Canvas Procedures
Procedure Title | Canvas Procedures for Faculty, Staff, and Students |
Approval Date | July 2023 |
Revision Date | July 2023 |
Version | 1 |
This document outlines a formal set of procedures OIT has created as applied to the Canvas Learning Management System. Please use the links below to select a section, or scroll down to view the details.
Request to use Canvas for Teaching
Canvas Account Creation Process
Enroll Graduate or Teaching Assistant(s) in Canvas Courses
Creation of Non-Morgan Accounts for Researchers, Partners, or Vendors
Manual Deletion or Addition of a Student to/from a Canvas Course
Student Availability in a Canvas Course
Faculty Canvas Course Responsibilities
Grade Disputes and Academic Dishonesty Process
Request to use Canvas for Teaching
Empty Canvas course shells are automatically created for all course sections. If you are a faculty member who would like to use Canvas for your course, please familiarize yourself with Canvas by accessing http://www.morgan.edu/Canvas411 web page. Self-paced and instructor lead workshop are available for learning Canvas.
Canvas Account Creation Process
All Canvas accounts are automatically generated by WebSIS. Service Desk and Academic Technology Services staff do not manually create Canvas accounts for students, staff or faculty. If there is a need for a third party to have a Canvas account, please see the procedures outlined below. Account creation is scheduled to run at 5:30 AM and 1:30 PM daily.
Course Enrollments
Canvas and Banner/WebSIS are integrated. Students who have registered using WebSIS, as well as faculty who have been assigned in CourseDog by their department, are automatically enrolled in their Canvas courses. Enrollments are scheduled to run at 5:00 AM, 12 noon, 5:00 PM, and 11:00 pm daily. Students who report they do not see their Canvas courses should contact their instructor. The Service Desk and Academic Technology Services will not manually enroll students into Canvas courses; faculty may contact our offices if special circumstances apply.
Enroll Graduate or Teaching Assistant(s) in Canvas Courses
Faculty are responsible for enrolling any users that are not registered students, including teaching assistants and graduate students.
Creation of Non-Morgan Accounts for Researchers, Partners, or Vendors
Creation of special Canvas accounts for third-party vendors, or outside research partners, are approved on a case-by-case basis. A request must be made in writing to DIT by emailing the Service Desk (servicedesk@morgan.edu) and request that temporary Morgan accounts be created.
Email should include:
- List the start and end dates needed
- Send an Excel spreadsheet with the following columns: User's last name, first name, email address
- Please specify that you are requesting guest access in order to allow access to Canvas and a short description of why these parties need Canvas access.
When DIT has created the temporary accounts, they will send their completed spreadsheet to you. Once you receive this, please forward it to ats@morgan.edu so that the guest login information can be paired with the guest the Canvas accounts.
Copying Canvas Course Content
Faculty are responsible for copying their own course content between semesters.
Course Availability
Canvas courses are set to be available based on TERM dates, and are unpublished by default. Faculty will need to click on the Publish button in order for students to be able to access the course. Faculty may view and edit courses that are unpublished; however, students no longer have access to these courses. Please encourage students to save any content items they will need for future study.
Manual Deletion or Addition of a Student to/from a Canvas Course
Faculty may be required to manually delete students who are no longer enrolled in their courses, as directed by Academic Affairs. WebSIS is always the official roster for any Morgan State University course. Students contacting the Service Desk or Academic Technology Services to be added or removed from a course will be redirected to the instructor.
Canvas and WebSIS are synchronized to automatically enroll and remove students from WebSIS into Canvas courses. If a student needs access to complete a course or any other special access, it is the responsibility of faculty to enroll the student. The Service Desk and Academic Technology Services will not manually enroll students into Canvas courses; instructions may be found on the Academic Technology Services website, under the Canvas link.
All students enrolled in any Canvas course MUST have a valid and active student username. Morgan State University employees who are enrolled as students in Morgan State University courses will be issued a student user account.
Student Availability in a Canvas Course
User Roles
A user can be assigned only one-course role at a time. By default, Faculty and Students will be enrolled via direct transfer from the Banner/WebSIS system with the role of either “Instructor” or “Student” respectively. Other roles are used as follows:
- Instructor: Used by Administrators who “Quick Enroll” in a course to provide support. Administrators should “Quick Unenroll” from courses when they are finished with their support tasks. The “Instructor” role should be used for all other instructor enrollments.
- Designer: For users who can assist with the design of a course but should not have grading privileges or access to the grading center. Faculty are responsible for adding a Course Builder to their course.
- Teaching Assistant: Similar to Instructor. Used for benefit of students in course so they can differentiate assistance from instructors. Faculty are responsible for adding TAs to their course.
Limited Administrative Access via Sub-Accounts
Limited Administrative access to Canvas can only be granted by the Canvas Administrator. Limited Administrative access is granted to department chairs (or program coordinators) who need access to courses offered within their department (often for content management purposes). Permitted tasks for Sub-Account Admins include:
- Course Content Management
- Grade Access
- Create Account-Wide Rubrics
- Create Account-Wide Outcomes
- Create Account-Wide Test Banks
- Access Analytics
To request limited Canvas Administrative Access, please email the Canvas administrator at ats@morgan.edu
Faculty Canvas Course Responsibilities
Course Management & Grading:
Canvas courses contain tools that instructors should use to manage students, as well as to log or monitor student behavior within the course. It is the responsibility of faculty to manage their Canvas course tasks, including, but not limited to the following:
- Maintain an accurate and up-to-date syllabus
- Clear or Exempt Grades in the Grade Center
- Add Assignment Attempts or Test Exceptions
- Manipulate Grades in the Grade Center
- Monitor the course by checking the following:
- Availability/Visibility of course content to students
- Availability/Visibility of course tools
- Student availability within a course
- Grade History for all graded items
- Course Reports
- Test Logs
- Due Dates
Faculty who need assistance with finding or using these tools/reports may contact Academic Technology Services, or refer to the Canvas support website.
Refer students to the official Canvas help tools website.
Disputes between faculty and students should be handled by the faculty or escalated to the Department Chairperson.
Grade Disputes
If students enter into a grade dispute, faculty are to follow proper procedures as outlined by their school, the Graduate School or Academic Affairs.
Academic Dishonesty
Faculty who suspect students have engaged in dishonest conduct must follow the procedures and guidelines set forth by their school, the Graduate School and/or Academic Affairs.
Canvas Outages
All Canvas outages and maintenance periods will be reported to faculty, staff and students via email from DIT_Notices@morgan.edu
Last Update: July 21, 2023