Tag Archives: grades

What the . .?! Canvas FAQs

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We’ve scoured the Internet and compiled a list of the most frequently asked questions (FAQs) about Canvas.

Photo by Camylla Battani on Unsplash

 

 

Brette Wilton-Kristoff, Graduate Student , Communications Specialist, GMCTL,

March 26th, 2021

 

 

1. Why am I receiving so many notifications from Canvas? 

  • All new Canvas user accounts are set to certain default notification settings.
    • Change your ‘Notifications’ preferences in your Account  settings, accessible from your Global Navigation menu (left-hand side bar) or on a course page, the Course Notifications – in the right-hand sidebar.
    •  To learn more, see setting your notifications

2. Why does Canvas seem slow at times?

  • Many factors can affect the processing speed:
    • Like your wireless connection strength, shared usage and/or bandwidth of your internet connection, and other applications you have open, which internet browser is being used, and the processing power/age of your computer.
  • If Canvas seems slow, try doing these first: 
    1. Close all other applications and browser tabs
    2. Try disconnecting /reconnecting to your wireless network
    3. Try moving closer to the wireless router/access point
    4. Restart your computer

3. Which web browser is most compatible with Canvas?

  • Chrome, then Firefox works best. Currently USask IT Support is identifying issues with using Safari for accessing Canvas. Check to see if your web browser is compatible here.

4. How do I view my grades in Canvas?

  • See your grades and any feedback via the grey View Grades button on your Dashboard’s right-hand sidebar.

  • Locate your grades directly in your course by clicking on the ‘Grades’ tab in the course menu (usually in green at USask). 

 

5. Can I hide my recent grades from the Canvas Dashboard?

 

 

For more support options with Canvas, see the USask Student Canvas page.

We acknowledge that the University of Saskatchewan’s main campus is situated on Treaty 6, traditional Nehiyaw territory, and the Homeland of the Métis. We pay our respect to the First Nations and Métis ancestors of this place and reaffirm our relationship with one another. 

 

A new year.

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Hello 2021. Thank goodness you’re here.

Brette D. W. Kristoff, Graduate Student – Communications Specialist, GMCTL, January 11th, 2021

A new year, a new term, a fresh start. 

Canvas is our new Usask learning management system (LMS). Over the last two years, USask has been on track to phase out the old system, Blackboard, and replace it with the much more efficient and user-friendly system, Canvas. 

We know change is difficult, so we’ve created the Canvas Tips for Students blog to help students get to know Canvas and learn some useful info to use this new learning management system. 

Remote learning isn’t easy, but Canvas has some pretty cool features that will help simplify learning at home. My favourite things about Canvas’ user-friendly interface so far, are:

Stay tuned in coming weeks for more Canvas Tips or browse our archived posts.  Happy Studying!

We acknowledge that the University of Saskatchewan’s main campus is situated on Treaty 6 Territory and the Homeland of the Métis. We pay our respect to the First Nations and Métis ancestors of this place and reaffirm our relationship with one another.

For more support options with Canvas, see the USask Student Canvas page.

Viewing Rubrics and Grades in Canvas

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Seasonal message @sparrowcoffee, Photo by B. D. W. Kristoff, CC by 2.0

Brette D. W. Kristoff, Graduate Student – Communications Specialist, GMCTL, December 15, 2020

View Rubrics for Assignments: 

  • Your instructors might include a grading rubric for assignments. You should review the rubric’s criteria and ratings before submitting your assignment to ensure you meet all of the requirements. 
    • A Canvas Rubric appears immediately below your assignment details
    • The Rubric lists the different criteria for how your instructor will grade the assignment. Click on the criteria to view longer descriptions, if available.
      • Depending on how your instructor set it up, your rubric may or may not show the point values for each set of criteria. 
    • Total Points for the assignment will be indicated at the bottom of the Rubric.
      • Note not all instructors will use rubrics!

How to view your Grades and Graded Rubrics in Canvas:

Open the Grades tab from your Course Navigation Menu:

  • Select the assignment title to view the assignment details. Here you can view the assignment due date, grade status, and the total point value for each assignment. 
  • You can also view any comments left by your instructor.
  • Use the drop-down menu to view your grades in each of your Canvas courses. Select the Arrange By menu to sort grades by module, due date, or assignment group. 

