How to upload and link to a PDF into your Canvas course

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How to upload and link to a PDF into your Canvas course

You might wonder How can instructors link to PDFs in their Canvas courses? To link a PDF file in a Canvas course, you can use the Files area feature. As an instructor, you can upload one or multiple files, view all details about your files, preview files, publish and unpublish files, set usage rights, and restrict access to files. Here are the steps to link a PDF file in your Canvas course:

  1. Go to the course where you want to link the PDF file.
  2. Click on the Files tab in the course navigation bar.
  3. Click on the Upload button to upload the PDF file.
  4. Once the file is uploaded, click on the file name to open the file details page.
  5. Copy the URL of the file from the address bar of your browser.
  6. Go to the page where you want to link the PDF file.
  7. Click on the Edit button to edit the page.
  8. Highlight the text that you want to use as the link text.
  9. Click on the Link to URL button in the Rich Content Editor (RCE).
  10. Paste the URL of the PDF file in the URL field.
  11. Click on the Insert Link button to insert the link.

Congratulations! You have successfully linked a PDF file in your Canvas course.

How to check and fix the accessibility of a PDF before uploading to your course

You can use the accessibility checker feature in Adobe Acrobat to review the accessibility of your PDF and fix issues. To check and fix the accessibility of a PDF take these steps in Adobe Acrobat Pro:

  1. Open the PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro.
  2. Run an accessibility check by selecting AccessibilityAccessibility CheckStart Checking or Tools > Accessibility > Full Check.
  3. Read the report and follow the prompts.
  4. Fix the issues identified in the report.
  5. Save the PDF.

Alternatively, you can use the ‘Make Accessible’ tool in Acrobat to automatically fix some issues.
If you need more detailed instructions, you can watch this video that shows how to use the accessibility checker in Adobe Acrobat Pro to identify and fix some common accessibility issues in a PDF document. The video covers how to:

  • Run the accessibility checker and review the results.
  • Fix the logical reading order, bookmarks, tagged annotations, and figures with alternate text.
  • Modify the tags panel to correct the nesting and tag types of headings, links, and lists.

Please note that the accessibility checker may not detect all accessibility issues, so it’s important to manually review the document as well.


Additional resources

Here are some additional resources about linking to files in Canvas course:

Articles about linking to files in Canvas courses:

Videos about linking in Canvas course pages:

What are Groups in Canvas? 

Groups in Canvas are used as a collaborative tool where students can work together on group projects and assignments. So if an instructor anticipates having group assignments they can setup groups in a course. Learn more about Groups in the Canvas Instructor’s guide. Groups might be useful in the type of online course where a cohort of students follows a fixed schedule and learns together. Groups might be less useful for self-paced asynchronous courses where students start at any time and don’t interact very much with other students.

What is H5P?

H5P is a web-based service that allows instructional designers to create interactive learning activities to reinforce course content and make learning more engaging. H5P learning objects can be embed in Canvas, WordPress, Drupal, or .html files. At Ohio State H5P learning objects are often embedded in Canvas course pages. You can view some examples of types of learning objects on H5P.org.

What is Carmen Canvas?

Carmen Canvas is the name for the Canvas LMS (learning management system) instance used for academic courses at The Ohio State University. They generically call the learning management platform ‘Carmen’ for conistency accross the years. So that one LMS can be swapped out with another and still retain the name ‘Carmen’.

Camen first started in 2005 when the university switched from using the WebCT learning management system to using the Desire to Learn platform. Later, in 2016, the LMS was swapped out with the Canvas learning platform but the ‘Carmen’ brand was retained. Carmen Canvas is the regular version of the Canvas LMS, while Scarlet Canvas is the Canvas Catalog product version used for public-facing enrichment courses.

Draft course development steps checklist for Canvas courses

Educators can work with an instructional designer or a Canvas admin to develop online courses in Scarlet Canvas. Some online course development steps for Canvas courses are:
Course planning and development:

  • Fill out the course development planning worksheet to better define your course audience, content, and objectives. There are Qualtrics and MS Word versions of the course planning worksheet available.
  • Use the backwards design methodology thinking of learner outcomes first. Outline learning objectives for the course. Learning objectives are typically listed in the introductory pages of the first module.

Course building in Canvas:

  • Setup course modules and pages. Embed video content from MediaSite checking that closed captions are working. A good practice is to include a ‘meet your instructors’ page in the first module with educator bios.
  • Quizzing – Decide on a quizzing / learning checks strategy. Many courses include a short quiz at the end of every module that unlocks the next module on a passing score. Some courses have longer pre and post course assessments in the first and last modules. Questions can be stored in question banks and imported into various module quizzes. Studies have shown that taking quizzes helps participants better retain what they learned.
  • Decide if including learning objects from H5P would enhance learning in the course. Participants have different learning styles. Some types of learning objects might help them retain more knowledge.
  • Course evaluation – Setup course evaluation surveys in Qualtrics and add links in the Canvas course. Typically a link to a course evaluation is added in the last module, the course completion module.
  • Decide on how to issue course completion certificates to participants. If using automated certificates from Canvas catalog, turn them on in the course listing settings and paste in the certificate HTML template. Tweak the HTML template to fit the specific course.

