Page Comparison

Notifications

Notifications are emails that emails that are sent to your SPU email or push notifications sent from the Canvas app. These are fairly easy to change. Doing so will help students filter and receive important emails and not emails about small changes made to the course. 

1. Go to the user "Notifications" link (Second link when the SPU Picture is selected)From the global navigation sidebar, go to "Account" → Notifications.
2. Select the frequency at with which emails will be sent about Course Activities.
   Image Modified

Customizing Dashboard

Changing the colors for the specific courses on the dashboard makes them easier to find as well as to keep things organized. 

1. Go to your Dashboard
2. Click on the three vertical dots of the course boxes (Located on the top right corner of these course boxes.)
3. Choose the color desired.

Course Nickname

Creating a nickname for each course may be useful when students do not remember their courses by the course number, etc. This makes it much easier for students to keep their work organized. 

1. Go to your Dashboard
2. Click on the three vertical dots of the course boxes (Located on the top right corner of these course boxes.)
3. Enter a nickname in the text box provided.

Dashboard

Choosing which courses are going to be present on the dashboard is an easy way to keep past and present courses separate. 

To do so:

1. Click on the "Courses" tab on the Canvas Navigation Pane.
2. Click on the "All Courses" link (Located towards the bottom)
3. Select and de-select the courses which are desired to appear on the dashboard
   1. To select and de-select, click on the stars (Located in front of the course name.)
      (When stars are selected, they turn orange.)
4. Go to dashboard.

Settings that Do Not Change

Pictures

Profile Pictures do not change due to SPU policy. Students may be able to upload such images to Canvas however, keep in mind that these will be automatically deleted within 12-24 hours after they have been uploaded.

We have created a separate page showing how to customize your dashboard color, the nickname, and which courses show up on your dashboard. 

How to set your pronouns in Canvas

1. Login into Canvas and go to your Account area, and select Settings.
2. Select Edit Settings from the right side menu
3. Locate the Pronouns section of your profile, and select from the pulldown your personal pronouns. Click Update Settings to save the changes.
4. Your pronouns have now been set, and will appear next to your name in Canvas. You can change them at any time.

When enabled, pronouns will appear next to your name in the following areas in Canvas

• Assignment Creation Menu
• Assignment Peer Review Page
• Comment Fields
• Course Sections List
• Discussions
• Inbox
• People Pages (Account, Course, and Group)
• Student Context Card
• SpeedGrader
• User Navigation Menu
• User Profile
• User Settings

Profile Pictures 

Profile Pictures in Canvas can be customized.  By default, the picture taken on your SPU Falcon card will be sent to the Banner Info System and then populated into Canvas.  There is also an online photo submission method available too,  this is particularly convenient for students who cannot come to campus.  There are privacy settings you can change in the Banner Info System to prevent this picture from being shared with other SPU's systems. Alternatively, in Canvas, you may upload a custom profile picture. 

How to Update your Profile Picture in Canvas

1. Click the Account →  Settings.

2. Click the profile picture icon.

3. You have three options:

   1. Upload a profile picture, click the Upload a Picture tab, then click the choose a picture link . You can also drag a picture from your desktop and drop it into the uploader.

   2. Take a Picture, click the Take a Picture tab, then click the Take Picture button.

      1. Note: Depending on your browser, you may need to allow Canvas to access your camera. The Take a Picture option is not supported when using Safari or Internet Explorer.

   3. From Gravatar, Click the From Gravatar tab and enter your Gravatar email address in the field provided. Click the Preview button to view your Gravatar. When you are finished, click the Save button.

      1. Please note that only G-rated Gravatar photos can be displayed as a Canvas profile picture. 

4. Click the Save button.

Additional information for managing your profile picture in Canvas can be found in the online documentation provided by Instructure.

Settings that Do Not Change

Names

Names do not change via making changes to Canvas. Though Banner creates changes to and "imports" information into Canvas, Canvas cannot change the information in changes in Canvas do not affect Banner. So, making changes to Canvas will not affect anything except the content and information within Canvas alone. Therefore changing your name in Canvas will only be applied to Canvas and not SPU credentials, etc. 

Course

Dashboard

Though adding nicknames to courses is permitted, changing the course title is or rearranging courses on the dashboard is not. SPU keeps these unchanged for various reasons. One being helping ETM find these courses when issue arise with specific courses. Unfortunately, many students find it confusing to have acronyms/letters and numbers as identifiers for their courses. The best solution for keeping these courses easily identifiable, , including that consistency in naming conventions makes courses easier to catalogue and find if problems arise. One way to make your courses easily identifiable is to change the color of the course box on the dashboard or give it a nickname. Both options are explained above. 

Arrangement of Courses on Dashboard

The biggest reason as to why re-arrangement of courses is desired is because too many courses are present on the user dashboard. Unfortunately, re-arranging the courses in a specific order in the dashboard is not an available option. However, changing the color of the course box in the dashboard, giving a nickname to specific courses, and choosing which courses are present on the dashboard are settings made available. Above we have explained how to change these settings in Canvas.

Additional Resources