Two Communities - An Abundance of Great Canvas Information and Resources!
Do you feel connected to your Canvas Community? Are you an engaged citizen in Canvasland? Much as we love technology and believe in its power to make great learning experiences, the actual process of working in the LMS can sometimes be kind of isolating, especially if you are an adjunct or working from home—who do you reach out to in order share your challenges and celebrate your successes? One of our primary goals is to ensure our users felt supported in their journeys into Canvas by providing an abundance of resources and a variety of easy ways to access them. We also really value seeing instructors engaged in the process of learning and sharing - both amongst their peers and with our team. We want our faculty and staff to stay engaged for the long term, whether that’s with our FSCJ Community or within the Canvas Community at large. After all, you will continue to learn and grow (and have questions) throughout your time as a Canvas user. Below we share two ways that you can have bigger conversations with Canvas users. You can discuss local issues and needs via the FSCJ EdTech-Hosted Canvas Faculty Community, or connect with users around world through the Canvas-Hosted Community.
The FSCJ Faculty Community
Do you prefer to chat with those at our institution instead of the larger Canvas Community? The EdTech team wanted to provide all Canvas teachers with a shared space within the LMS. You can access the space within your Canvas Dashboard, where you should see a course "card" for the Canvas Faculty Community. The goal of this community is to provide a modular structure to disseminate useful information and to ask questions. From the Homepage, you will find links to various modules that contain technical and training resources, information about third party tools, and areas where you can ask questions and collaborate with your peers. This is also a great place to ask questions about our processes, or to suggest a feature that already exists in Canvas for inclusion in our Canvas instance.
Explore some of our most popular pages in the Faculty Community:
Getting Started with Canvas, which contains guides and resources
The Respondus Key, which is updated yearly
Using Turnitin in Canvas guides and video tutorials
Connect with other FSCJ faculty and staff by contributing to the general discussion board or by creating your own discussion topic.
We are so thankful to those who have to contributed within the FSCJ community already. We hope that you will find this space to be useful and we invite you to provide suggestions for its improvement or for needed additional content.
Getting around within the Canvas Community
The Canvas Community is a place for Canvas users to easily find answers, share ideas, and connect in groups. First things first, begin by going to community.canvaslms.com and clicking Log In in the upper right corner. Then you will use your College credentials to log in and select our Canvas URL if prompted (canvas.fscj.edu). Now the entire community is yours to explore - but let me make a suggestion to start by spending a few moments setting up your profile.
Set Up Your Community Profile
Your community profile provides other community members with an easy way to learn about your experiences, skill sets, and interests. Your profile shows up in search results when other members search for keywords contained in your profile. Under your default avatar photo, go to “My profile” then “Edit my profile” under the Member Profile area.
Fill in as much profile information as you would like, but keep in mind that your profile will be included in all community-wide searches. Try to include as information that would be useful for others to know, like our institution and possibly the area in which you teach. If you have a special Canvas skill, add that too!
Rank up within the Community!
The Instructure Community uses a ranking system to track member engagement and participation as well as to assign roles and permissions. Ranks provide an easy way to see how engaged someone is in the Instructure Community or if they're part of a special group of users, such as our Community Coaches, Employees, or Community Team ranks. Explore the ranks and roles here!
Share Ideas and Join Groups
Have an idea for a feature or product improvement that you would like to see considered by the Canvas community? Within the Ideas and Themes section of the community, you can submit your feature ideas and vote on other members’ ideas.
Let your voice be heard! Join the community and post your idea or search to see if someone else has already thought of something similar! If you find an idea that you think is genius, give them your vote! Ideas are open for six months, after which those in the top 10th percentile of the vote will remain in the general forum and open for voting. Click here to learn more about the process that ideas go through before they get the attention of the Canvas team.
You can also join groups! View all groups by clicking on “All Groups and Hubs” or you may join/subscribe to some of the following popular groups and hubs:
Introducing PandaBot!
Instructure is excited to introduce PandaBot to the Community! Pandabot is an AI search tool. Click on the following link to learn more and watch a video demo on Pandabot.