Canvas Resources

Canvas is a powerful learning management system (LMS) that can be used to fully manage your course, large or small. You can use it to provide course content (lecture notes, videos, readings, and other resources), distribute, collect, and grade assignments, manage grades, and interact with students.

Canvas course can be configured in a number of ways, but typically course content is arranged into "modules" - either by topic / unit or by week - which are composed of content items such as wiki-like pages, PDF files, automatically-graded knowledge-check quizzes, and / or assignments.

Assignments can be built and graded in Canvas, or can be imported from external tools like Gradescope. Quizzes can be created in Canvas that can be automatically graded (great for pre-class knowledge checks), manually graded (like homework assignments), or a mixture of both. Larger projects can also be graded using complex matrix-like rubrics simply and quickly in Canvas Speedgrader.

The following links provide quick-reference pages for a variety of Canvas features:

Modules: Used to organize information and help control the flow of the courseAssignments: Organize assignments and have scores updated in the gradebookQuizzes: Useful tools for knowledge checks, homework assignments, and on-line examsRubrics: How to create and use grading rubrics in CanvasSpeedgrader: Grading tool for Canvas-submitted assignmentsPeer-Review Assignments: How to structure assignments for students to provide feedback to each otherGradebook: Automatically manage and calculate course grades in CanvasCourse Navigation: control which links appear in your course navigation

Additional Canvas-related information can be found on our Caltech Canvas YouTube channel, on the Canvas LMS page, in the Canvas Instructor Guide, and in the Caltech-specific module of the "Getting Started with Canvas" course.