There are several reasons why a course card might be missing from the dashboard of an academic, administrator or student. This page covers five common scenarios that might explain why you cannot see a course on your Canvas Dashboard.

Index

Your Canvas Dashboard is not in Card View
The course has not been marked as a favourite
The course has not been published
The course has finished and date restrictions have been applied
You have Admin level access, but have not been assigned a role on a course

1. Your Canvas Dashboard is not in Card View

Course cards that appear on the Dashboard allow you to directly click into a particular Canvas course. If a course you are expecting to see on a Dashboard does not appear, it may be because your Dashboard view is set to the 'list' view.

To make all cards visible on a Dashboard:

Click the Dashboard Icon on the Global Navigation bar.
Click the three-dots options button on the right side of the page.
Select Card View from the drop-down list.

2. The course has not been marked as a favourite

If you have never favorited any courses, only 20 (max) course cards will show on your dashboard (this limit is 10 within the mobile app). If you are then enrolled in new courses, this will remove some of the current courses from your dashboard, so there are never more than 20 at one time.
If you have favorited as little as one course, then only favorited courses will appear on your dashboard. Then you can have a lot more courses on the dashboard, but at a certain number it will slow screen load time; it's not clear what the maximum number is, but it has been suggested (in the Canvas community) that it is 50.

To favourite a course:

Select Courses and then All Courses from the Global Navigation menu.
Click the star on the left-hand side of any courses you would like to favourite (and thus see on the Dashboard).
The star will change colour and the course will now be visible on your Dashboard.

3. The course has not been published

In order for any course to appear on a Dashboard, it must first be published. This is the most basic first step to ensure that students can see it on their Dashboard.

To publish a course, simply navigate to the home page of your course by clicking Home, and then select the Publish button on the top right-hand side of your screen.
The Unpublished button under Course status will turn from red to grey, and the Publish button turns green and reads 'Published'.

4. The course has finished and date restrictions have been applied

A course will not appear on a Dashboard if its dates have been restricted and it is registered as being finished.

To check the visibility restrictions on a course:

Click Courses and then All courses from your Global Navigation menu, then select the relevant course.
Click Settings within the Course Navigation menu.
Staying within the 'Course details' tab that opens up, scroll down to check the start and end dates (labelled Starts: and Ends:). You should also read through the ensuing checkboxes to ensure that none of the options to restrict student access have been selected.
If you have the correct permission, adjust the course settings accordingly, and scroll down to click the Update course details button on the bottom right-hand side of the page. If you do not have the correct permissions, please contact your Local Canvas Coordinator, or canvas@it.ox.ac.uk.

5. You have Admin level access, but have not been assigned a role on a course

If you have a sub-account role in Canvas, you will have access to a number of courses through the Admin button in the Global Navigation Menu. However, because you are not individually enrolled onto courses, they will not appear on your Dashboard. To make a course appear on your dashboard you need to request (or give yourself) a role within the required course.

Read more about Roles and permissions to decide which course role might be best for you. If you have the right permissions, learn how to add yourself to a course, on our page about Adding people to a course through the Canvas interface.

Note: The benefit of an Admin role with its broader access rights is that you have an overview of all Canvas sites within your department without having to experience the notifications or alerts attached to each individual course. However, if you wish to be more closely linked to a particular course (and hence see the card on your Dashboard), you must enrol yourself in the course with a course role. Read more about Roles and permissions.