module for information about the course. Some items might include a page for course information, instructor information, and the syllabus.

Organizing Instructional Materials

Instructional materials can be organized well in a few ways. One way is to use modules and organize content by week, theme, etc. When using modules, you’ll likely use Canvas Pages. We encourage you to explore options available with CidiLabs to optimize your page layouts.

Using Assignments and the Gradebook

To utilize the gradebook and promote grade transparency, your course assignments need to be in Canvas. We encourage you to explore options available with CidiLabs to optimize your assignment page layouts.

Feedback

An additional benefit of having your assignments in the LMS is the ability to provide digital feedback.

Using Rubrics

One way to provide feedback while also “facilitating more authentic learning and integrity is effective use of rubrics” (The Opposite of Cheating: Teaching for Integrity in the Age of AI, p. 99).

VALUE rubrics are open educational resources (OER) that enable educators to assess students’ original work. AAC&U offers a proven methodology for applying the VALUE rubrics to evaluate student performance reliably and verifiably across 16 broad, cross-cutting learning outcomes.

The easiest way to acces the AAC&U VALUE Rubrics is to:

  1. Click the Commons option in the global navigation from your Canvas Dashboard.
  2. Once in the Commons, click on the Filter menu, scroll down to "Shared With," and select "University of Notre Dame."
  3. Search for: rubrics