The recommended home page to display in a Canvas course is the Modules view instead of a 'page'. This has the advantage of guiding students through the desired sequence of content and activities, without them having to think about what they need to do next.

However, the Modules view is very linear, can involve lots of vertical scrolling, and is not necessarily visually appealing.

The Course Presentation and Navigation tool enables you to display existing modules as a tile-based home page. It also offers a built-in index on the left-hand course navigation menu. These features can be enabled independently and are dynamic, in the sense that as you update modules (or the items within a module), the home page display and navigation menu will be automatically updated.

The tool is available within a course to those with the teacher or course administrator role.
Please note that students using the Canvas app will always see the standard view.

This tool assumes that you have chosen Course modules to display as the home page in your course: select Choose home page on the right hand menu on the home page, and then select Course modules:

Index

How to configure the course presentation and navigation options
Course Module Home Page option
Module Menu/Module Content Icons option
Which options are right for my course?

1. How to configure the course presentation and navigation options

The course presentation and navigation options can be turned on or off for a course as follows: Go to Settings and click on Configure Module View on the right hand menu. Select one or both the options, depending on your needs. The options are described in the interface, and in the sections that follow:

Screenshot showing course presentation options

Once you have selected your options, click Save.

Each of the options is described in more detail in sections 2 and 3 below.

Note: Be aware that due to a technical issue, there may be a 5 minute delay if using Canvas on the Chrome browser, between a change in the toggle settings being saved and the resultant change being visible on the course.

2. Course Module Home Page option

The Tile View toggle switch allows you to enable the Tile View:

Screenshot showing tile view option

Select Tile View and then click Save.

When this option is enabled, the landing page of the course will be changed from the existing linear list of modules and module contents to a tile format, similar to the Canvas Dashboard:

Standard View:

Screenshot showing module standard view

Tile View:

Screenshot showing module tile view enabled

The Modules tab will retain the same linear view of the modules and their contents, so users can click through to this if it is their preference.

As the changes are applied after your page is loaded, you may see the display flicker from standard view to tile view momentarily.

3. Module Menu/Module Content Icons option

The Display module shortcuts and module content icons toggle switch allows you to enable the module shortcuts and module content icons:

Screenshot showing module menu/module content icons option

Select Display module shortcuts and module content icons and then click Save. Now, in the course navigation menu, the list of modules is displayed under the Modules tool as a sub-menu. See the differences between Standard View and the Display module shortcuts... option in these two screenshots:

Standard View:

Display module shortcuts and module content icons enabled:

The module titles are clickable, and clicking them will take the student to view content only in that module. When they access content within a module, there will be an indication of which module they are in.

Within a module, Previous and Next buttons are standard to enable easy navigation to the module items. When the Display module shortcuts and module content icons option is enabled, icons are added for each of the module items, and the one the user is currently in is highlighted:

If the screen is small and/or there are lots of items within the module, these will show as small squares instead, and so remain useable:

4. Which options are right for my course?

The pros and cons of both the Tiles View and Display module shortcuts and module content icons options are similar and we recommend experimenting with both options to see the impact that they make on the course display and navigation to determine which will work best for your course.

Enabling the options is better suited to courses that:

Have many modules and are using the Modules homepage view (but note that there is a limit of 100 modules, beyond which the tool will 'break')
Have a large amount of content within the modules
Have a non-linear module structure

Disadvantages of the options are:

It will cause a flicker on the student’s screen when the view loads
It will mean that users might need two clicks to get to module content, rather than one

Keeping the options disabled is better suited to courses that:

Are short and easy to navigate
Do not have long scrolls through their modules page

Disadvantages of keeping the options disabled:

It may require students to scroll a long way down for later modules