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Canvas User Experience

Updated
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The Course Evaluations & Surveys User Integration with Instructure’s Canvas LMS has several components which allow students and instructors to seamlessly pass from Canvas into their Course Evaluations & Surveys account. The following provides further details on the User Integration functionality between Course Evaluations & Surveys and Canvas:


Add LTI Links Automatically for Student, Instructor and Administrator Users
  1. Automatically add dynamic LTI links on the left-hand navigation of your Canvas courses that allows your users to access Course Evaluations & Surveys.
  2. Dynamic course links will automatically display to students with an open evaluation in your Course Evaluations & Surveys project (whether you use project or course-level survey dates) and will be removed when the student has either submitted the survey for that course or the survey has ended. The number of active evaluations for the user is displayed with the LTI link.
  3. Separate LTI links for instructors and administrators will display in courses within deployed Course Evaluations & Surveys projects.
Customized Survey Notifications for Students with Active Surveys
  1. Enable the survey notification to allow Course Evaluations & Surveys to check whether a user has an active survey to take for that course. If so, your customized survey notification will display along with an LTI link, allowing the user to go directly to the survey.
  2. If the student does not have a survey to take for the specific course, the survey notification will not display.
Add Calendar Items with Links Automatically via API
  1. Automatically add a link to Course Evaluations & Surveys in the student’s calendar in Canvas for all courses within a project.
  2. Calendar items and links will automatically display in the calendar, on the survey start date scheduled (for either project or course-level survey dates).
Global External Tool Access Links
  1. Add a global LTI link to Course Evaluations & Surveys in all Canvas courses, that allows users to authenticate into their Course Evaluations & Surveys account directly from Canvas, as an alternative to the user-specific LTI links described above.
Display Course Evaluation Information with Canvas Widgets
  1. Display the current response rate for course evaluations, survey start/end dates, and completion date (if the user has submitted the survey).

USER INTEGRATION WITH CANVAS

The features in this section will describe how you can automatically display links to your users in Canvas, which seamlessly authenticate them from Canvas into Course Evaluations & Surveys. These options include:
  1. Automated and dynamic LTI Links that are added to your courses for Students, Instructors, and Administrators.
  2. Customized survey notifications within Canvas for students with open evaluations.
  3. Display a list of current surveys, response rates, start/end dates and status on Canvas Dashboard and course home page.

NOTE

The Data Integration must be set up in order to implement the User Integration.

After the data integration has been completed you will need to configure the LTI between Canvas and Course Evaluations & Surveys prior to setting up the user integration features offered between Course Evaluations & Surveys and Canvas. Important Note: While the use of Canvas as your data source isn’t required for the user integration, it is required that the data integration is configured, as this enables the API connection between the two systems.

However, by using the Course Evaluations & Surveys Data Integration for Canvas to import courses and users from your instance of Canvas, you ensure that data is aligned between the two systems. For institutions that use an alternative data source to Canvas for course data, this user integration functionality will require the course codes for courses and usernames to match exactly between Canvas and Course Evaluations & Surveys (again, if you use Canvas as the data source this is automatically ensured).


Automated and Dynamic LTI Links for Student, Instructor, and Administrator Users

You can automatically add LTI links on the left-hand navigation of your Canvas courses for all courses within a Course Evaluations & Surveys project. The links that display will be based on the user’s role within Course Evaluations & Surveys (Administrator, Instructor, or Student). CES Administrators log into Course Evaluations & Surveys directly.

For example, users with a role of “Student” that are in Course Evaluations & Surveys would only see the student link, as shown in the screenshot below. Individuals with a dual-role in Course Evaluations & Surveys will see the links appropriate to their roles in Course Evaluations & Surveys.



Students

The student LTI link will automatically display to students/respondents in Canvas courses beginning on the survey start date scheduled in Course Evaluations & Surveys (through your project or course-level dates) and will be removed when the survey period has ended for the course.


NOTE

  • Dependent on the survey dates (through your project or course-level dates), the student LTI link will remain after the survey has been submitted, allowing access to the Course Evaluations & Surveys dashboard, but will be removed after the survey period has ended.
  • Even though the link still appears, once a survey has been submitted responses cannot be changed by the student.
  • This student link is not displayed to users who aren’t a student in the course (i.e., based on their enrollment in the course within Course Evaluations & Surveys).

Instructors

  1. A separate LTI link for instructors will display in Canvas courses.
  2. The course must be in a deployed project and the user enrolled as an Instructor in Course Evaluations & Surveys.
  3. The Instructor LTI link will appear once the above criteria is met and the project deployed.
  4. The Instructor LTI link will only display to users enrolled as Instructors in the course in Course Evaluations & Surveys, and when clicked on will take the instructor directly to their Course Evaluations & Surveys Dashboard.

Administrators

  1. A separate LTI link for Administrators will display in Canvas courses.
  2. The course must be in a deployed project and aligned with the Administrator's level of access in Course Evaluations & Surveys.
  3. The Administrator LTI link will only display to users with an Administrator role in Course Evaluations & Surveys and will take the Administrator directly to their Course Evaluations & Surveys Dashboard.

Customized Survey Notifications for Students with Active Surveys

Within Course Evaluations & Surveys, under Account > Integrations > Canvas > User Settings, you can also enable a customized survey notification to display automatically within Canvas to students who have active surveys to complete, as shown in the screenshot above. If enabled, the system will check to see if the student has an active survey to take when they access their Canvas course. If so, your customized survey notification will display along with a Go To Survey button (which is an LTI link into Course Evaluations & Surveys) that takes the student directly to the survey for that course. Conversely, if the student does not have a survey to take for the specific course, the survey notification will not display.

Within the configuration of the Survey Notification, you can also control the display of the Do it Later option, and if removed, will force students to go to their surveys before they can access their course.


Setup & Configuration for the Automated LTI Links & Customized Survey Notifications for Students

After the data integration has been completed you can configure the settings for the user integration.

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