Canvas FAQ
1) Navigate to courses -> Click on all courses
2) Click the Star icon to the left of any course that you want to keep on your dashboard
3) Navigate back to your dashboard, and you will only see the course cards for courses that you have favorited. To access all of your courses again or change what courses you have favorited, click back to Courses -> All courses.
You can find all CTL events in the CTL Calendar
Access for your Course Shells on Canvas become available as they are set by the Registrar’s office. We expect this to occur on May 25th, 2021.
Yes, you can start building your courses anytime but especially if this is your first time using Canvas, you might want to build out your course in a ‘Test’ course. Once your course is ready for teaching, you’ll need to import it into the official course shell with students.
Yes, you can consolidate your content onto Canvas which has a foundation for housing diverse content and has both assessment as well as grading schemes.
You can download the Canvas Teacher app from the IOS or Android app store. Here’s the link to the IOS version: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/canvas-teacher/id1257834464
To login you can type “pratt.instructure.com” in the school locator text box.
All courses should have the Syllabus (see question below) and the instructor contact information on Canvas.
We additionally encourage you to include any and all supplemental materials for your course on Canvas to create ease of access for students. Specific departments require additional information to be distributed through Canvas; please check with your chair to confirm.
It is up to your discretion how heavily you use the Canvas system, but we encourage you to include anything on Canvas that you would have included on Moodle, Google Classroom, Digication, or Pratt Commons.
Yes! Please click on the “Commons” icon within Canvas, on the far left side of the screen. Search for Pratt Institute, and click on the Syllabus module. Select the course that you would like to add this module to and import the syllabus. Edit the syllabus in your course to include your course information.
More information on importing items from Canvas Commons can be found in this guide.
To be able to view student submissions when you are offline, you can download all student submissions for specific assignments. You cannot enter grades in SpeedGrader while offline; these files are “Read only”. To download Assignment submissions check out this tutorial.
When you do have internet access, you can download course content as a dynamic html file to be viewed on your computer without internet access. To make sure that your course settings allow course content to be viewed offline, read this guide. To download course content as an html file as an instructor or student, follow the steps explained here.
Learning Canvas
If “start your own course” is not appearing within the “dashboard” page, please proceed to courses. At the very top of the “courses,” page click the plus sign to add another course.
Moodle & Canvas
For the Fall 2021 semester, faculty will still have access to their courses on Moodle as an archive. By the end of December 2021, we will no longer have access to Moodle LMS. We highly suggest that you take the time to export your courses from Moodle into Canvas ASAP (see next question).
Although not all features and files are compatible from Moodle course into Canvas, the transition of documents and assessments are. However, the grading scale and scheme of such documents and assessments may need to be slightly adjusted.
To learn how to transfer materials please click here.
Students
If you’ve been directly emailing your students, feel free to continue doing so. If you’d rather communicate through Canvas, use the “Inbox” function to do so. Please see this guide for details.
Students set their own notification settings for Canvas. Share these guides with your students and let them know how you plan to communicate with them.
Full account notification settings: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Student-Guide/How-do-I-set-my-Canvas-notification-preferences-as-a-student/ta-p/434
Single course notification settings: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Student-Guide/How-do-I-manage-notifications-for-a-single-course-as-a-student/ta-p/430
Students will automatically be assigned courses on Canvas, which will be visible on their Dashboard or their “Courses” homepage.
Additionally, courses within Canvas can be searched by the name of the course, department, and or faculty associated with the course. Each course also has an individual ID number which can be found at the end of the url on the course homepage.
Students will have access to a training course on Canvas, titled: ‘Passport to Canvas’.
Additionally, Student Affairs has produced a walkthrough video to show students the basics of using Canvas. This video can be viewed here.
If they have any technical questions, they should contact HelpDesk at services@pratt.edu.
They can login with their OneKey credentials.
All new student orientation for the Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 semesters will take place on Canvas, and their use of Canvas will begin there. Student affairs will let students know how to access this. Beyond that, instructors can remind students that Canvas is the best place to find course information.
Students will be able to login to Canvas, but links to Google Drive or Youtube won’t work under normal circumstances. We’ve increased default file size limits in Canvas, so you can upload more files directly in there, and I believe dropbox will work in China as well. We’re still working on integrating Kaltura video into Canvas, which will let you use video for your class. Right now you can login to talks.pratt.edu and upload video there.
Zoom & Canvas
See this Guide for details.
As a faculty member, there may be times you need to provide the recording. The most common situation is when you have a student who requires a recording as an accommodation for a disability. The legality of access to recordings for people with disabilities has been firmly established under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. When Zoom is used, the student cannot logistically make the recording themselves, so you would provide the recording to the student with the accommodation.
While there is no legal requirement to make a recording accessible to the entire class, you may decide it would be good universal design. For instance, you may demonstrate a multistep procedure, or conduct a discussion where some parts come through more clearly than others. Providing the recording to the entire class may also be useful to students whose first language is not English, to students who have unreliable internet, and to those attending in other time zones who may be less alert at the class time and thus missing key details.
