Category Archives: Canvas

[Resolved] “New Quizzes” Canvas Issue

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On Saturday September 14th, between approximately 9:40am and 6:53pm, users attempting to take or access the “New Quizzes” tool received “invalid launch” errors.

The fix implemented by Instructure technicians involved restoring database data from 9:00am, resulting in a potential loss of data entered between the times of 9:00am and 9:40am. 

What does this mean for me and how do I know if this affected my courses?

“New Quizzes” is a tool that is currently in Beta testing available for instructors to use to create and administer online quizzes.  Once this tool has been fully developed it will one day replace Quizzes.  

While both tools are available, the majority of instructors utilizing online quizzing are using Quizzes and will be unaffected.  UW-Whitewater currently recommends that you continue to use the current “Quiz” tool via the “Quizzes” menu inside of Canvas.

If you have any questions or concerns about the outage and whether or not your courses were affected, please contact UW-W Canvas Support.

Welcome Back Students! Have Canvas issues?

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Welcome to the Fall 2019 Semester!  Here is what you should know for the Fall Semester.

  • Courses may or may not have a Canvas component. Instructors have the option to use Canvas for their courses, but not all do.  If you aren’t sure if Canvas is utilized for your class, be sure to ask your instructor.  If you are just enrolling in a course now, be aware that it can take 24-48 hours for that enrollment to move from WINS to Canvas.
  • Canvas 24/7/365 support is available for all users.  Most students are already familiar with the D2L Support Form, but what happens when a student needs help with Canvas?  You can contact the Canvas 24/7/365 Support team.  You can find the Chat and E-mail options on both the Canvas Login Page and in the Help button in the lower left hand corner after you are logged in.
  • Self-paced Student Training Course is available. Anyone interested in receiving an introduction to Canvas before the start of the semester can self-enroll in the state provided Canvas Student Training course http://go.uww.edu/canvas-student-training

If you have questions regarding the Canvas Transition, please contact the UW-W Learning Technology Center.

Canvas Workshops – September 2019

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During the month of September, the LTC will be offering opportunities to work on and learn about Canvas features. We will continue to offer workshops throughout the fall semester.

Canvas Open Lab (2 Hours)
We will be available to answer your Canvas questions during the sessions below! Whether you are working on your current course, or planning for the future – stop on by!

Date/Time Location Register
Wednesday, September 4th – 2:00pm McGraw 19c In-Person Registration
Thursday, September 5th – 1:00pm McGraw 19c In-Person Registration
Monday, September 9th – 1:00pm McGraw 19c In-Person Registration
Tuesday, September 10th – 2:00pm McGraw 19c In-Person Registration

Canvas Deep Dives (1 Hour) Followed by Canvas Open Lab (1 Hour)
We will focus on a single tool, and dive deep into various options and use cases for how that tool works.  The second hour will be available as an Open Lab.

  • Grades: Weighting grades, Late policies, Muting Assignments, SpeedGrader, setting a default grade, and setting up extra credit.
  • Rubrics: This will start by touching briefly on rubric creation, but will focus on techniques to maximize the amount of value you can get by building rubrics directly in Canvas.
Event Name Date/Time Location Register
Grades Monday, September 16th – 1:00pm McGraw 19c In-Person Registration
Rubrics Tuesday, September 17th – 2:00pm McGraw 19c In-Person Registration
Grades Tuesday, September 24th – 1:00pm McGraw 19c In-Person Registration
Rubrics Wednesday, September 25th – 2:00pm McGraw 19c In-Person Registration

If you have any questions about these sessions, please reach out to the UW-W Learning Technology Center.

What’s New in Canvas? (07/13/2019)

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KNOWN ISSUE: Some instructors report that Canvas Gradebook columns have been “hidden” from students even through the instructors did not choose that setting. Canvas is working on a fix for the issue. There is a workaround and more information available at: https://kb.wisconsin.edu/dle/news.php?id=10487

On Saturday, July 13, Instructure deployed the latest release to the Canvas environment.  The highlights of this release are listed below.  The full release notes are also available.

New Features

  • Grade Posting Policy.  Located in the gradebook settings, the Grade Posting Policy can be set to automatic or manual.  When set to Manual, grades are automatically hidden (muted) by default.

If you have any questions or concerns about the service pack updates, please contact UW-W Canvas Support.

Cisco Webex Education Connector for Canvas

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The Cisco Webex Connector is now available for use in Canvas!  The Webex Connector allows you to interact with Webex Meetings and Webex Teams directly from your Canvas course.  It can be accessed by clicking on “Cisco Webex” in the course navigation menu.

