Who is This Information For?

This post is designed to be an easily digestible starting point for administrative and support staff who may need to help manage Canvas access and resources for their school.

You may not be required to do all of the things outlined here, but hopefully it will cover the majority of aspects of Canvas that you will be asked to deal with.

Each section has a brief outline with a link to Canvas guidance followed up with a QUB specific video to take you through each process.


Technical Information on Canvas


The video below outlines how student and staff information flows from QSIS to Canvas on a 24 hour cycle as well as the account and module structure.  Currently, staff access to Canvas modules for AY 2023/24 flows through from QSIS into Canvas but does not for academic years prior to this. Staff access requests/changes for modules for previous academic years (i.e. 2018/19, 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22, 2022/23) can be requested by completing this access request form in addition to the change being made in QSIS.

Another key piece of information included in the video is the difference between the various roles that those accessing Canvas can have. You can also find more information on Canvas Roles here.

Roles are very important for enabling access for the correct people on the correct modules with the correct level of permissions, so please take careful note of the process outlined in this portion of the video.

Finally, remember that if you do run into any problems there is a ‘Help’ section of the Canvas Global Navigation Bar (on the left of your Canvas screen) that provides access to 24hr support and guidance with further resources available within the Canvas Community, details of which are outlined towards the end of the video.

Video Guidance on Canvas Technical Details

Click on the Image below to open the video in a new window.


Setting Up Your Account and Notifications


If you are new to Canvas you should start by setting up your details in the ‘Account’ section of Canvas on the top left of your screen.

You can set your profile up to manage what information and photo others in Canvas see (for detailed instructions see here).

It is also a good idea to set your notifications so that you are only receiving messages from Canvas that you find useful (for detailed instructions see here).

Video Guidance on Profile and Notifications Settings

Click on the Image below to open the video in a new window.


Communicating with Students


In your role you may be required to communicate with students through Canvas.

You can quickly contact all the students on a course or a group of students by using the Announcements (for detailed instructions see here).

The Canvas Inbox is similar to email but is an internal method of contacting individual students or groups within Canvas (for detailed instructions see here).

Video Guidance on Announcements and Canvas Inbox

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Creating Groups in Canvas


Student groups within Canvas can be created to support collaborative working. These are not automatically created in the course and need to be set up. You can get Canvas to create the groups randomly, allow students to sign up themselves or manually assign them (for detailed instructions see here).

Video Guidance on Groups and Sections

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Creating Assignments in Canvas


You may be asked to set up assignments in Canvas. In order to do this you will first need to create an  ‘assignment group’ for each piece of work that contributes to the student’s overall grade (for detailed instructions see here).

You will then need to set the weighting of the groups based on the percentage of the overall grade that the assignment within that group contributes (for detailed instructions see here).

Lastly, you can now add the assignments to the assignment groups you have created*  (for detailed instructions see here).

*If you need to create a Turnitin assignment please see the guidance here.

Video Guidance on Assignments and Assignment Groups

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Uploading Files to Canvas


If you are required to upload a file to Canvas, this can be done in the ‘Files’ area of the course (see detailed instructions here).

Once the file is uploaded it can be embedded on a Canvas page for students to access (see detailed instructions here).

Video Guidance on Uploading Files and Adding to a Page

Click on the Image below to open the video in a new window.