
Meaningful interactions among students and instructors are the hallmark of a successful online class. Canvas supports several types of communication, as described below.
In addition, registered students have Penn State e-mail accounts (<Access Account ID>@psu.edu) that they need to monitor for any official communications that come from the University or from the Penn State World Campus.
The instructor will assume you have set Announcement, Grading, Submission Comment, and Conversation Message to "Notify me right away." Please note that in addition to pushing the notification to your email immediately, you can also elect to push it on a mobile device. If you have any questions about setting up these notifications, please let us know! Additionally, you are responsible for information shared on the various discussion forums. It is recommended you subscribe to these forums to easily stay up to date with the conversation.
Discussions
Discussions allow students to interact with the instructor and other classmates. Threaded discussions allow multiple posts and replies. New posts appear in the Course Activity Stream page, so you will know when something has been posted.
In general, questions and comments about project assignments and course content should be shared with the entire class via the discussion forums. That way, everyone can benefit from the discussion.
Please note that in the discussion forums default mode, it is very difficult to keep track of whether you've read a post or not. To override the default mode setting, perform the following steps:
1. Use the Discussions link in the main menu to open a view of all discussion forums.
[If the Discussions link is not available in the main menu (it is visible in some courses and not in others), simply enter any discussion forum, find the Discussions link at the top of the page, and click the link. Proceed to step 2.]
2. Click on the gear/cog icon in the upper right to open the Edit Discussions Settings dialog.
3. Under My Settings, check the box for Manually mark posts as read, and then click the Save Settings button.
4. After you've changed the default settings, you can click on the blue dots to the left of discussion posts to more easily keep track of what you have and haven't read.
Conversations
Conversations is the equivalent of e-mail in Canvas. It's great to use for a quick e-mail to another student, instructor, or a whole team. Keep in mind that the text editor is very minimal, and does not have much formatting capability.
Announcements
Announcements are messages from your instructor that contain important information. Current announcements can be accessed through the Announcements tab in Canvas. Announcements may highlight assignment due dates (also published in the course Calendar), lesson recaps, a preview of an upcoming lesson and other essential course information.
Profile and User Settings let you control your personal information in Canvas. Take a few minutes to personalize your Canvas profile by following the instructions below.
Task | Instructions |
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Personalize your Canvas Profile |
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Set your notification preferences |
You have the option to select how, when, and for what information you would like to receive notifications. This can be very helpful when keeping track of items such as discussion posts, assignment due dates, and exams. Visit the Canvas Notification Preference Support page (link is external) and follow the instructions for setting up your notification preferences. The video below this table provides additional information. To ensure that your Canvas e-mail messages forward to your regular e-mail account immediately, check the "Notify me right away" option (the checkmark) for each item under "Conversations" in Notification Preferences. |
Set your timezone |
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Download the Canvas App | For information on using the app by device, please see the following: |
The following video (4:28) provides information about Canvas Notification Preferences.
112 - Notification Preferences from Canvas LMS on Vimeo.
Click for Transcript of Notification Preferences in Canvas
In this video, you will learn about Notification Preferences, which help you manage the frequency and mode in which you receive notifications from Canvas. Canvas supports notification through e-mail, SMS text message, and other external services. Canvas users can choose to receive notifications immediately, daily, weekly, or never.
To get started, click the Account link in Global Navigation. Then click Settings. In the User Settings and Profile Picture video, we discussed Ways to Contact in the right sidebar. To see how to add e-mail addresses and phone numbers to your settings, please refer to that video. Ways to Contact will play a role in where Notification Preferences are sent.
Web Services will also play a role in Notification Preferences. If you scroll down to the Other Services section, you will see a list of services that you can link to your Canvas account. When you register with other web services, you allow other users to connect with you via web services. You should already have accounts with any of the web services you wish to use before registering them in Canvas. By default, Canvas does not disclose your information to other users within the system unless you give consent. One of the services you can connect to is Twitter. By connecting to Twitter, you will receive notifications via Tweets according to your notification preferences. To connect to Twitter, click the Twitter button. A window will pop up asking for permission to connect your Twitter and Canvas accounts. To allow this, click the Authorize Twitter Access button. If you are not already logged in to your Twitter account, you will need to enter your login information. You will then be redirected back to Canvas. This process will be similar for each web service provided. You will see your Twitter information in Ways to Contact under the Other Contacts heading in the sidebar. You will also notice that the Twitter button appears in the Registered Services column. Remove a Registered Service by clicking the remove icon next to the service. A popup will appear to confirm that you want to unregister the service. Click OK to unregister. The web service will then appear in the Other Services column. After unregistering an external service, you can reregister it at any time. You can follow these steps to connect to or disconnect from any of the external services. Or, for detailed instructions on how to connect to specific external services, please refer to the Canvas Guides.
After you have added Web Services, you will want to set your Notification Preferences, which you can do by clicking the Notifications link in the user navigation on the left side. On this page, you can select how and when you want to be notified when various events occur within your course. Notification preferences are divided into activity categories: Course Activities, Discussions, Conversations, Scheduling, Groups, Alerts, and Conferences. Along the top of the page, you will see your different contact methods; your e-mail addresses, phone number, and other registered services, like Twitter, in this case. You will need to go through each category and set how and where you want to be notified. When you hover over a cell to change your preference, four icons will appear.
1. By selecting the Checkmark icon, you will be immediately notified of any change for the activity.
2. By selecting the Clock icon, you will be notified daily of any change for the activity.
3. By selecting the Calendar icon, you will be notified weekly of any change for the activity
4. By selecting the X icon, you will not be sent notifications for the activity.
The notification preferences you set here will apply to all of your courses. You should also notice, on the bottom of the page, a note indicating the day and time when your weekly notifications will be sent. This time varies between users.
You've now completed this video tutorial on Notification Preferences. For additional information on this or any other topic about Canvas, just visit guides.canvaslms.com. You can also ask questions and engage with other Canvas users by visiting community.canvaslms.com.