Canvas Frequently Asked Questions

ITAC and Canvas have partnered to bring the highest quality support to the Texas State community - 24/7/365. Contact a canvas expert or contact ITAC for assistance.

Also see the Learn section of our Canvas Support page to read documentation, watch videos, download PDF guides, and ask Canvas experts via the Canvas Community.

Experiencing Canvas glitches, especially during an exam or assignment, can be incredibly frustrating. Let us help you take proactive steps to help avoid them with our Avoiding Common Canvas Issues guide.

Canvas courses become available to you automatically when your professor creates and publishes them. Your professor may not have created and/or published the course yet.

If you have just registered, activated your NetID, or paid for the course, the course will automatically appear on your Canvas dashboard within 24 hours of any of these actions.

When adding a student, Supplemental Instructor (SI), or Teaching Assistant (TA) to a course site, instructors should make sure they do NOT add them to the course section with the SIS ID (e.g., comm.1310.251).

Be sure to add the users to the section that reflects the friendly name of the course (e.g., Theories and Issues 2021); otherwise, the students, SIs, or TAs added the SS ID way will be automatically be deleted from the course site.

• Create links to external URLs 
• Create links to course or group content
• Create links to course, group, and user files
• Edit and remove links

Before external people or guests can join your Project Course, you must first publish the course. Once it's published, Canvas will send the email to invite external guest users to join.

See this page for all of the current training opportunities offered by the IT Assistance Center and by Canvas.

Notifications are an important part of being aware of what's happening in your course. Learn how to adjust your instructor notifications. Also, please advise students to adjust notifications to be certain they are receiving your important course message.

Canvas comes with one default user role that includes permissions that affect the entire account as well as its courses. Learn more about all of the Canvas roles at TXST and their corresponding permissions.

Notifications are an important part of being aware of what's happening in your course. Learn how to adjust your student notifications.

See this list of web browsers currently supported by Canvas. On TXST computers, the default version of Firefox is not supported. When in Canvas, if you get a message about the browser not being supported, please switch to another browser (i.e., Google Chrome).

If you are using a TXST Windows or Mac computer, the version of Firefox (ESR) is not compatible with Canvas. Also, if you are on a Mac computer in Safari, the Migration Assistant does not perform well.

The most stable web browser we have experienced with using Canvas so far is Google Chrome.

Accessibility for all is a priority at TXST. See what Canvas offers in terms of helping all humans to successfully use their tool.

Currently, faculty can find student photos in the Class Roster app. We are evaluating whether it's possible to add student photos to Canvas.

Currently, faculty can find specific details related to students dropping their courses in the Class Rosters app. We are evaluating whether it's possible to add this feature in Canvas.

No. Since courses are intended to be a collaboration space, Canvas, by design, allows all students to see who is in the class. When the instructor emails the entire class, the email addresses of classmates is visible to everyone in the class. This is not a FERPA violation. Students must display proper conduct and use good judgement in accordance with The Honor Code and the Appropriate Use of Information Resources university policies.

See UPPS 01-04-27, Intellectual Property: Ownership and Use of Copyrighted Works. Specifically, section 03.06, a.

Texas State faculty and staff own the copyright of works they create on their own initiative and own time without the use of substantial Texas State Resources.

Consistent with academic tradition, Texas State grants to its faculty and staff the copyright ownership of works they create within the scope of their employment in fulfillment of their teaching and scholarly responsibilities. Texas State retains a non-exclusive, non-transferable, perpetual, and royalty-free license to make educational uses of such works.

Texas State owns the copyright of works created by faculty and staff in response to a direct assignment or commission from a university authority. Such works are considered works for hire. The general and ongoing obligation of faculty or staff to produce scholarly works does not constitute directed work. Any work created under that obligation is non-directed work and its copyright is granted to the creator. Faculty and staff with concerns about ownership provisions should consider adoption of separate written agreements.

For further assistance, please contact the University Copyright Office.

Due to academic course retention policies, academic courses (courses with associated rosters) cannot be deleted by the course instructor or by ITAC. Course owners should look to Conclude a Course that is no longer needed.

Deleted courses are not easily recoverable; therefore, Canvas is set to not allow course owners to delete a course. The two recommendations for unwanted courses are to either Conclude the Course or rename and re-purpose the course for another use.

If you want to remove a course, Conclude it. Concluding a course archives all course content. Instructors and students can no longer participate in the course, and it is marked read-only. These will appear in the Past Courses section of the Courses menu.

Before you Conclude a Course, consider taking these actions (where applicable):

• Re-name the course (e.g., TEST-ABS123, Concluded-ABC123, Fall2019-ABC-123). This will help reduce confusion as you see all concluded courses in your list.
• Remove people from the course. This will prevent people from viewing content that remains in the concluded course.

Here are a couple of options:

1. Conclude the course.
2. Re-purpose the course by giving it a new name and purpose.