Welcome to HGSE’s getting started in Canvas mini-course for students. First, let's walk through your Canvas dashboard.

A screenshot of the main Canvas navigation menu. 1: Main Dashboard

Let’s start with the left menu. The default view when you log in to Canvas is the dashboard view. Here, you’ll see tiles that correspond to courses or other Canvas sites you’re enrolled in. The icons at the bottom of the tile let you know about new announcements, grades, and discussion posts. These colors are a little dreary, so let’s brighten them up. You can use a custom color scheme to organize courses by term or subject area. You can also add course nicknames, visible only to you, to help you get organized.

On the dashboard, you’ll also see any upcoming to-dos, highlights from your calendar, any recent feedback, and a quick link to your grades. Keep in mind that not every instructor uses the Canvas grading features.

2: Account

Next is your account area. Here, you can change your profile and avatar and update your notifications settings. Under settings, you can update your email address. We’ll cover the files area in the FAQs area of the more resources section.

3: Courses

You can also access a list of all of your courses in the courses menu item. Click on all courses to view the entire list and select which should appear in the drop-down.

4: Groups

In groups, you can quickly access any groups you’re a part of in your courses. Your instructors will set these up for group assignments or in other cases when collaboration is important. Learn more about that in the groups module of this mini-course.

5: Calendar

You calendar aggregates all of your assignments and other due dates across all of your courses, if your instructor has entered them. Click on the calendar feed to add your Canvas calendar to a Google or Outlook calendar.

6: Inbox

The inbox is Canvas’s email service. You can message other people in your courses or groups. You’ll get notifications if anyone messages you.

7: Help

Lastly, the help menu on the bottom left displays helpful links for getting help from the teaching staff of your courses, from IT at GSE’s Canvas team, and directly from Canvas. Canvas chat and phone support are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

That’s it for this tour of the Canvas dashboard. Thanks for watching. Please contact canvas@gse.harvard.edu with any questions!

More articles about the Canvas Dashboard: