Admins or instructors can start a new course in Canvas. New courses are created as course shells to host courses for their institution. Some institutions will have this option disabled and instead provide courses to faculty automatically via SIS (student information system) imports.

Note: If you are not able to start a course as shown in these instructions, your institution has disabled this feature. Contact your Administrator for assistance.

You can get help with Canvas by using the Help menu. The Help menu generates a list of resources to help you with Canvas. Canvas displays links according to roles in all enrollments; for instance, if you are a student who had one courses with an instructor-based role, the Help menu will show you links available to students and instructors.

This lesson outlines the five default help links that may be included in the Help menu for your institution. However, your institution may customize the Canvas Help menu to hide default links and create custom links as resources.

Note: Depending on your institution, the Help menu may not be available.

The Public Course Index allows all users within an institution to publicly view the institution’s course index in a catalog format. You can view a link to the Public Course Index on the My Courses page.

Note: The Public Course Index is currently an account opt-in feature. If you cannot see the courses link, your institution has not enabled this feature.

After logging into Canvas, you can view your current courses. You may also be able to view past and future enrollment courses in Canvas.

Note: Some institutions may restrict the option to view or access future enrollment courses before the start date and/or access concluded courses after the course has ended.

The sidebar contains the To Do list and other sections that help you know what assignments and events are coming up in all of your courses. The sidebar includes specific items for instructor and student roles. If you are enrolled in Canvas courses with more than one user role, your sidebar may show items for both roles.

The Dashboard sidebar is similar to the sidebar that displays in your Course Home Page, but the course sidebar only includes items for the specific course. Depending on the setup of your Course Home Page, the sidebar in a course may contain additional sections than shown in the Dashboard sidebar. Learn how to view the Course Home Page.