Using Microsoft OneDrive with Canvas
Enable Microsoft OneDrive assignments
You need to enable Microsoft OneDrive assignments in Canvas to ensure that students are able to utilize Microsoft OneDrive within their courses.
Navigate to your Canvas course.
Go to Settings [1].
Go to Navigation tab [2].
Enable Office 365 [3] by dragging it to the enable list.
Refresh the browser page.
Create a Microsoft OneDrive Cloud Assignment
Cloud assignments are templated assignments. All students get their own copy of the assignment and can edit their own copy. When students submit the assignment, their own copy gets submitted and is available to you in the speed grader for grading.
Microsoft OneDrive allows you to use Office files, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, to provide assignment instructions to students or assignment templates for students to edit and submit.
To include instructions about the assignment as an Office file within your assignment, go to Assignments in your course.
Click + Assignment to create an assignment.
Select the Power Plug icon in the editor and select Office 365.
- Click login.
For the first time, Office 365 may not show up. In that case, you can choose View All and select Office 365 from the popup.
Select a file from your OneDrive file picker to embed or link the file.
Files with .xls extensions cannot be embedded.
To add a templated assignment, select External Tool [1] as the Submission Type and select Find [2].
- Select Office 365 [3] to open Microsoft OneDrive file picker.
- Select the file you want to serve as the templated assignment.
- Select Attach File.
- Click Select to confirm the selected file.
- Select other options for Submission Attempts and Assign, then Save or Save & Publish.
Important: After a Microsoft OneDrive cloud assignment is published, it should not be edited. If you edit it, a new document will be created and shared with students. If the students have attempted the previous assignment and you share a new assignment, the previous work of the students will be lost.
Student view of templated assignments
After you created a templated assignment, students are allowed to work on their own assignments using the template you provide and submit a copy of the assignment individually.
If you add your OneDrive file via RTE (Rich Text Editor), the file will be considered as an instruction of the assignment that students only can read.
If you add your OneDrive file via External tool as the submission type of the assignment, the file will be considered as a template of the assignment that allows each student to edit and submit a copy.
If you want students to work on a file together in group settings, you need to use Collaboration in Canvas which we will introduce later.
Create a Templateless Assignment
This type of assignment allows students to upload any file from their Microsoft OneDrive account to submit for the assignment. Students are only able to upload Word, Excel and PowerPoint files.
- Go to your Canvas course.
- Navigate to Assignments [1].
- Create a new assignment by clicking + Assignment [2].
- Select Online for the submission type.
- Select the File Uploads box.
- Select other options for Submission Attempts and Assign, then Save or Save & Publish.
Student view of templateless assignment
Students are allowed to choose their copies of assignments from OneDrive through the option of Office 365. They still can upload their copies from local drive.
Collaborate Using Microsoft OneDrive
Collaborations allow students to work collaboratively on a given document. Students and instructors can start a collaboration. The document under collaboration remains accessible to you even if you are not added to the collaboration.
- Go to the Collaborations from the course navigation.
- Select Office365 from the dropdown.
- Choose your Type, Document type, and insert Description.
- Assign the collaboration to students/groups and select Save. The browser will open a blank OneDrive document (Word, PowerPoint, or Excel) based on your choice.
- Copy and paste your given document (Word, PowerPoint, or Excel) to the blank document.
This creates the collaboration for selected users, including you as the instructor.
If you are using private mode of Safari browser, you will not be able to assign a collaboration to a group of students.
If you are using Firefox browser, a dialog box will appear asking you to Resend or Cancel. You will need to Cancel to create the collaboration.
Add Microsoft Office files to your course modules
Microsoft OneDrive integration allows you to add Microsoft Office files to your Canvas course modules.
- Go to Modules from your course navigation.
- Click the + icon on the top right of the module.
- Choose External Tool from the dropdown.
Choose Office 365 from the list.
- Choose the file that you would like to include from the OneDrive file picker and click or tap Select.
- The selected file will be added to the course module.
You can only add official school accounts. Personal OneDrive accounts are not yet supported.
Use incognito or private browsing mode
When using a shared device, you may access OneDrive in private browsing mode or incognito mode. Here is what you should know for the best experience.
Google Chrome
Cookies are disabled by default in the Chrome browser incognito mode. You can either enable cookies for all sites in the settings or allow cookies for Microsoft OneDrive.
If cookies are disabled while accessing Microsoft OneDrive in incognito mode, you will receive an error message or a blank OneDrive file list.
- To allow the cookies, select the eye icon within the address bar.
- Toggle the button to enable the Third-party cookies.
- You will need to relaunch Microsoft OneDrive to begin using it in incognito mode.
Microsoft Edge
Microsoft OneDrive works in private mode in Microsoft Edge browser. Ensure that you have not blocked cookies (which are enabled by default).
Additional Resources