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This document provides instructions on addressing the most common issues that users report in Canvas, as well as information on how to contact the 24-hour Canvas support service.
Common Issues for Instructors
Students Cannot See a Canvas Course
Instructors need to "publish" their course so that students can see it. Navigate to this page to see how: How do I publish a course?.
Students Cannot See Certain Course Materials/Modules
Individual content items and modules within a course also need to be published before students can see them. Publish course items by clicking the check mark next to course elements in modules (quizzes, discussions, pages, etc). Please see this guide with instructions on publishing content items and learn how to use the Student View feature to test your course by viewing it as a "test student."
Instructional Course Has Not Appeared in Canvas
Instructional Canvas courses are automatically created and made available to instructors 75 days before the first day of class. To work on a class before the instructional Canvas course is available, instructors may create a "sandbox" course and use it to develop course materials. Instructors can quickly copy course content from a "sandbox" course to the "instructional" course. Navigate to this page to see how: How do I copy content from another Canvas course using the Course Import tool?.
Student Has Not Been Added to/Removed from a Canvas Course
Students who enroll in a course in SIS get automatically added to the corresponding instructional Canvas course via a sync process between Canvas and SIS, which updates nightly. Students who drop a course are also automatically removed during these nightly processes. These changes do not show up in Canvas immediately after they are made in SIS. In most cases, a change made in SIS before 9 p.m. will appear in Canvas the next morning. Changes made in SIS after 9 p.m. will appear in two mornings. The SIS-Canvas integration runs six nights a week; it does not run overnight Friday into Saturday, so enrollment changes made in SIS on a Friday (or after 9pm on a Thursday) will not appear in Canvas until Sunday morning.
Canvas Activities Do Not Appear on Students' Calendars and To-Do Lists
Instructors can make sure that activities appear on students' calendars and to-do lists in Canvas by always including a due date for graded items (assignments, quizzes, and graded discussions). Canvas pages and ungraded discussions can also be added to the Student To-Do List.
Need to Restrict Student Access to an Activity Before/After a Certain Date
Students can still submit an assignment after the due date, however, Canvas logs the time of each submission and flags late submissions. If you need to restrict when students can submit to an assignment, you can set availability dates in addition to the due date. Learn how due dates and availability dates interact by reading the following Canvas guide page: What is the difference between assignment due dates and availability dates?.
Common Issues for Students
Canvas Course is Missing
If a student cannot view a course on Canvas, please navigate to this article to see possible reasons: Canvas - Courses Do Not Show Up / My Course is Missing.
Old Canvas Course Appears on Dashboard
To hide old courses that still appear on your dashboard, please see: Canvas - Removing Courses from Your Dashboard.
Canvas Help Information
Canvas support is available to UWGB students and faculty 24 hours a day! Access Canvas support options by clicking the Help button in the Global Navigation Menu located along the left edge of any page in Canvas. The Help menu contains options for contacting Canvas support via live chat, phone, and email. Please reference the following guides for more information on contacting Canvas 24-hour support: