Navigation

Course Menus

You should go to your course settings and edit the navigation menu of the course. We recommend simplifying your course menu, so that only necessary items are visible. Recommended menus are listed below.

We do not recommend hiding "grades" from your course menu.

Links for "Getting Started" pages, departmental pages, and course evaluations may be added to your course automatically from time to time. Do not disable any of these menu items.

Residential

We recommend the following items be visible and in the following order:

• Home

• Announcements

• Modules

• Assignments (Optional)

• Discussions (Optional)

• Syllabus

• People

• Grades

"Discussions" should only be included in the course menu if you wish for students to participate in "pinned" discussions throughout the term. For example, if you wish for students to ask questions and answer other students' questions throughout the term, this may justify including "discussions" in the course menu. For other uses of discussions, as in normal assignments, including discussions in their appropriate module (without adding a course menu item for discussions) is sufficient.

Online

Online courses should add the menu item for "Zoom" and "Panopto." We recommend adding these items to the bottom of the course menu, such as:

• Home

• Announcements

• Modules

• Assignments (Optional)

• Discussions (Optional)

• Syllabus

• People

• Grades

• Zoom

• Panopto

Discussions" should only be included in the course menu if you wish for students to participate in "pinned" discussions throughout the term. For other uses of discussions, as in normal assignments, including discussions in their appropriate module (without adding a course menu item for discussions) is sufficient.

NCSSM Connect

NCSSM Connect courses will have "Panopto" added to their menus automatically. Do not disable this menu item. Courses should add the menu item for "Zoom" if they utilize Zoom Meetings, so that course menus are as follows:

• Home

• Announcements

• Modules

• Assignments (Optional)

• Syllabus

• People

• Grades

• Zoom

• Panopto

Discussions" should only be included in the course menu if you wish for students to participate in "pinned" discussions throughout the term. For other uses of discussions, as in normal assignments, including discussions in their appropriate module (without adding a course menu item for discussions) is sufficient.

About Hidden Menu Items

Except in rare situations, you should ALWAYS HIDE:

• Pages - The organizational structure of the "pages" area in Canvas is not well-suited for students. Best practice is to organize pages in modules instead.

• Files - The "files" area tends to confuse most students. Rather than require them to hunt for files here, simply link to files in assignments, pages, or insert files directly in modules. In the rare case in which you need files to remain visible to students, be careful to lock folders they should not have access to, such as answer keys.

• Outcomes - Unless you use the Canvas learning mastery gradebook, students are often confused by the Outcomes page.

• Conferences - Zoom meetings work much better than the conferencing feature in Canvas.