Checklist for badging in Canvas courses
Beginning badging in Canvas
If you are outside the U.S., please ensure you are using your regional server (Australia, Canada or Europe). You will need to get your consumer key and shared secret from the appropriate server to install the app.
Add the Canvas Credentials LTI to Canvas
- Most Canvas URLs are automatically pre-authorized — If it's not pre-authorized, Canvas Badges will prompt you to request
- Add the Canvas Credentials LTI to Canvas
Set up Canvas Badges in courses
- Enroll as a teacher in the course as module completion requirements may be tied to grades, which only teachers can access
- Publish the course and modules (see Instructure's How do I create a module?)
- Add module completion requirements (see Instructure's How do I add requirements to a module? ; see also the image below)
If you used your Canvas email to create your Canvas Badges account, you'll find your Canvas Badges issuer(s) and badge(s) available in Canvas. However, issuers and badges can also be created in Canvas without a Canvas Badges account.
- Create an issuer and Badges
- How to create an issuer in Canvas Badges
- How to create badges in Canvas Badges
OR
- How to create an issuer and badges in Canvas
- Assign badges to modules to award upon module completion
- Trigger badge awards once the course begins
Module completion requirements trigger badge awards and must be assigned to each module for which you wish to award a badge. Teacher and student roles interact best with Canvas Badges. Custom roles are not supported.
Take note:
- Canvas Badges will not award badges when using the Canvas "test student" feature as a teacher. Canvas Badges must have access to an email address to award badges.
- Currently, Canvas Badges does not work with Blueprinted courses. Teachers will need to select the default issuer and assign badges to modules in each course.
Best practices
Triggering badges
For badges to be awarded, a badge check must be triggered from the Badges Progress page. For very large courses, such as a MOOC, we recommend triggering badges daily using the CSV export method.
Adding a badge to a module as an external tool
By adding a badge as an external tool within the module, students will be able to claim the badge while progressing through a module. This will alleviate the need to trigger badge awards from the Badges Progress page because students will be able to claim their badge within the module.
Troubleshooting
Below are listed some common issues when beginning badging in a Canvas course. If you're experiencing any of these issues, please take a look at the troubleshooting articles listed.
- If you encounter the error "Authentication failed" you may have entered the consumer key and shared secret incorrectly
- If one or more students completed the module and have not received their badge:
- You may need to trigger a badge check
- You may need to review your module completion requirements
- Canvas Badges may be unable to access student emails
- You can review our article about unexpected badge awards
- If a student has not completed the requirements but has earned the badge:
- You may need to review your module completion requirements
- You can review our article about unexpected badge awards
If you continue to experience difficulty after trying our troubleshooting steps, you can contact us at [email protected] for help. Please include:
- A detailed description of your issue, including what steps you have already taken and a screenshot if you have encountered an error.
- Screenshot of the module you are having difficulty with
- Screenshot of the completion requirements for that module
- Screenshot of the progress page including a student who has completed the requirements but not earned the badge
- Course URL (found by selecting the Canvas course you're experiencing the issue in and copying the URL from your browser's address bar)
