Organizing your Canvas Dashboard

Description

The Dashboard is your Canvas landing page, whether you are a student or an instructor. The default view of the Dashboard displays your Canvas courses as Course Cards with a sidebar, which includes a To Do list (due dates), Coming Up items (for instructors), Recent Feedback (for students), and View Grades. You can customize the dashboard view that is displayed when you first open Canvas, as well as hide courses, change the order in which courses appear, create course nicknames, and change the color of course cards.  

Environment

Canvas in your web browser or the Canvas Student app

Solution 

Changing Dashboard view 

1. Log in to Canvas at  canvas.ohio.edu
2. To the right of the Dashboard title, select the Optionsmenu (three vertical dots)
3. Select Card View(default), List View, or Recent Activity
   • Card View displays course cards for your favorite courses and includes your To Do list
   • List View displays daily calendar events, including events from the Ohio Unviersity calendar; does not include the To Do list
   • Recent Activity displays important recent activities from all courses, such as announcements, assignment notifications, and discussions, and includes your To Do list

Hiding and un-hiding courses 

1. Log in to Canvas at  canvas.ohio.edu
2. In the Global Navigationmenu, select Courses
3. Select All Courses
4. For the courses that you want displayed in your dashboard, select the starnext to the course title 

• Items with a filled star will be displayed on the Dashboard 
• Items with a star outline will not be visible on the Dashboard 

5. After you have made your course selections, in the Global Navigationmenu, select Dashboardto review your dashboard 

NOTE: Teachers see course cards for both published and unpublished courses, while students only see cards for published courses.

Reordering course cards 

1. Log in to Canvas at  canvas.ohio.edu
2. You can rearrange the order in which your courses are displayed by: 

   1. Dragging and dropping your course cards in the desired order 

OR

2. Selecting the three dots menuon the course card > selecting Move > selecting the desired direction to move the card 

3. In the Global Navigationmenu, select Dashboardto review your dashboard 

Assigning course nicknames

Note: Course nicknames are only visible to the person who created the nickname. Course nicknames created by faculty in this way are not visible to students.  

1. Log in to Canvas at  canvas.ohio.edu
2. Select the three dots menuon the course card
3. Under Nickname, enter your desired course name 
4. Select Apply
5. In the Global Navigationmenu, select Dashboardto review your dashboard 

Enabling/disabling course card color overlay 

1. Log in to Canvas at  canvas.ohio.edu
2. To the right of the Dashboard title, select the Optionsmenu (three vertical dots icon)
3. Select Color Overlayto enable a customizable color to be applied to the image on each course card

Changing the color of course cards 

1. Log in to Canvas at  canvas.ohio.edu
2. Select the three dots menuon the course card
3. Select or enter the Hex codeof the desired color 
4. Select Apply 
5. In the Global Navigationmenu, select Dashboardto review your dashboard 

NOTE: The selected course color corresponds to the color associated with the course in your Canvas Calendar.

NOTE: Only instructors can add an image to a course card. See  How do I add an image to a course card in the Dashboard? for instructions.

Outcome:Your dashboard view should now be updated. 

Get Help from Canvas

• Live chat with Canvas support (Students)
•  Get 24-hours/7-days a week Canvas support
  • Dial the Canvas Support Hotlinenumber located under "Get Help" in the Canvas Global Navigation Menu
• Contact OIT at 740-593-1222 for questions related to logging in, test courses/manually created courses, or third-party tools (Panopto, VoiceThread, Inclusive Access, etc.)

Get Help from OIT

• Use the Canvas Learning Management System (LMS) ticket form to submit a help ticket
• Enroll in the Passport to Canvas student training course

Additional Resources

• Canvas Basics Guide
• Canvas Student Video Guide
• Mobile Guides
• Canvas Course Accessibility Checklist (for instructors)
• Canvas LMS Implementation updates
• Canvas Experts Corner Blog  (for instructors)