Reviewing course pages for accessibility, branding compliance, and educational experience quality assurance.

  • Review course page accessibility using resources like the WAVE tool, the internal Canvas accessibility checker, and/or Lighthouse tool in Chrome.
  • Review course for branding compliance and educational experience quality assurance.
  • Add instructors to the course and give them the Teacher role in Canvas.
  • Share the course shell with a small cohort of educators and do a peer review.
  • Analyze feedback from the peer review and decide what changes to make. Keep technical changes in a changelog.txt text file in the course files.
  • Test changes made with a test student account. Check that course registration and payment are working as expected. Setup any special promo codes and test that they work.

Course launch, marketing, and post-launch monitoring:

  • Make final changes, open the course for enrollment, and promote the course in social media and other outlets.
  • Monitor how the course is working out for participants. Review feedback from participants and instructors for ideas to improve the course. Note small technical improvements and fixes in the changelog.txt text file.

What is Scarlet Canvas?

Scarlet Canvas is Ohio State’s public-facing LMS platform for non-credit, professional development, continuing education, and enrichment courses. This learning management platform is powered by the Canvas Catalog product from Instructure which can provide automated course completion certificate issuing and public course listings in a course catalog. Canvas courses in the system may be unlisted or publicly listed in the catalog. Ohio State Extension uses the Scarlet Canvas LMS for many of its enrichment  and public outreach courses. Instructors and learners can login into Scarlet Canvas at: https://scarlet.instructure.com/.

See these Canvas Links & Resources for more information about working with the Canvas LMS.

The benefits of using quizzes in online courses

Cognitively the act of taking a quiz, calling up knowledge from memory, makes that memory stronger and easier to access. So students who are more frequently quizzed retain more knowledge of the subject they are studying. Retrieval practice, such as with flash cards and practice quizzes has been found to be a powerful study method. Quizzes are beneficial learning check exercises to include in online courses as well. In academic courses it’s a common expectation that some of the assignments will be quizzes. Drafting quiz questions is a common checklist item on a course quality QA guide.

Contents:

Here are some of the benefits of using quizzes in online courses:

  • Retrieval practice occurring during quizzes can greatly enhance retention of the retrieved information. An even higher level of retention than from restudying or rereading the course material.
  • Quizzes permit students to discover gaps in their knowledge and focus study efforts on difficult material.
  • An indirect effect of quizzes was found that if quizzed frequently, students tended to study more and with more regularity.
  • Quizzing has been found to enable better metacognitive monitoring for both students and teachers because it provides feedback as to how well learning is progressing. Quizzes can be a beneficial self-learning check for students.
  • Every time a student calls up knowledge from memory like when taking a quiz, that memory solidifies becoming more stable and more accessible.

A Scientific American article noted that “research in cognitive science and psychology shows that testing, done right, can be an effective way to learn. Taking tests can produce better recall of facts and a deeper understanding than an education devoid of exams2.” In the academic world more frequent quizzing leads to better grades and academic performance. Practice quizzing in the academic realm can reduce high-stakes test-taking anxiety in students. In the continuing education and enrichment space the key benefit is better retention of useful knowledge and quizzes become lower stakes learning opportunities.

Enhancing quizzes as a learning opportunity with feedback and reflection

In order for a quiz to effectively function as a learning opportunity students need to receive feedback: information about what they got right and what they got wrong. So it’s important to thoughtfully setup feedback in online course quizzes. Learning management systems, like Canvas, have the ability to show feedback on both correct and incorrect answers. See this what options can I set in a quiz article for more information about setting up automatic feedback on question responses.

Getting students to engage in reflection after a test also helps reinforce what they learned. Some instructors use a quiz evaluation/reflection exercise called a ‘test wrapper’2. In it students are asked how think they could have studied better and if there’s any areas the instructor could help with.

Using quizzes as a method to ensure video lessons are fully watched by students

Having a quiz about a video is my instructional design colleague Amy’s recommended way of encouraging participants to watch full video lessons. Here’s some more info about Using Canvas quizzes as learning checks to assess that videos are watched. After the video in a course module the instructor can place a quiz to act as a learning check. Then assign a passing score that’s required to open the next module.

Recommendations for use of quizzes in Extension courses

Low-stakes quizzes are useful in Extension courses for ensuring video lessons are fully watched and getting participants to think about the material they just viewed (thereby retaining more knowledge from the course content). Some participants occasionally choose to not watch whole videos lessons missing out on key knowledge. A quiz acts as a self-learning check for them to reflect on what they learned and a method to assess they are ready to move on to the next lesson. Many Canvas LMS courses use a passing score on an end-of-module quiz to unlock the next module. It provides a time to pause and reflect on what was learned to wrap up that module lesson before jumping into the next lesson.

