Overview

Before we get into the specifics of setting up course content, it's important for you to understand the basics of how Canvas courses are structured, templated and navigated. (Course structure and templating are actually covered in our introductory module, so we'll link off to that page).

Please refer to our page on course structure and the AU Course Template for more information on how courses are structured and templated in AU Canvas. Then, work through the rest of this page for information on course navigation.

How to navigate your course

The course navigation menu is what you'll use to navigate to the different areas of your course. You'll be able to access it from the left-hand-side of your course from (almost) anywhere in your course.

The course navigation menu

To help you understand the many items in the course navigation menu, we've summarised all of them and linked to relevant training modules in the table below. Items we've listed with a crossed-out eye () are set to be hidden for learners by default.

Menu item	Function
Home	Navigate to the homepage of your course.
Announcements	Access the announcements index, where you'll view and create announcements to notify learners of things happening in your course.
Modules	Navigate to your course modules, where you'll present your course's content.
Recordings	Access Panopto to organise, upload, record and edit videos for your course.
Assignments	Navigate to the assignments index, where you'll create and manage assessments within your course.
Course Readings	Access and manage readings lists within your course.
Discussions	Navigate to the discussions index, where you'll create and manage online forums.
Grades	Navigate to the gradebook, where you'll view and manage learner assessment grades (learners see an overview of their course grades).
People	View a list of the users in your course (educators and learners) and create and manage learner groups.
Item Banks	Navigate to the item banks index, where you'll create and manage quiz question banks.
UDOIT *	Use Cidi Labs UDOIT to check the accessibility of all content within your course.
TidyUP *	Use Cidi Labs TidyUP to check for and manage unused course content.
New Analytics *	View learner engagement analytics within your course.
Files	Manage files stored in your course, such as images and documents.
Quizzes	Navigate to the quizzes index, where you'll create and manage quizzes.
Rubrics	Navigate to the rubrics index, where you'll create and manage assessment rubrics.
Outcomes	Outcomes usage in AU Canvas is still be determined
Pages	Navigate to the pages index, where you can view a list of all the pages in your course.
Collaborations	Facilitate learner collaboration on shared documents for assessments.
Search	Access and use course search to search the course for specific search terms.
Settings *	Navigate to your course's settings.
Hide/show	You'll see a hamburger icon above the course navigation menu. This is what you'll use to hide or show the course navigation menu (for yourself only).
*These items appear in the course navigation without a crossed-out eye, but are hidden from learners nonetheless.

Editing the course navigation menu

The course navigation menu will be set by the AU Course Template. If your course navigation menu differs from that of the AU Course Template (the table above has the correct ordering), work through the presentation below to learn how to update it. You should not update your course navigation menu to differ from the templated ordering.

Select the expand button to open in full-screen or open in a new tab if not loading. Follow the navigational cues in the presentation to move between pages.

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