Boston College makes certain course level settings for each Canvas course and has made the following settings standard for all courses. Each professor will need to evaluate these settings in light of their pedagogical goals. This page will show you how to access the settings and make any desired changes.
To access your course settings, first click on “Settings” towards the bottom of the left hand navigation.
Scroll to the bottom and you will see the default settings:
- Show recent announcements on Course home page
- 3: number of announcements shown on the homepage.
- Let students attach files to discussions
- Let students create discussion topics
- Let students edit or delete their own discussion replies
- Let students organize their own groups
- Hide totals in student grades summary
- Hide grade distribution graphs from students
- Disable comments on announcements
- Only Teachers can create, rename, and edit course pages by default
Some of the settings might be different if you are importing the course from a previous semester, where changes were made.
If you make any changes be sure to click “Update Course Details” in the lower right corner of the page to save your course settings.
Implications of Settings Related to Grading
While most of these options are self-explanatory, unchecking the boxes that hide information about grades can have unintended consequences. Below are several examples of why you may want to keep the defaults regarding grading:
- Grade distribution graphs can be an inadvertent means of letting students know each others’ grades, especially in a small class; here is the information about what students see.
- Total grades in Canvas are not official grades and instructors may wish to make adjustments when entering the official final grade in Agora.
- The grade total the student sees excludes unsubmitted assignments, so a student with missing assignments may believe they are doing better than they are.
- Unposted grades are not factored into the total grade the student sees, but they are averaged into the total grade that appears to faculty in the Canvas Gradebook, so instructors and students may see different final grades.
Restricting Student Access After the Term Has Ended
It is possible to change your course settings so you may block students from accessing the course’s Canvas site after the term has ended.
By default Boston College sets each class to Term participation dates and has an “End” date already selected [1]. Please note, this date is fixed and you may not alter it. Beneath the “Start” and “End” date setting are two options to control when students have access to the course’s Canvas page [2]. The first, “Restrict students from viewing course before term start date” selected by default. The second, “Restrict students from viewing course after term end date,” is unchecked by default. To restrict students from accessing the Canvas page after the term ends, simply check the box next to “Restrict students from viewing course after term end date,” then click “Update Course Details” [3].
Please note, if students are granted extensions provisions are made so the student in question may continue to access the Canvas page.
