Announcing teaching room changes

Use Announcements in a Canvas course to notify enrolled staff and students about changes to teaching rooms, especially during uncertain times. Most programmes of study and teaching courses at Oxford now have a presence in Canvas. However, there may be some cohorts who are not reachable by this method, for example, colleges and college members.

The Announcements tool within a Canvas course allows a teacher or course administrator to create an announcement, which will be available to all participants in the course (by clicking on the Announcements tool). It is also possible for announcements to be sent to participants, depending on how they have set their notification preferences.

Each user has the ability to manage how frequently they will receive announcements, and whether the method will be via email or via the Canvas mobile app. Section 1 below explains how to manage one's own notification preferences and section 2 provides more information about notifications received via the Canvas mobile app.

You might first like to refresh your memory on how to use the Announcements tool itself:

 

Points to bear in mind:

  • A teacher or course administrator in the programme should manage the process, so please ensure that these roles are in place in the relevant Canvas 'containers'. 
  • A Canvas announcement may be created in a Canvas course, and will reach all participants (staff and students) enrolled in that course, as long as they have not switced off notifications for announcements.
  • Advise students to check their settings and ensure that they select 'Notify me right away' - see section 1 below, to avoid missing important information, especially about room changes.
  • Check your own notification preferences (see section 1 below) before working with published Canvas courses, particularly if you intend to use Announcements regularly to communicate with students.

 

Index

  1. Set your preference to ensure that announcements will reach you right away
  2. Push notifications on the Canvas teacher and student mobile apps
  3. Setting notification preferences at the course level
  4. Further guidance

 

1. Set your preference to ensure that announcements will reach you right away

Go into Account, and click Notifications. Alongside Announcements, select the option to be notified right away:

Setting up the notification in this way will result in the announcement being sent right away to the email address that is registered on your Canvas account. The sender will show as ‘notifications@instructure.com’ – Instructure is the company that supplies Canvas.

You can also enable 'push' notifications to your mobile phone, if you have installed the Canvas teacher or student app (see next section).

 

2. Push notifications on the Canvas teacher and student mobile apps

Canvas offers mobile apps for teachers and students. We recommend that you download and install the teacher app and encourage students to download and install the student app (separate guidance is available for students).

Go back into your Account > Notifications. You will see that a new column has appeared: Push Notification. Ensure that you switch this on for Announcements.

This will ensure that you will receive a push notification of all announcements made in all courses that you are enrolled on. The format of the notification will depend on how notifications have been set up on your phone - for example, a small icon (with a ''ping' sound) may appear in the pull-down menu at the top of the phone screen, or a small number may appear on the icon of the Canvas app.

Setting up push notifications on your phone will ensure that you don't miss any important announcements, especially in times of change and uncertainty. Push notifications will be received only when you have a mobile signal and WiFi (or mobile data) are switched on.

 

3. Setting notification preferences at the course level

The guidance above shows how to set your notification preferences at your account level, which applies to all courses that you are enrolled on. It is possible the override particular preferences at the course level.

See section 2 in our Notifications guide.

 

4. Further guidance