Email sent to faculty using Canvas in the fall
The fall semester marks an exciting point in our Learning Management System (LMS) migration as we welcome you to Canvas – along with more than 700 hundred George Mason faculty who opted to teach in Canvas, spanning more than 1,600 individual sections across every school and college. If you have changed your mind about using Canvas, or if any of the courses created for you in Canvas are incorrect, please reach out to [email protected].
By now, you should have access to your live fall course course in Canvas; this is the space you will be teaching in. As a default, other sites – your sandbox and course migration files – are not accessible to students and enrollments cannot be added. Before the term begins, you can export content from one of these other workspaces and import it into your fall course.
Here are some resources to help get started:
- Communicating with Students in Canvas: Communicate, communicate, and then communicate one more time.
- How to Import/Copy a Canvas Course: This guide outlines the steps to import content into your course. Be patient! The migration may take several minutes – you will receive an email or notification when the import is complete.
- How to Publish your Course: Just like Blackboard, when you are ready, you must publish your course to make it available for students.
- Add integrated tools such as Zoom and Attendance to your course navigation. (The Attendance tool now includes student photos from their Mason ID Card.)
- Learn more about Canvas and integrated tools, like Honorlock, Turnitin, Kaltura, and more by attending an upcoming training.
As you get ready to welcome your students, please review the details below and consider this information for your messages to students to help them prepare for the semester. Remember that for the upcoming academic year, students and faculty will be engaging in both Blackboard and Canvas, so it will be important to communicate your system and share getting-started resources. Be sure to email and/or post an announcement to reinforce training and support options and include the Recommended Course Statement in your materials and early communications.
Additional Details:
- Student Communication About Dual LMS Use: This message will be sent to all George Mason students soon.
- Getting Started with Canvas Student Resources: Be sure to provide this link in your early communications to students. It provides an overview of Canvas, along with links and other helpful getting-started resources.
- Following up on the recent guidance from the Office of the University Registrar, review this Knowledgebase Article to learn more about combining non-cross-listed sections in the LMS.
Remember, support is (literally) always available within the Canvas platform by clicking “Help” in the left-hand menu. Especially for Canvas-specific questions, please begin with Canvas native phone and chat support. Be on the lookout for additional information in the coming weeks related to Stearns Center programming and Faculty Mentor consultations.
We will reach out later in the semester to get feedback from you and your students on the overall experience. As always, let us know if you have any questions.
Best wishes for a successful semester!
Charles Kreitzer
Executive Director, Mason Online
Office of the Provost
Joy Taylor
Executive Director, Learning Support Services
Information Technology Services