Managing your dashboard and where to find your Canvas courses

Posted on: 26 August 2021 by Strategic Change Communications Team in Canvas at Liverpool

Have you noticed courses appearing and then disappearing from your dashboard recently? Are you unsure where to find your imported VITAL modules in Canvas? Don’t worry, we have the answer to both of these questions plus tips on how to manage your Canvas dashboard and favourite specific courses.

What you see when you log on

Canvas all courses In Canvas, University modules are called ‘courses’. When you log on, you will see a range of ‘tiles’, with each one relating to a specific Canvas course (module) that you are teaching this year. All tiles will be clearly labelled with their module code, title and year of study (for example 2021/22).

You can also access a list of all of your Canvas courses – relating to current and historic academic years – by clicking the Courses icon on the global navigation bar (that’s the blue one on the left hand side). From here you can click the STAR next to the courses that you want to appear on your dashboard (see below).

The courses you see will be determined by what course role you have been assigned in Canvas:

If you were either an Instructor or a Course Builder in VITAL, you have automatically been assigned new roles in Canvas.
Instructors are now Teachers and Course Builders are now Designers.

Your 2022/23 Canvas courses

Canvas dashboard 2022/23 empty course shells have been created in Canvas.

These course shells are named as follows: 2022/23_module code_module title, and will appear in the ‘Unpublished Courses’ section of your Canvas dashboard. Your 2022/23 courses will be organised in alphanumeric order.

Please note:

All of these course shells will be empty; it’s up to you to decide which content to re-use, though we do recommend you do not bulk copy content over from your 2021/22 course shells
You will need to be listed as a member of teaching staff on approved module specifications in Curriculum Manager in order to see these course shells in Canvas.

Customising your dashboard

Depending on how many courses you have, your Canvas dashboard may start to look very busy, as all course tiles relating to the current or future academic years will appear every time you log on if you don’t change your default setting.

The good news is that this is really easy to do. Essentially, all you have to do is ‘un-star’ courses from your course listing if you don’t want them to appear on your dashboard. Full details on how to customise your course listing is available here

If you dashboard isn’t loading properly or it is timing out, it may be because you have too many courses appearing on your dashboard. It should work properly with up to 250 courses, any more than this and you may start to experience performance issues.

To rectify this, simplify unfavourite the ones that don’t need to automatically appear on your dashboard.
If you are unable to do this, please contact Canvas Support (Tier 1) using the Help icon on the blue navigation bar.

Your imported VITAL modules

Historic imported VITAL modules

Semester 1 and 2 modules relating to the 2020/21 academic session were copied over into Canvas for during May/June 2021, and will appear in the 'Unpublished Courses' section of your Canvas dashboard. Each course will have its own course tile.

It is important to note that while most of your VITAL content will operate in the same or better way in Canvas, certain items may not work as expected. Please read this infographic for an overview on what happens to different content types when moved from VITAL into the new VLE.

Don’t worry if you have already set up Canvas courses for the 2020/21 academic year, these have not been overwritten.
Instead you will have two course shells for each of your modules, with the imported VITAL module clearly labelled as such.
To stop them both appearing on your dashboard, simply ‘unstar’ the ones you don’t want to see.

Please note: Any content added to VITAL after 17 May will have to be manually copied over or uploaded into Canvas. Find out how here

Missing courses?

If any are missing, contact a relevant colleague and ask to be added as a ‘Teacher’ on their course. Or contact Service Desk for advice on what to do.

Don’t forget: you need to check and publish your 2020/21 modules in Canvas in order for students to be able to see this learning content.

Find out more here in this blog and summary 2020-2021 imported VITAL modules checklist

2016/17 to 2019/20 imported VITAL modules

If you are either an Instructor or a Course Builder in VITAL for any modules covering the 2016/17 to 2019/20 academic sessions, these modules were also copied over into Canvas (during the week commencing 5 April).

You can find these courses by clicking on the ‘Courses’ icon on the global navigation bar down the left-hand side of the Canvas dashboard. When you click on each of your imported VITAL course links, you will see a list of content previously published in VITAL.

Missing courses?

If any of your 2016/17 to 2019/20 VITAL modules are missing, staff already enrolled on a course as a Teacher or Designer can manually new staff as Teachers in Canvas. Simply contact relevant colleague(s) and ask to be added to their course. Or you can contact Service Desk for advice on what to do.

Don’t forget: In order for students to see these modules, you will need to check and publish each of them in Canvas. Find out more here in this blog and summary 2016-2020 imported VITAL modules checklist

Keywords: Canvas, Dashboard, Courses.