What Changed?
Starting with Summer 2024 courses, UCLA Extension's Canvas course menu was slightly updated for all UCLA Extension courses, making Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes available to students. This allows greater flexibility in course navigation and enhanced viewing and sorting. It also mirrors the standard Canvas menu, allowing UCLA Extension to leverage resources including articles and video guides while also aligning with UCLA main campus.
To explore the key changes occurring from the menu update, click the tabs below.
The Course Navigation Menu for Students
Canvas displays different menu options in the Course Navigation menu for instructors and students in a course. Instructors see all of the menu options available, while students see limited menu options. The Visibility icon indicates menu options hidden from students. In the updated menu, instructors see the same menu options as before, while students see three additional options previously hidden from them: Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes.
How Students Access Activities
Students can still access activities through Modules. However, students now have greater flexibility in how they access course activities using the Discussions, Assignments, and Quizzes menu options. These options allow students to view published coursework by type:
- All graded activities via the Assignments menu option with activities categorized by status (overdue, upcoming, undated, and past) or filtered by type if you organize course activities using Assignment Groups.
- All discussions via the Discussions menu option.
- All quizzes and surveys via the Quizzes menu option.
Watch the Video Demonstration
In this video, you will take a guided tour of how to prepare your course for the Canvas menu update. To view subtitles for this video, click CC on the video player. To navigate to specific topics within the video, click the desired topic in the contents list on the left.
What This Means for You
You control which activities students can view and access, so it's important to confirm that only the activities you intend for students to access are made available. Reviewing the visibility of items in Modules, Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes is key.
As you prepare your course, keep the following in mind:
To allow students access to an activity, place the published activity in a published, unlocked module. (Note: If availability dates are set for the activity, they must be current.)
To restrict students' access to an activity, complete at least one of the following:
- Unpublish the activity.
- Place the activity (published or unpublished) in a module that is unpublished or locked. (Note: If availability dates are set for the activity, they must occur outside of current dates.)
Prepare Your Course in Four Easy Steps
To review the steps for preparing key areas within your course, click the tabs below.
Step One: Prepare Your Modules
Modules act as a “control center" for making items available to students, so it is an ideal place to start preparing your course for the Canvas menu update. If you're already organizing your course content and activities in Modules, you're familiar with the process of checking to be sure everything is set as intended for students to access.
To prepare your Modules:
- In the course navigation menu, click Modules.
- Determine if each module is set as desired for student access (using Student View may be helpful), and take action as needed:
- Publish or unpublish modules. (Unpublished modules are hidden from students.)
- Lock modules to prevent student access until a specified date. (Locked modules are visible to students but cannot be accessed, as shown in Student View below.)
- Within each module, determine if each activity (assignment, discussion, quiz, or survey) is set as desired for student access (using Student View may be helpful), and take action as needed:
- Publish or unpublish activities within modules. Note: A published activity within an unpublished module will be unavailable to students in all areas of the course until you publish that module.
- Set activity availability dates, if desired, to allow students to access an activity within a specific date range. (Note: You may also bulk update availability (and due) dates for activities all at once.)
Step Two: Prepare Your Assignments Index Page
- In the course navigation menu, click Assignments.
- Unpublish all activities (assignments, discussions, and quizzes) that will not be used during the course (e.g., assignment templates, activities saved for instructor reference or future use, etc.). To unpublish an assignment, click the green Checkmark icon to the right of its title.
Special note about rubrics: If you have attached rubrics to assignments that you do not want students to see, you must unpublish the assignments to hide the rubrics.
- Confirm that all published assignments have been added to a module. The module will be listed beneath the assignment.
Tip: Organize Assignments for Easy Viewing
The Canvas menu update allows students to view all published assignments on the Assignments Index page. Enhance this page and keep your gradebook orderly by:
- Arranging assignments in sequential order or categorizing them using Assignment Groups that align with how your assignments are listed in the Grading Criteria section of your Course Syllabus.
- Deleting all empty Assignment Groups. This is especially helpful since all Assignment Groups appear as columns in the gradebook.
Step Three: Prepare Your Discussions Index Page
While the Assignments Index page shows graded activities (including discussions), the Discussions Index page shows both graded and ungraded discussions, so it's important to confirm the visibility of discussions on this page, as well.
To prepare your Discussions Index page:
- In the course navigation menu, click Discussions.
- Unpublish all discussions that will not be used during the course (e.g., discussion templates, discussions saved for instructor reference or future use, etc.). To unpublish a discussion, click the green Checkmark icon to the right of its title.
Tip: Pin Discussions to Increase Their Visibility
You can pin discussions for students to see at the top of the Discussions Index page. This is useful for discussions that run for a short time or important discussions to which students should specifically pay attention.
Step Four: Prepare Your Quizzes Index Page
While the Assignments Index page shows graded activities (including quizzes), the Quizzes Index page shows both graded and ungraded quizzes and surveys, so it's important to confirm their visibility on this page, as well.
To prepare your Quizzes Index page:
- In the course navigation menu, click Quizzes.
- Unpublish all quizzes and surveys that will not be used during the course (e.g., templates, quizzes, or surveys saved for instructor reference or future use, etc.). To unpublish a quiz or survey, click the green Checkmark icon to the right of its title.
Tip: Use Student View to Confirm Visibility
Use Student View to:
- Verify that your course activities are organized and visible (or hidden) as expected in Modules, Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes.
- Review your Gradebook to verify that your course activities are organized as expected.
Make adjustments as needed.
Support Options
Contact Canvas Support:
- Join a live Canvas Support drop-in session to ask questions.
- Click on "Help" within Canvas to chat with a team member (available 24/7).
- Email atli@uclaextension.edu (please allow a 24-hour response time Mon-Fri excluding holidays).