To see the Rubric results for a submitted assignment, click on the Rubric icon (circled below), to the right of the assignment title to show the details:

The Rubric with ratings will be marked by colours, with the points at the end of each row and an overall total at the bottom.

View Rubrics for Graded Discussions:

  • Discussions in Canvas might be marked and graded as part of your overall course mark. 
  • On a Discussions page, select the title of the graded discussion post.
    • Select the Options icon [1] and then select Show Rubric [2] to review the rubric criteria. 
      • If a Show Rubric icon is not displayed, then there is no Canvas Rubric attached to the discussion. 
    • Click on the rubric criteria to view longer descriptions.
  •  Review the rubric to self-evaluate and make sure your discussion post meets the criteria and course outcomes. 
  • Your graded Canvas Rubric is accessed through your Grades page, in the same way as with an Assignment.

We acknowledge that the University of Saskatchewan’s main campus is situated on Treaty 6 Territory and the Homeland of the Métis. We pay our respect to the First Nations and Métis ancestors of this place and reaffirm our relationship with one another.

For more support options with Canvas, see the USask Student Canvas page.

Study Smart with Canvas

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Tara Million, Ph.D Student, Indigenous Studies – Photo by Julia Million, CC by 2.0

Brette D. W. Kristoff, Graduate Student – Communications Specialist, GMCTL, December 11, 2020

Even the very idea of final exam season is enough to raise a students’ blood pressure! But don’t sweat it…sometimes, opening your books is the hardest part! Study smarter, not harder, with these Canvas Study Tips.

Some USask Study Tips:

  1. Focus on the process, not the outcome. Start by simply immersing yourself in your Canvas course content. Once you’re more familiar, it won’t feel so scary!
  2. Engage in Active Studying. Simply reading and rereading your notes is not studying. Reading and review are important “pre-studying” steps, but you must also actively engage with the material. You also need to connect and give meaning to what you are reading. Here are some active studying tips we like:
    1. Take notes when reading or watching lectures. 
    2. Create concept maps, or other visual aids to help your brain make sense of all the information.
    3. Use a story, an acronym, or a rhyme to help retain names, dates, and ideas. 
  3. Take time for you.
    1. Schedule regular study breaks which includes getting outside, being physically active, and remembering to eat. 
    2. Take some time to call or connect with your loved ones. 
    3. Review these USask remote learning studying tips. 

Review Canvas Course Content and Panopto Lectures: 

A good place to begin when preparing for final exams is to review the course syllabus before studying. Yes…dust off that old thing and review the course outline, chapter titles, and the course outcomes as described by the instructor at the beginning of the term. Then, go back and highlight the areas most relevant for the final exam: 

  • Questions you might ask yourself include: What topics will be covered on the final exam? Of these topics, which ones do I feel most competent in and which areas or chapters do I feel the least confident in?

Tips for Avoiding Procrastination

  1. Plan out your exam schedule, and pencil in study time. This will help you develop a more accurate plan of how much time you have to prepare for each exam. Creating and committing to a study schedule is a good way to stay organized and be more prepared!
  2. Set time-limits on your social media apps, or keep your mobile phone in a different room while studying to limit distractions. Dividing your study time into reasonable chunks is a good stratgey. Set an alarm for 20-30 minutes and leave your phone in the other room. When the time is up, you can get up and stretch and have a bathroom break, and then set the alarm again. 
  3. Keep your internet tabs limited and organized by using a different window for each of your courses.  Keep related tabs open, close all the rest.

Be Prepared for a Different Experience

   Exams in Canvas will need new strategies.

  1. If this is the first time you’re doing an exam in Canvas Quizzes (or Canvas New Quizzes), know that the quiz tool can be set up to show only one question at a time and prevent you from returning to a previous question. So the exam-taking strategies you used in the past (like looking over the whole exam first, and planning your time and order of doing questions), might not apply for this kind of exam, so you’ll need to be flexible and ‘go with’ the situation.
  2. If you can go back to other questions, look for the question name in the right sidebar, if your quiz looks like this.
  3. You can click the flag next to a question name/number as a reminder to go back to that question. The flag then appears beside the question name in the righ sidebar. . 
  4. Or if your quiz is like the one below, click on the pin icon [1] to bold it, marking that question for review later, and click on the Question Navigator arrow [2], to reveal previous question details.
  5. Collapse the Question Navigator again with the same arrow.
  6.  Watch the “Time Elapsed” or “Time Remaining” below the questions list in the right- hand sidebar to track your time, shown below,          or top – middle for New Quizzes.

