Posted on by Julie Maier

Office 365 and Canvas

There are a number of Office 365 integrations that can be built into the learning activities in your Canvas course, making it easier for you and your students to generate, share, and collaborate in Office 365 files, and for students to access their OneDrive cloud storage. This post will discuss how those integrations fit into our current LMS arrangement, and share a handful of links and ideas to get you started on building learning activities that take advantage of Office 365.

Managing Course Navigation Links

First, you should be aware that the instructor has full control over what appears in the list of Course Navigation links that appear in the side menu of your Canvas course. These links include native Canvas functionalities, or available integrations with third-party apps like Office 365. Depending on whether links are added to the Course Navigation or not, and also whether they are Enabled/Disabled, these tools can be either:

    • Enabled, and visible in the course navigation;
    • Enabled, but not visible in the course navigation (hidden); or
    • Disabled.

Make sure you enable a tool if you want students to use it; it is also probably best, in most situations, to make the link to that tool visible in the Course Navigation (although you can link directly to an enabled tool from elsewhere in the course as well). To make any links visible, go to Settings, click the Navigation tab, and drag the link(s) into the upper list.

When you have finished arranging your Course Navigation links, make sure you scroll to the bottom of the Settings page and hit “Save“.

See the following link for technical directions: How do I manage Course Navigation links?

Office 365 Tool (Course Menu)

With the “Office 365” link enabled, students can click to see a view-only glimpse of the contents of their OneDrive storage, and the folders and files within it. If they click on a file, it will open a new tab in Office 365 (outside of Canvas).

To be honest, this integration is not particularly useful, as it is view-only; however, it might have some utility in making students aware of the great Office 365 tools and significant OneDrive storage available to them beyond Canvas.

Here is a link explaining this tool to students: How do I view my Microsoft Office 365 files in Canvas as a student?

Collaborations Tool (Course Menu)

With the “Collaborations” link enabled, instructors and students have an easy portal for generating new Word, Excel, and Powerpoint files through Office 365, and sharing access with particular individuals in the class or with groups. This will allow those individuals to collectively edit the same file, either asynchronously or synchronously, so there is a lot of potential to use Collaborations for easy setup of group learning activities and assignments.

See the following link for technical directions: How do I create a Microsoft Office 365 collaboration as an instructor?

Here is a link explaining this tool to students: How do I create a Microsoft Office 365 collaboration as a student?

A few things to note about Collaborations:

    • The collaboration file will be owned and stored in the OneDrive of the person who generated the collaboration. It will be placed within in a folder called “Canvas” and a subfolder titled after the course.
    • Whomever you share a Collaboration with will receive an email notification, with a link to access the file in Office 365.
    • The people you share a file with can access it from within Canvas (through the “Collaborations” link), or they can follow a direct link (e.g., one that comes with the email notification) to access it directly from Office 365.

Office 365 Integration in the Rich Content Editor (e.g., in Discussions)

Wherever students have access to the Rich Content Editor (e.g., in Discussions, on select Pages), they can use the “Apps” button and select “Office 365”. From here, they can embed a hyperlink of a file which is stored in their OneDrive into their post. If others click the link, they can open and view the file (but won’t be able to edit it, unless the file owner make specific changes to the access permissions of that file in OneDrive).

Note that the embed is a hyperlink only — it does not enable a preview of the file, so students need to leave Canvas and enter OneDrive to see the file contents.

Here is a link explaining this tool to students: How do I create a hyperlink from Microsoft Office 365 in the Rich Content Editor as a student?

“Cloud Assignments”: Sharing Templates from Office 365

For Assignments in Canvas that use the Submission Type settings of “External Tool“, it is possible for an instructor to share a file from within their own OneDrive that acts as a template for a student’s assignment submission. Accepted assignment types are Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.

When students open the assignment, Office 365 will create a copy of the file in the student’s OneDrive (it will be placed within in a folder called “Canvas” and a subfolder titled after the course). Students can open the document and make changes per the assignment instructions. When they are ready to submit the assignment, they can return to the Canvas assignment page and submit it there.

See the following link for technical directions: How do I create a cloud assignment with a Microsoft Office 365 file?

Here is a link explaining this tool to students: How do I submit a cloud assignment with Microsoft Office 365?

Assignments: File Uploads from Office 365

For Assignments in Canvas that use the Submission Type settings of “Online” and “File Uploads“, students have the option of either uploading a new file from their computer, or by clicking on the “Office 365” tab they can select a file that is in their OneDrive storage.

See the following link for technical directions: How do I create an online assignment?

Here is a link explaining this tool to students: How do I upload a file from Microsoft Office 365 as an assignment submission?

 

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