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At a Glance
In this guide, you’ll learn about the default settings for a variety of tools that appear in your Course Navigation Menu in Canvas.
Links to tools that don’t have any content and that students cannot create content for will be automatically hidden for students and will display the Visibility icon (eye with a slash through it) to instructors. For example, if there are no announcements posted for the course, you and your teaching team will see the Announcements link with the Visibility icon, but students will not see the link at all in the Course Navigation Menu.
To learn how to customize your Course Navigation Menu, refer to How do I manage Course Navigation links?
Course Navigation Menu Settings
By default, the following tools appear in the Course Navigation Menu of your Canvas course:
Home
This is the page that users see when they first enter your course. By default, the Course Home Page is set to display your course modules, but you can also set it to display a page (e.g. Course Overview page) or Course Activity Stream.
Note: If you use the Course Overview page as your Course Home Page, add “Modules” to the Course Navigation Menu, so that students can easily find your course modules. To learn how to customize your Course Navigation Menu, refer to How do I manage Course Navigation links?
Announcements
If you do not create an announcement, this tool will not be visible to students in the Course Navigation Menu.
This is tool is a great way to communicate with your students.
Discussions
The Discussions tool will remain hidden from students in the Course Navigation Menu until you create a discussion.
Files
We recommend keeping this tool visible to students so they can download course files in bulk.
Grades
This tool allows students to see their individual grades, but not a total course grade.
People
This tool must be visible in order allow student to view and/or join groups.
Photobook
This tool is visible to the teaching team and students.
The Photobook tool is a custom Canvas integration that displays student profile information and professional headshots from the student’s MySloan bio in their Canvas course sites.
Membership Tool
This tool is only visible to the teaching team—not students.
The Membership tool is a custom Canvas integration that allows teaching teams to provide students with temporary access to Canvas courses as well as add teaching team guests (e.g. Faculty Observers, Mentors, etc.) to Canvas courses.
MITSIS Grade Export
This tool is only visible to the teaching team—not students.
The MITSIS Grade Export tool is a custom Canvas integration that allows teaching teams to enter the final grade and comments for each registered student and then export the data for submission to the Registrar’s system.
Once you’ve entered the grades and comments in the MIT Grade Export tool in your Canvas course, click Download to create a .csv file that you upload to MITSIS.
Videos
This tool is visible to the teaching team and students.
Panopto is MIT’s lecture capture tool and video hosting platform that allows you to record, host, share, and search videos. Your course videos are accessible by clicking Videos in the Course Navigation Menu.