Since an online Extension course is lower stakes than an academic course, it’s a good idea to kept quizzes less formal, with a lighter tone. Quizzes don’t have to tedious, they can include questions designed to be fun and crafted for the intended age group. For example questions written for a 4-H age group might be different in tone than those written for an adult class. Using fun question types can make a quiz more like edutainment than an academic assessment. Both Canvas LMS quizzes and H5P learning objects have question types than can be used to create entertaining and engaging exercises. Taking a lighter, edutainment approach to quizzing also helps reduce traditional test-taking anxiety in participants putting them at ease.

Canvas LMS quizzing resources

Here are some additional resources related to using quizzes in the Canvas learning management system:

Written by Jon Gladden, FCS eLearning Developer

References:

1) Roediger, Henry & Putnam, Adam & Sumeracki, Megan. (2011). Ten Benefits of Testing and Their Applications to Educational Practice. 10.1016/B978-0-12-387691-1.00001-6. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291166244_Ten_Benefits_of_Testing_and_Their_Applications_to_Educational_Practice . Accessed on 14 Sep 21.

2) Paul, Annie Murphy. Researchers Find That Frequent Tests Can Boost Learning. Scientific American 313, 2, 54-61 (August 2015). Retrieved from: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/researchers-find-that-frequent-tests-can-boost-learning/ Accessed on 14 Sep 21.

Online course tips for success

In this post I cover some basic online course success tips to help educators as they develop their courses. These tips cover some basic, standard components of online courses that are occasionally overlooked. The Canvas learning management system has a lot of amazing course tools that can aid in online learning.

Course modules:

Courses in Canvas are divided into ‘modules’ which are like lessons containing several components like course pages, quizzes, or surveys. Links to PDF handouts or slide sets can also be posted in course pages. Course modules and pages organize course content in a more visual way than just putting it in a ‘Box’ folder.

Course pages and video lessons:

Course pages can be a combination of text, images, and video. Video lessons can be recorded ahead of time and posted via a lecture hosting service like MediaSite. Video lessons are a way of making course modules more engaging than just text. When participants are more engaged with an online they better retain the knowledge covered.

Including learning objectives:

It’s best practice to include your course-level learning objectives in the first module, like a welcome module. You can optionally put instructor bios in the welcome module to let your participants meet your educators. For some types of continuing education courses, you may want to include a pre-test quiz. You can also choose to have module-level learning objectives if it fits that course content.

Course evaluation surveys:

It’s a good practice to include a Qualtrics course evaluation survey in the last module of the online course. Sometimes it’s called the course completion module. Scarlet Canvas can be set to auto-issue a course completion certificate after the course completion module is completed. Depending on the type of course, a post-test quiz can be included as a requirement for completing the last module.

Assessing knowledge learned from video lessons:

Occasionally some participants will skip through course pages and video lessons in a rush to complete an online course. If you want to encourage them to fully watch lesson videos you can assess what they learned with quizzes at the end of the module. Canvas can be set to not open the next module until a passing score on a quiz is achieved. See my Using quizzes as learning checks to assess that videos are watched post for more information on setting this up in Canvas.

You can also embed more informal learning checks in course pages which can act as learning checks without being graded. Questions types from H5P can be embedded and used as more informal learning checks.

Discussion boards and the ‘People’ roster:

If you want participants to interact and learn from each other you can use Canvas course tools like the discussion board where you pose a question or topic and have people discuss it. Open discussion boards can become like a knowledge base for your course, answering frequently asked questions. In some types of courses however, participant privacy may be essential so in those cases you can deactivate the course ‘People’ roster so participants don’t interact. The ‘People’ roster will still be available to your Teacher role but the Student role in Canvas won’t be able to see it. How much you want participants to interact with each other depends on the type of online course you are developing.

 

Posting an announcement in a Canvas course

Below is an example announcement in a Canvas course. Announcements can be used to share important information with all users in your course. You could use announcements to remind students of important dates, point students to internal and external resources, celebrate student success, and highlight events of interest.

example announcement

To an announcement to your course:

  • Click on the ‘Announcements’ link in the left-nav.
  • Click on the ‘+ Announcement’ link on the right side.
  • Enter your announcement text. Announcements can also include multimedia and links to files.
  • Adust your announcement’s settings. You can choose to delay posting for a scheduled time.
  • Click Save.

You can also choose to post an announcement to the whole course or a specific section. For example, some courses have county sections. It’s also possible to allow students to comment on announcements. This can be enabled in your announcement’s settings.

For a demonstration of adding an announcement, see the How to post an announcement to a course MediaSite video.

What is Canvas Blueprint?

Canvas Blueprint makes it easy for LMS administrators or instructional designers to deploy, update, and maintain template courses that push content to associated courses. It allows admins to lock specific settings or content items and push updates to all associated courses through course syncing.
Here are some Canvas Blueprint resources: