Canvas Intro for Students

Canvas Intro for Students

Accessing Current Canvas Courses

Not all faculty use Canvas, and if they do, they may not make your Canvas course site available until the first day your class meets, or even at a later date.  If you don't have access to your Canvas course site when you expect you should, you may want to check first with your professor to confirm it is available.

If you add the course after the start of the semester, there can be delay of up to 24 hours before your registration adds you to your Canvas course site.  Your professor can add you to the Canvas course manually if you need access sooner.

Accessing Past Canvas Courses

Except where restricted by the instructor, you will still have read-only access to past courses. To locate past courses, follow these steps:

  1.  Open Canvas.
  2. Click "Courses" (left) then "All Courses".

Organizing Canvas Courses

To navigate through Canvas courses easily, you can favorite certain courses to appear on your Dashboard. You may want to favorite current courses, courses that contain information you may want to refer back, or courses that you have taken an incomplete in. To favorite courses, use the following steps:

  1.  Open Canvas.
  2. Click "Courses" (left) then "All Courses".
  3. Click or tap the Star icon to favorite the course. Note that past enrollments and inactive Canvas courses cannot be favorited.

Editing a Profile

You can add or change a profile picture in settings. 

  1. Open Canvas.
  2. Click or tap on your current profile picture. If you are on mobile, you may need to click the three-lined menu button in the upper left corner first. Your default profile picture will be your first and last initials.
  3. Go to Profile Settings.
    1. On the web, click Profile and then Edit Profile.
    2. On mobile, tap Settings, then Profile Settings, then Edit Photo.

Change Notification Settings

You may want to receive notifications when an update is made to Canvas, such as a message, announcement, or posted grade. 

Canvas on a Computer

  1. Open Canvas.
  2. Click on your profile picture.
  3. Click Notifications.
    1. From here, you can toggle push or email notifications for various course activities.
  4. To manage notifications on a specific course, underneath "Settings for," click the drop-down and select the course.

Canvas on Mobile

  1. Open Canvas.
  2. Tap the three-line menu icon in the upper left.
  3. Tap Settings.
  4. To edit push notifications, tap Push Notifications.
  5. To edit email notifications, tap Email Notifications.

Note that on the Mobile app, you cannot edit notifications for specific courses. Also note that on the computer version, you can edit the preferred email address by following these steps:

  1. Open Canvas.
  2. Click on your profile picture.
  3. Click Settings.
  4. On the right side of the screen is a box titled Ways to Contact. You can add a new email address or set a different email as your default by clicking the star icon next to it.

Canvas Guides

More information can be found on Canvas's official website:

Student Getting Started Resources - Instructure Community

Also, refer to the Help Menu of Canvas, which contains St. Lawrence University-specific guides.

If you have any questions about Canvas, run into any issues using it in your coursework, or have any general SLU-related technology questions or issues, IT is here to help.  Visit us at the IT Help Desk on the lower-level of ODY Library, give us a call at 315-229-5570, or Submit an IT Service Request.