Canvas

Course materials are most often distributed in Canvas, and this is where you will often submit assignments and receive regular information about your course. The email feature in Canvas is also often the easiest way to send messages to your lecturers and other students.

Sometimes an entire course is collated into one single Canvas space that is updated as you go along, sometimes you will be given a new Canvas space for each new module. This all depends on how your course is structured. Whatever the format, all the material over the course of your studies will be collected in Canvas, meaning you can go back to previous courses and revise when needed. 

Canvas has lots of features, but often lecturers do not make use of them all. On some courses, most of the teaching and examination elements are done in Canvas, whereas on other courses it is merely a place for checking your schedule and downloading your lecturer’s presentations. The features visible inside a specific Canvas space depend on the settings the lecturer has activated. This means that Canvas will probably not look the same across different courses. 

If you need help getting started with Canvas, there is a guide designed for students. 

Go to the Canvas student guide – canvas.education.lu.se

You can use Canvas on your computer or download an app on your phone. 

Read more about the app in the Canvas student guide – canvas.education.lu.se

Working in groups in Canvas

Everyone in your class has a joint area in Canvas, the look of which the lecturer decides. However, if you join or are assigned to a group in Canvas, you will have your own group page that only group members and your lecturer will be able to access, not the other students on the course. It will be like a course space in Canvas, but in miniature. Here you can share files with each other, send messages, discuss and create pages together. You may also want to communicate in other ways while working in your group, but the group page in Canvas has the advantage that everyone has access to it and therefore ensures communication is on equal terms.

Read more about groups and collaboration in the Canvas student guide – canvas.education.lu.se

Coursework and quizzes in Canvas

In most courses, you will submit assignments via Canvas at least once, perhaps several times. Where you find the assignments depends on how your lecturer has chosen to structure your particular course in Canvas. Often your lecturer will link to assignments on a particular page or module in Canvas, but you may also need to click through to “Assignments” in the left-hand column of your Canvas course.

See the Student Guide for more information on what this might look like and what you need to do. Submitting a group assignment is exactly the same as submitting an individual assignment. One person in the group submits the work, but it will be counted as submitted for everyone in the group.

Read more about how to submit an assignment in the Canvas student guide – canvas.education.lu.se

Your lecturer may want you to upload your assignment in a specific file format. For example, you may need to download Word or convert your file to PDF. Information on how to do this can be found via the links below.

How to download the Office package for free as a student

Here you will find apps that convert files to PDF

Some tasks are not just submitted via Canvas, but are carried out entirely in Canvas, for example quizzes using the internal quiz feature. Sometimes you can choose to take a quiz to test yourself and sometimes quizzes are used for assessment purposes at a specific time when you will only have one attempt and will be required to sign in with a password. A quiz can consist of multiple choice or open-ended questions.  

Read more about quizzes in the Canvas student guide – canvas.education.lu.se

There are test environments in Canvas where you can try doing quizzes and assignments as many times as you like without your lecturer knowing. Especially before an exam or an important assignment, it might be a good idea to test the tools you will be using beforehand so that you can focus on studying and not worry about the technology. Click on the link below and choose to join the course to access the tests. 

Try out assignments and quizzes in the Canvas test course – canvas.education.lu.se

If your assignment requires you to record or upload a video or audio file, you can read more about how to do so on the page dedicated to Studio, Canvas’s own video tool. 

Information about Studio

Accessibility tools and Disability Support Services 

If you have been granted learning support and are entitled to more time to complete exams or assignments, you may be given a deadline in Canvas that differs from that of your classmates who do not receive learning support. You can read more about how these decisions are made on the page about learning support. 

Go to the Disability Support Services website – lunduniversity.lu.se

Read more about learning support in digital learning environments

Canvas also has a feature for those who prefer to listen to text rather than read it, or who find it useful to be able to convert course content into different file formats. The feature is called Ally and is designed primarily for those with reading difficulties, but everyone can benefit from varying their reading habits and absorbing content in different formats. Read more about Ally in the student guide. 

Go to the section about Ally in the Canvas student guide – canvas.education.lu.se

If you have a mentor from Disability Support Services, they can have access to your course in Canvas. Write an email to digital [at] education [dot] lu [dot] se and let them know your name, the name of the course or courses and your mentor's name.

Read about other types of assistive technology that Lund University offers to all students.

Information about accessibility tools

Grades and feedback 

You may receive grades and feedback directly in Canvas in the form of written comments, an attached file or video comments. It is also possible that your lecturer will send you these another way, such as via email or in a classroom setting. If you are unsure whether you have received feedback or where to find comments from your lecturer, it is always best to ask your lecturer directly.  

It is worth knowing that grades become official only once they have been registered in Ladok, which often happens days or even weeks after you might have received them in Canvas. 

Read more about feedback and assessment in the Canvas student guide – canvas.education.lu.se

Teams

The Teams tool is integrated in Canvas and is used for messaging and holding digital meetings. It can also be integrated with other Office 365 tools to create a collaboration space for group work, i.e. a space where you can gather files and notes for everyone to access.

In the Canvas guide, you can find more information about what to do if you are invited to a Teams meeting or want to host a meeting of your own via the Canvas text editing tool.

Teams guide – canvas.education.lu.se