 

 

Good luck on all your finals!

We acknowledge that the University of Saskatchewan’s main campus is situated on Treaty 6 Territory and the Homeland of the Métis. We pay our respect to the First Nations and Métis ancestors of this place and reaffirm our relationship with one another.

For more support options with Canvas, see the USask Student Canvas page.

Viewing Grades and Due Dates

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Spooky season is here . . .  Midterm season that is! 

But don’t let that scare you…check out these tips for viewing and predicting your grades with Canvas. 

“Friendly Fall Face, near Broadway, Saskatoon” by Brette D. W. Kristoff, CC BY 2.0

Brette D. W. Kristoff, Graduate Student – Communications Specialist, GMCTL, October 28th, 2020

Viewing Grades

From the Course Navigation menu on the left of your screen in any of your Canvas courses, select the Grades tab:

  • Use the Course search tab in the Grades menu to view grades in each of your courses. 

See the Canvas Grades guide for full explanation of all numbered items.

  • Various symbols appear in your Score [7] column.
    • These symbols represent the status of your submission (marked, in progress, incomplete, etc).  Click on the submission to view it, or review this guide to Canvas grading icons.

If a grade submission is marked as incomplete, don’t panic! 

  • Components of the assignment or quiz might need to be manually graded and will appear incomplete until then. 
  • Group work and labs might also appear incomplete in Canvas and your instructor may have to manually manage these assignments.

Late Submissions

Your instructor might have implemented an automatic late policy:

  • Assignments submitted after the due date will be automatically flagged as late.
    • Depending on how your instructor has set up the course, a
      late policy may be enforced resulting in a deduction of marks. Late assignments will display the red Late icon [1] in the Status column of your gradebook.
    •  Review the course syllabus and submission rubric for your instructors policies on late submissions. 
  • To view details for a late assignment, click on the name of the submission [2].

    “A Ghosty with Midterm Stress” by Brette D. W. Kristoff, CC by 2.0

  • If you have concerns about your grades, view any rubrics or checklists provided for the submission, and the course syllabus before contacting your instructor. A Q & A discussion board is a good place to ask classmates questions about grades and assignments before contacting the instructor directly.
  • Tip!  Due Dates and Available Until dates for submissions might be different. This might mean that your instructor allows for late submissions up until the Available Until date but a penalty may be deducted. 
    • The Submission details will show you the amount deducted for the late penalty and your final grades.

 

What-If Grades

You can use the What-If Grades feature in Canvas to predict hypothetical grades and changes to your overall average:

    • Use the What-If feature to In your Grades menu, select a course and assignment. Then, enter a hypothetical score:

  • Click the arrow to the left of the What-If grade or the Revert to Actual Score button on your grade page to undo the What-If.

 

In the right side-bar of your Grades page, you can also look at What-If scores that you’ve tried out before.

 

 

When calculating your overall grade, you can do so using only graded assignments, by clicking the box in the right side-bar, also on your Grades page.

 

 

 

 

 

For more support options with Canvas, see the USask Student Canvas page.

Think clean slate. Think new opportunities. Think Canvas.

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USask campus sculpture. Photo by B. D. W. Kristoff, CC by 2.0

Brette D. W. Kristoff, Graduate Student – Communications Specialist, GMCTL, September 9, 2020

As USask students begin an unprecedented academic year from remote locations across the globe, the U of S is transitioning to a new learning management system (LMS), Canvas. What does this mean and how will this impact USask students?

Concern over the functionality of Blackboard, our long-time LMS, was the impetus for this change. Canvas was selected as a superior LMS to support USask student learning. 

 Canvas offers a streamlined and user-friendly platform that integrates various learning tools and resources. Comparatively, features of the new system include: 

As we navigate this exciting new platform from home, it’s bound to feel intense at times, but Canvas Tips for Students is here to help. 

Watch for regular blog posts about how to navigate and customize your Canvas experience and more!

For more support options with Canvas, see the USask Student Canvas page.