YouTube videos are automatically embedded in any feature that uses the Rich Content Editor. This lesson applies to the Announcements, Assignments, Discussions, Pages, Quizzes, and Syllabus features.

There are three different ways to link a YouTube video, depending on what you want it to look like:

1. Insert Link into the Rich Content Editor (full link with embedded video)
2. Insert Link with the Chain Icon (shortened link with optional embedded video)
3. Hyperlink existing text (selected text becomes the link)

As an Admin, you can choose to set default restrictions for student access in your institution. These restrictions include student access to courses before the start date and/or after the end date.

To manage student access, you can set the default value but allow instructors and sub-account admins to edit access for the course and sub-account levels as necessary, or you can set and lock the student access setting for the entire institution. The checkbox settings at the account level are passed to the sub-account and course levels as default values.

Restrict students from viewing course before start date: When a student enrolls in a future course, the course displays in the Future Enrollments section in the student Courses list. Once a course is published, the course displays an invitation to join the course, where the students can view course content at any time before the course begins. However, when the student restriction for the course start date is enabled, students cannot view a link to the course until the start date, even if the course is published.

Restrict students from viewing future courses in enrollments list: When a student enrolls in a future course, the course displays in the Future Enrollments section in the student Courses list. However, when the view courses before the start date restriction is enabled, a second option is displayed to completely remove the future enrollment from the Courses list. This setting can also be enabled to keep students from knowing they are enrolled in a course with a future start date.

Restrict students from viewing course after end date: Once a course has concluded, students can still view the course but all content is displayed in a read-only state. However, when the student restriction for the course end date is enabled, students can no longer view the course in the Courses list after the course has concluded. This setting can be used if your institution uses the course across multiple terms and want to restrict students from accessing prior content for future students, or if students have to re-enroll in the course.

These restriction settings also apply to the override start and end dates for the course. If no override dates are specified, the start and end dates apply to the term dates. Learn more about term and course dates in Canvas.

The Canvas MasteryPaths feature allows you or a course designer to customize learning experiences to students based on student performance. With MasteryPaths, you identify activities for each student’s learning path and differentiate assignments for required learning, optional learning, or choosing their own content and assignments within a specific path, which helps them achieve course mastery.

MasteryPaths is based on differentiated assignments, which allows assignments to be assigned to different users and sections. With MasteryPaths, assignments are differentiated to individual students automatically and no additional work is required aside from grading student assignments as usual. After the initial assignment has been graded (either manually or automatically), the student’s score designates which conditional items(s) will be assigned as a learning path.

If you use weighted grading in your course, additional course work may affect student's total grades. However, grade calculations are based on the assignments assigned and completed by the student; students are not penalized for any assignments that are not assigned to them. If you are concerned about grade variances with point values, you may want to review the conditional assignments assigned to each MasteryPath and try to balance out grading totals in each path. Additionally you could evaluate student progress and add individual students to assignments as necessary that they can complete to improve their grade.

When creating MasteryPaths, all assignments and pages should be created and added as conditional items before publishing the course to students.

Notes:

• MasteryPaths is currently a course opt-in feature. To enable this feature, learn how to manage feature options in the course features lesson.
• MasteryPaths cannot currently be used with assignments being passed back to a student information system (SIS) such as PowerSchool or Skyward.
• Currently MasteryPaths does not support association with outcomes.

Differentiated Assignments is a Canvas feature that lets you create different due dates and availability dates for assignments, quizzes, and discussions. Assignments and graded discussions can be differentiated for individual students, sections, or groups; quizzes can only be differentiated for individual students or sections. You can designate if the assignment will be limited to those students, sections, or groups or if it will also be assigned to everyone else in the course. Differentiated assignments are also used in MasteryPaths.

When using differentiated assignments with the Gradebook, the assignment appears as a column for all students, but grade cells are grayed out for students who have not been included in the assignment. Grades cannot be assigned for students who have not been included in the assignment. Additionally, assignments that are not assigned to students—whether individually or as part of a section, group, or entire course—are not factored into overall grades. Differentiated assignments are also respected in Multiple Grading Periods.

On the student grades page, students can only view assignments that have been assigned to them.

This lesson is an overview of placement throughout Canvas. Differentiated assignments do not affect your students since they will only see the assignment that have been assigned to them. However, when an assignment includes more than one section, group, or user, Multiple Due Dates will appear across your entire course including Quizzes, Assignments, Discussions, Syllabus, Modules, Course Analytics, Calendar, and SpeedGrader.