Course settings

The five tabs in settings

To find course settings, click "Settings" in the course navigation menu. The settings are divided into six tabs, but KTH only uses the following five tabs:

• Course details.
• Sections.
• Navigation.
• Apps.
• Feature Options.

Course details

The most basic settings are under the tab course details, for example course name, when the course is available and language options for the course. Most of these should be correct when you as a teacher gets your course room, but it is still good to check them. 

Default due time

The default due time is the time that is automatically filled in when you select the due date for an assignment. The default due time in KTH's Canvas rooms is 19:00, but you can change it to something that suits your course better. This change does not affect assignments that have already been created.

More settings under "more options"

There are some settings that are worth taking an extra look at, which you will find if you click "more options" at the bottom of the page:

• Show recent announcements on the course home page. You can choose to display between one and ten announcements at the top of the home page. This works even if the home page is not an actual page but, for example, Modules instead. Read more about Announcements in Canvas .
• Let students attach files to discussions. This applies both when students create discussions and when they write comments. Read more about Discussions in Canvas . 
• Let students create discussion topics. Instead of the standard setting, which is that students only can comment on topics created by a teacher. This is especially useful if discussions will be used as a student forum. 
• Let students edit or delete their own discussion posts. If an entry is edited there will be information below the entry about who edited the entry and when. The same thing happens to deleted entries that someone has commented on. Entries without answers are deleted. 
• Let students organize their own groups. Gives the students the ability to create their own groups under " People ". You as a teacher can access these groups in the same way as you access groups that have been created by a teacher. Read more about Groups and group assignments in Canvas .
• Disable comments on announcements. When announcements are created it is pre-set that student comments are disabled, but they can be activated for a specific announcement. If you check the option “Disable comments on announcements", student comments will always be disabled for all announcements. You as a teacher can always comment on an announcement, no matter the settings.
• Who can create, rename and edit course pages by default. You can choose between “Only teachers”, "Teachers and students” or “Anyone”. Note that this only changes the default, you can still choose something else when creating a new course page. Read more about Pages in Canvas . 

Sections

Course sections are used in courses where not all participants should have access to the same material, or get access during different times. A common example is students with disabilities who has the right to extended exams. Read more about Sections in Canvas .

If you need a section, contact IT-support via it-support@kth.se .

Navigation

If you want to, you can change the order of the functions in the course navigation menu and whether or not they are visible to students. All course and exam rooms come with a preset from KTH's templates, but you can easily change it here.

Edit the course menu

The tab has two lists of titles from the course navigation menu. All titles in the upper list are visible in the course navigation menu for students while the lower list is hidden. This can also be seen directly in the course navigation menu; all hidden functions are marked with an eye crossed by a line, which means that they are not visible (except Transfer to Ladok and Settings, these are always hidden from students).

You can drag and drop the different titles to put them in the order you want, or move them between the lists. On each title you can also open "Edit course navigation" by clicking on the three dots. In the menu that opens, you can choose to move the title within the list it is in and select "Disable" or "Enable" to move the title to the list of inactive or active titles.

Note! Remember to save!

Some functions can be used despite deactivation

However, not everything in the lower list works the same. For example, “Grades” can be hidden from the course navigation menu but students can still get there if they have a link. Students who follow a link to “Assignments” when it is hidden will instead be redirected to the homepage. You can read about the conditions for every function when it is in the lower list.

One thing that is important to remember is that if you hide Assignments, for example, the students can still access individual assignments but they do not have access to the full list of assignments. Links to the assignments from a module will still work, even if the list of Assignments is hidden, which is the recommended course structure.

Apps

When Canvas is not enough, there are sometimes apps, also known as LTI apps, which can do what Canvas cannot. All recommended LTI tools are already activated, but there are a few extra that you as a teacher can activate if you feel it is needed.

If you, as a teacher or course administrator, want to activate a new external application in Canvas, a so called LTI app, there is a process to review proposals for new applications.

Apply to activate new external optional features

Feature Options

Canvas has a lot of functions that all courses do not need or that are not fully developed. KTH only have access to a selection of them and you as a teacher can choose to activate these options if you want to.

All feature options have explanations in Canvas, but they are lacking in details. For the full explanation, please find the feature option in Canvas Feature Option Summary (community.canvaslms.com) .

Contact and support

Do you have questions or do you want guidance on digital learning?

For general support: it-support@kth.se .

For educational support: e-learning@kth.se .

Read more about ways to contact e-learning .