To get started with the Cisco Webex Education Connector, see: https://spaces.uww.edu/x/74I3AQ

This is a replacement for the “Webex (Legacy)” integration which will be removed on Monday, August 19th, 2019 after the completion of the Summer term.

If you have any questions about this integration, please reach out to the UW-W Learning Technology Center.

Kaltura Media Migration: D2L -> Canvas

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As of May 28th, 2019, all Kaltura media that was created by instructors and accessed with Desire2Learn (D2L) between September 1st, 2018 and May 21st, 2019 has been migrated to Canvas.

This does not impact media material that is located on Vbrick Rev (Streaming.uww.edu).

We have created a Canvas Media Management Tools guide to help explain the best use cases for each of the media management tools available at UW-Whitewater.

If you have additional questions regarding the Kaltura Media Migration, please contact the Learning Technology Center.

What does this migration mean for me?

Inside of Canvas, you can access the “My Media” tool by clicking on the “Account” item on the left global navigation menu, and then by selecting “My Media” from the account menu.  Within this interface, you will be able to create, edit, delete and view all of your Kaltura media that exists within Canvas.

From the editing toolbar in Canvas, you can click on the “More Tools” icon highlighted in the image below, and select “My Media” to embed videos in your content.

Can I still use Kaltura CaptureSpace?

Kaltura CaptureSpace has been discontinued as of June 1st, 2019 and is no longer supported by the vendor.  There is a new tool called Kaltura Capture which has the same functionality as CaptureSpace.  Visit the Kaltura Capture guide to get started.

What if I can’t find all of my media content in Canvas?

If there is video content missing that you had within D2L, contact the Learning Technology Center and we can migrate that over as well. Currently, we only moved over media that was created by instructors and accessed since September 1st, 2018.

Why was it necessary to migrate my media?

With the launch of Canvas, there was also a new Kaltura instance that was put in place by UW-System. This is totally separate from the Kaltura instance that has been connected with D2L.


Canvas Course Templates: Additional Flexibility Available

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On Tuesday May 28th, UW-System approved a change in Canvas to allow for additional flexibility in the Course Navigation area and in the number of Announcements shown.  The following items can now be added or removed from the student view in the following order:

  • Assignments
  • Discussions
  • Grades
  • Announcements
  • People
  • Pages
  • Syllabus
  • Outcomes
  • Quizzes
  • Modules
  • Collaborations
  • Chat
  • Office 365

Instructors are now able to modify the number of recent Announcements that are visible in the Home area.  Announcements were previously set so that the three most recent were visible in the Home area.  This update will allow instructors to choose to allow between one and fifteen announcements to be visible.

These updates will not cause any visible changes in existing courses.  Any instructor wishing to take advantage of this increased flexibility will need to update their courses themselves.

If you have additional questions about Canvas please reach out to Canvas 24/7/365 support by going to http://uww.edu/canvas.

Canvas Workshops – March & April 2019

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The LTC will be offering Canvas Hands-On Introduction, Canvas Construction Zone, Canvas Open Labs and Canvas Deep Dive sessions during March and April 2019.  Additional Summer 2019 workshops will be scheduled in April.

Canvas Hands-On Introduction – 2 Parts (1 Hour)
We will cover the basic function of the core tools in the Canvas platform. There will be time to ask questions along the way. If this is your first time touching Canvas, this workshop is the one for you!

Part 1: 24/7/365 Support, Global Navigation, Create Module, Create Page
Upload File (PowerPoint, PDF, Word, etc), Assignment Groups (set up gradebooks categories)

Part 2: Create Quiz, Create paper submission area, Doing grading and feedback in Speed Grader, Syllabus, Calendar

Event Name Date/Time Location Register
Canvas Hands-On Introduction – Part 1 Wednesday, March 13th – Noon Williams Hall W29 (UW-Rock Campus) In-Person Registration
Canvas Hands-On Introduction – Part 2 Wednesday, March 20th – Noon Williams Hall W29 (UW-Rock Campus) In-Person Registration
Canvas Hands-On Introduction (Part 1 & 2) + LUNCH Tuesday, March 26th – 10am Hyer 210 In-Person Registration
Canvas Hands-On Introduction (Part 1 & 2) Wednesday, March 27th – 10am Williams Hall W29 (UW-Rock Campus) In-Person Registration
Canvas Hands-On Introduction – Part 1 Monday, April 1st – 10am McGraw 19c In-Person Registration
Canvas Hands-On Introduction – Part 2 Monday, April 8th – 10am McGraw 19c In-Person Registration

Canvas Construction Zones
Are you ready to start digging into your course setup? Do you need help straightening up after moving a course from Desire2Learn (D2L) into Canvas? Do you have questions on how to set things up? This is the session for you! This session will be 1 hour of lab time with support staff on hand to help you construct your course in Canvas. Don’t forget your hard hat!

Please transfer a course from D2L to Canvas before coming to the workshop. A step by step guide is available at: https://spaces.uww.edu/x/HoCc

Event Name Date/Time Location Register
Canvas Hands-On Construction Zone (2 Hours) + LUNCH Tuesday, March 26th – Noon Hyer 210 In-Person Registration
Canvas Hands-On Construction Zone (2 Hours) Wednesday, March 27th – 12:30PM Williams Hall W29 (UW-Rock Campus) In-Person Registration
Canvas Hands-On Construction Zone (1 Hour) Monday, April 15th – 10am McGraw 19c In-Person Registration

Canvas Open Lab (1 Hour)
We will be available to answer your Canvas questions during the sessions below! Whether you are working on your current course, or if you are getting ready to teach in Canvas for the first time – stop on by!

Date/Time Location Register
Monday, April 22nd – 10am McGraw 19c In-Person Registration

Canvas Deep Dives (1 Hour)
We will focus on a single tool, and dive deep into various options and use cases for how that tool works.

  • Content: This is delivered on the concept of backwards design driving the look and feel of course setup. It is about taking what you already do and molding a better experience for you and your students.
  • Quizzes: This will touch on different question types, building in targeted feedback in auto-graded quizzes, and most likely spend the bulk of the time in the Question Bank area to help instructors get a feel for how Canvas Question Bank is different than D2L Question Library.
  • Rubrics: This will start by touching briefly on rubric creation, but will focus on techniques to maximize the amount of value you can get by building rubrics directly in Canvas.
  • Discussions: We will look at setup (including threaded vs unthreaded), visibility, the lack of a “Forum” in Canvas (compared to how D2L had it), group setup, and grading.
  • Grades: Weighting grades, Late policies, Muting Assignments, SpeedGrader, setting a default grade, and setting up extra credit.
Event Name Date/Time Location Register
Content Wednesday, April 3rd – 8:30am McGraw 19c In-Person Registration
Quizzes Wednesday, April 10th – 8:30am McGraw 19c In-Person Registration
Rubrics Wednesday, April 17th – 8:30am McGraw 19c In-Person Registration
Discussions Wednesday, April 24th – 8:30am McGraw 19c In-Person Registration
Grades Wednesday, May 1st – 8:30am McGraw 19c In-Person Registration

If you have any questions about these sessions, please reach out to the UW-W Learning Technology Center.

[Resolved] Canvas Turnitin Issues

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Resolved March 18th, 2019: Canvas Engineers worked over the weekend to automatically submit any past assignments that received an error when sending to Turnitin.  The issue is now resolved.  If you continue to have issues with Canvas and Turnitin, please contact 24/7/365 Canvas Support.

Update March 7th, 2019: Canvas and Turnitin have been working to resolved the issue.  Earlier this morning, there was a fix deployed that corrected the issue with Turnitin.  New submissions should automatically receive an Originality Report, and existing submissions can be manually submitted using the “Resubmit to Turnitin” button.  (Note, in some cases you may need to press the button twice before the submission goes through).

Canvas and Turnitin are working on a process to automatically resubmitted all failed submission to Turnitin, but we do not currently have a timeline on when that will be completed.

Original Message:

Turnitin enabled Assignment Dropbox’s in Canvas may not be passing submissions through to the Turnitin Originality Checker.  Both Canvas and Turnitin are actively investigating the issue.  We will provide an update as soon as we have additional information.

If your course is impacted by this issue, please contact Canvas 24/7/365 support.

How do I know if this is impacting my course?

Load up an assignment that has been Turnitin enabled.  Once you launch speed grader, look in the top right corner.

Successful Submission

Failed Submission

Are there any workarounds?

If you have existing assignments with failed submissions, we would suggest the following workarounds:

  1. Contact Canvas 24/7/365 Support and ask them if they can manually push the papers through to Turnitin.
  2. Download the papers, and then manually upload them to Turnitin directly on their website.  Login at http://go.uww.edu/turnitin and follow the instructions at https://guides.turnitin.com/01_Manuals_and_Guides/Instructor_Guides/Feedback_Studio/Quick_Submit