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Section: Canvas Faculty

Canvas Faculty Documentation

Canvas Course Navigation Menu: How to add a redirection

It is possible to create a custom course navigation menu in a Canvas course you teach, that will take students to whatever website you’d like. Just keep in mind that if you are redirecting students to another location within Canvas, you may need to update the redirection each semester, since internal Canvas course locations are different for each course site. If you’re redirecting to an external web site though, you should be good to keep reusing the link across semesters.

Here’s how you create a redirection:

  1. Go into your course, to the Settings area, and go to the Apps tab.
    screen capture showing the course Settings, with the Apps tab selected and the word "redirect" in the search box
  2. Click the “Redirect” app, then click the “+Add App ” button.
    shows the "Redirect" icon, a blue curved arrow, and the "+Add App" button
  3. Fill in the details that determine how the redirection will work.
    shows the details interface, but the actual text and what to fill out are detailed in the main text below

    1. In the Name field, put what text you want to display on the course navigation menu.
    2. In the URL Redirect field, put the exact address of the site to redirect to. For best results, browse to the website and copy the address, then paste it into this field. When possible, be sure you specify a “secured” location (i.e. the link will start with https:// and not just http://).
    3. Of the available checkboxes, be sure to select “Show in Course Navigation” to make your link appear in that location. If you are redirecting to a web site leave the “Force open in new tab” selected; only clear this if you are redirecting to another location within the Canvas course.
  4. Click the “Add App” button.

You may need to refresh the course before you’ll see the new Redirect link on your course navigation menu. Once you have the link, be sure to test it!

Faculty Setting Up Zoom Office Hours in Canvas

  1. Select the Canvas course in which you would like to schedule office hours.
  2. Select Zoom in the course navigation menu on the left.
  3. In Zoom, click Schedule a New Meeting.
  4. Enter a Topic and the date and time your office hours will be held.
  5. Click Recurring meeting to schedule office hours for the same time each week and select the end date and other details for your recurring office hours.
  6. In Meeting Options, click Enable waiting room and click Save.
  7. To see the list of your Zoom office hours, click on Zoom on the course navigation on the left.
  8. In the Upcoming Meetings tab, you and your students will see the link to your office hours for each week.

Reporting Problems with Canvas

If you have any technical problems with Canvas please refer to the Help menu at the bottom of the global navigation menu (visually there is a circle with a question mark in it at the lower left of the Canvas screen).

Canvas Training Materials for Faculty

Palomar’s Canvas system is administered and supported by the Academic Technology department. We offer training workshops on using Canvas, and our current offerings may be found online listed in the 3PD system. In addition to workshops, there are a number of videos and instructional documents available on the ATRC blog:

And, of course, there is a plethora of information about using Canvas on the Canvas Community site.

Canvas Account Creation and Timing

It can take a bit of time for changes in the enrollment system to percolate over to Canvas, so if you have just signed up for classes it may be up to three hours before you will see the new course listed in the Canvas All Courses list. Similarly, if you just applied for admission to Palomar, it may take up to three hours for your Canvas account to be generated.