How to Use Canvas Canvas Account Features

Canvas has several features available to all users to increase ease and efficiency. This page will outline six of the Canvas features that you will find helpful.

For a full list of features, visit the Profile and User page.

Add a Profile Picture

Summary: You have the option to add a profile picture to your Canvas profile. While SUU does not require you to have a photo, we recommend that you add a profile picture to help faculty and students identify you.

Adding a Profile Picture

Please follow these guidelines when selecting your profile picture:

Use a recognizable picture of your face.
Square images are preferred (so that it will not be distorted)
Use a school or work appropriate picture, this will be visible to students and instructors.

Here is a sample of what is accepted:

Checking Grades

Grades in Course Navigation Instructors can choose to enter your grades into the Canvas grade book. To view your grades, select the Grades button on the left of your course.

From this page, you can enter What-If scores; these scores temporarily show you what your overall grade would be if you were to get a certain score on an assignment.

What-If score

You can also view comments, rubric results, scoring details for the whole course, and Turnitin results (a program that catches plagiarism).

View Comments and rubric

Go to the Grades Tutorials (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. to learn more about viewing and understanding the Grades feature.

Using the Canvas Inbox

Inbox in global navigation The Canvas inbox (accessed by selecting Inbox to the left) allows you to email your instructors and classmates. You can choose to email everyone in the course or just specific people. However, you cannot send emails to people outside of Canvas.

Go to the Inbox/Conversations Tutorial (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. to learn more about using the inbox.

Using the Canvas Calendar

Calendar in global navigation

The Canvas calendar (accessed by selecting on Calendar to the left) automatically displays due dates for all of your assignments and events created by your instructor in Canvas, and you can add your own events as well. To make the calendar even more convenient, you can copy and paste the Calendar Feed into other online calendars to combine them.

Go to the Calendar Tutorial (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. for more details about using the calendar.

Notifications

Account tab in global navigation

You can choose to receive notifications from Canvas about activity in your courses. For example, you can receive a text message with your test score once your professor grades it and an email informing you that someone sent you a message within Canvas. Canvas allows you to customize about what to notify you, how often you receive notifications, and where you receive them.

To personalize these settings, select your name to the left of the page and then select Notifications in the pane on the left. To add contact methods, select Settings in the pane on the left.

Go to the Notification Tutorial (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. for more details about setting up your notification

To Do and Coming Up Lists

To Do list

The To Do and Coming Up lists show up in a pane on the right side of the homepage of your Canvas account.

The To Do list shows assignments that need to be submitted online, while the Coming Up list displays all events and assignments your instructors have included in the course.

Select "Next" in the bottom right-hand corner of a page to navigate to the next section.