Instructor Resources
Start Here: Canvas 101
Take this self-paced online course to get an introduction to the Canvas tools and how to incorporate these into your teaching. This course is divided into six modules featuring short videos, instructions, and online teaching and learning strategies. Module topics include organizing your course content, creating assignments and quizzes, and grading.
UBC Okanagan Guide and Videos
This public-facing and in-depth compilation of relevant instructor resources is conveniently located within a Canvas course. It includes information on Canvas training, course administration, assignment creation and setting up functionalities such as quizzes and grading. We encourage you to look through these resources before contacting the support desk.
Once you have published a quiz, the quiz sidebar shows the Moderate This Quiz link, which allows you to moderate the quiz for each student in your course. We recommend that you have the Moderate Quiz page open while your students are writing their exam.
On the Moderate Quiz page, you can view the progress of student submissions and the number of quiz attempts each has taken. You can also grant students extra attempts, grant extra time for timed quizzes, and manually unlock quiz attempts.
- Depending on the size of your course, Moderate Quiz information may take a few minutes to update. You may have to refresh the page to view the most current data.
- If you change the quiz settings while a student is taking a quiz, the new settings will not apply until the student has completed the current attempt.
More information:
Once students start taking a Canvas quiz online, it is important to note that you must not adjust any of the quiz settings within the Quiz Details page. Any adjustments made during the quiz must be made from the Moderate Quiz page. Adjustments made on the Quiz Details page will not take effect for any exams in progress.
Adding Extra Time to a Quiz in Progress
If a student is currently taking the quiz while you are viewing the Moderate Quiz page, you can extend their quiz time as part of their current attempt. This may be necessary if, for example, a student has technical difficulties after starting the exam, such as a network interruption (once they have started the quiz, the time remaining on quizzes with time limits continues to count down, regardless of whether the student is connected or not).
Adding an Extra Attempt to a Quiz in Progress
A quiz can be manually or automatically submitted. A manual submission occurs when a student clicks the Submit button. An automatic submission occurs when the Time Limit expires or when the Available Until date/time passes. If a student accidentally clicks the Submit button on a one-attempt quiz without having completed the quiz, you can grant them an extra attempt at the quiz. If the Available Until date/time has passed, you can grant a student an extra attempt by unlocking the quiz.
Note that when the student starts the new attempt, they are presented with a fresh version of the quiz (previously submitted answers are not displayed). Additionally, if the quiz uses question groups, the student may be presented with a different set of quiz questions. The instructor, however, can view the submitted answers for all attempts through the Speedgrader.
Quiz Warning Message for Outstanding Submissions
Canvas is set to automatically submit a quiz either when the time limit expires, or when the Until date/time passes. However, if a student navigates away from the quiz page without clicking Submit prior to the automatic submission, the quiz submission can remain outstanding. On the Moderate Quiz page, you will see a warning: “There are outstanding quiz submissions.”
More information:
- How to manually submit outstanding quiz submissions (Canvas Community Guide)
Classic Quizzes
- Moderate a Classic Quiz (view the “Extending Live Quiz Time” tab)
- How to give students extra time (Canvas Community Guide)
- How to give students extra attempts (Canvas Community Guide)
New Quizzes
- Moderate a New Quiz (view the “Add Attempts or Extra Time” tab)
- How do I moderate a student’s assessment attempt in New Quizzes? (Canvas Community Guide)
The DRC, Centre for Accessibility on the Vancouver campus, and the Centre for Teaching and Learning are working together to share expertise and provide information and support to faculty about accommodating students in their online exams. For more information on the DRC please visit the UBC Okanagan disability resources. As you plan your online exams, please consider the following:
Extra time accommodation
Please arrange this for each student based on their specific accommodation. You can view their allotted extended time in their accommodation letter in the portal. Consult ctl.helpdesk@ubc.ca if you need assistance.
Private or distraction reduced environment
Students will be responsible for finding a suitable space to write their exam.
Students requiring in-person supports
There are very few cases requiring in-person support like scribes. The DRC will work them out on a case-by-case basis. Please ask the student to contact their accessibility advisor at the DRC.
Adaptive software/technology
Most students who require this technology should already have it on their personal computers. If you are planning for the exam to run entirely within Canvas, students may require an alternate format of the exam to utilize their software. The ideal format is a Word (.doc) file that is straightforward and does not utilize significant formatting (graphs and tables etc.) If you need assistance with this or your student requires other formats, contact the DRC at drc.exams@ubc.ca.
Lockdown Browser
For accessibility and accommodation reasons, the DRC recommends staying away from ‘lock down’ exam invigilation programs. While Respondus Lockdown Browser supports the use of Dragon and Zoom Text for magnification, there is no Reader capacity. Also, lockdown programs may not allow for the use of assistive technology or might require exams to be linear, so students are unable to go back and review their work and answers.
More information:
Access and enrollment requests:
All UBC Okanagan (for credit) SIS-managed courses have matching courses in Canvas created, with the Students, Instructors and Teaching Assistants enrolled automatically. Your faculty’s Administrative Assistant can help you with these access requests.
- Lab and tutorial sections are not automatically created, and you can request them by contacting your faculty’s Administrative Assistant, or ctl.helpdesk@ubc.ca
- For user access to non-credit course shells, contact ctl.helpdesk@ubc.ca.
Course merging, cross-listing, and linking requests:
These are all requests that ctl.helpdesk@ubc.ca can help you with.
- Course merging involves combining multiple sections of a course into one canvas shell, e.g., combining Math 100 001 and Math 100 002 into one Canvas shell called Math 100 001 002.
- Cross listing involves combining different courses into one Canvas shell, e.g., COSC 335 and PHYS 336 into one Canvas shell called COSC 335 PHYS 336
- Linking involves connecting students to specific sections of a course, such as lab, tutorial, seminar, practicum. E.g., sorting students by lab for an assignment.