The only time access is provided to anyone besides the student is when a student with a disability requires captioning. Some captioning is done live, and some is done from a recording, dependent on the student needs. Pratt contracts with a licensed professional captioning service. The captioners are trained similar to court reporters and are trained in confidentiality and professionalism.
Online Teaching FAQ
Check out the CTL’s programming and sign up to participate: https://prattctl.com/events/
FERPA (Family Educational Rights Privacy Act) is the federal law that protects the privacy of student education records. We want to make sure student record privacy is maintained with the recent shift to online learning tools. A few points to consider:
- It is important when using these tools to make sure student grades are not posted to the entire class or to any third parties
- Do not post anything that will be publicly visible regarding student disabilities or accommodations.
- You should inform your students if video sessions are being recorded
- Remember the intent is to protect student privacy – just as you would not post grades on a whiteboard in class, you should follow the same protocol in an online environment.
For more detailed information on student privacy and FERPA please refer to https://studentprivacy.ed.gov/.
If you have any specific questions or concerns you can contact Luke Phillips, Registrar at lphilli8@pratt.edu.
In synchronous virtual meetings, you can count attendance if students join the meeting. If they are unable to log-on synchronously, be sure to post the recordings so they can watch it and count attendance if they follow-up with a short assignment. In online discussion forums, count attendance if students participate. In asynchronous feedback sessions or critiques, count attendance if students post a response, completes an assignment, or adds too a feedback or critique prompt.
Tools and Software
You should already have a Pro Account if you sign up with your Pratt OneKey. If you have any trouble, please email the HelpDesk at: services@pratt.edu.
From time to time, you will want to share library resources like articles, eBooks, and streaming videos with your students. You may be wondering to yourself, “what is the best way to do this?” One of the best ways to ensure that your students have continued access to course content is to integrate it directly into Canvas, which is where your students know to go to find all things related to your course. You can find video tutorials to walk you through the process in the libraries’ Faculty guide: Adding library resources on the LMS. If you have any questions or encounter any difficulty, please reach out to us at systems.library@pratt.edu.
On this page you can find ready-made signs and templates for you to download, print, and post in your space as needed. https://www.pratt.edu/coronavirus/working-at-pratt/signage-and-templates/
IT is working on creating a Dashboard with all tools and technologies for students and faculty. Within Canvas, ongoing development is occurring with the integration of different applications such as Zoom, Digication, Kaltura and others.
Please refrain from using your personal google account use your Pratt Institute google account due to compatibility with one key (SSO), single sign on. To toggle to your Pratt Institute gmail, click on your Google Account (top right corner) and select or sign onto your Pratt Institute gmail account.
Talks.pratt.edu is the video hub of Pratt Institute, which currently features over 300 Pratt created videos. Visitors can watch and share events and projects featuring high-profile speakers, creative student/faculty work, and engaging stories. Anyone with a Pratt Onekey can login and upload media (videos, audio, images) and use the helpful tools.
When uploading your audio file you are able to request captions for any audio or video file that are produced by AI and are very accurate. These captions can take between 24 and 48 hrs to be added to your file and they are editable within the interface of talks.pratt.edu by selecting your media file, choosing edit and then selecting the edit captions tab. The editing of this initial AI generated caption/transcription can allow for 100% accuracy.
If you have questions about video capture, livestreaming content, or if there is a video on talks.pratt.edu that you would like captioned, please let us know by emailing services@pratt.edu.
Resilient Teaching Online (RTO)
RTO – or Resilient Teaching Online – is a featured workshop series developed by the Center for Teaching. The series is designed to instruct and support faculty in the development of inclusive, engaged, high quality classes online and in hybrid format. Faculty participants in the RTO series come away with understanding best practices for online course design and facilitation, creating a plan for building an online classroom community, keeping classes accessible for all, providing meaningful feedback and modeling and responding to complicated scenarios due to Covid19 with resilience.
View the self-paced RTO training documents here: https://prattctl.com/resilient-teaching-online/
COVID-19
Students who feel ill should contact their medical provider. If they are diagnosed with COVID-19 or are exposed to someone who has been diagnosed, they should follow the directions of their medical provider and their local departments of health. After they have taken these steps, Pratt’s Health Services are available remotely to help answer student concerns during business hours at health@pratt.edu or 718.399.4542.
As of the beginning of the Spring 2021 semester, students from China, Brazil, Iran can’t come in-person right now because of the travel ban. Europeans also have the travel ban but I’ve been seeing them get waivers of it. Other students should be able to come in-person with a hybrid class. Please refer to this website for the general information: https://www.pratt.edu/student-life/student-affairs/office-of-international-affairs/
Full vaccination and signed social contract are required of all students, faculty, and staff who will be on Pratt’s campuses for the fall 2021 semester. Proof of each is due July 30. Instructions for submitting your social contract and proof of vaccination and complete FAQs are available on Back to Pratt: www.pratt.edu/backtopratt.