how to make a cloud assignment on canvas

BITS AND PIECES

Canvas Office Cloud Assignment Tips

For those of you who love Teams and the ease of creating cloud assignments for your students, never fear, Canvas has a similar ability. Here are some of tips I’ve gathered from working with you all the past few weeks.

You asked, we are answering, here are some tips for using Office in Canvas

Question: do students need to log into office 365 in canvas in every course.

Yes, students will need to log into Office 365 (One Drive) in Canvas in at least one course. It should then carry over to all their courses. It may require logging in again in the future, but staying on the same device and same browser will eliminate the need to sign in repeatedly. We also suggest adding their ISD email to their account settings in Canvas as this will act as a pass through for other account related issues. Once students are logged into Office, they will have access to their One Drive for uploading assignments, collaborations, and cloud assignments. 

Question: I’m trying to add Office 365 to my Course apps, it wants a key and secret. How do I get those?

Great news, like many of the apps in Canvas, we have already added it at the admin level! You just need to access it from your settings and navigation to enable it. Very few apps in Canvas will need individual integration, most will be completed at the admin level. If in doubt, check your settings and navigation to find where the external apps are hiding. Make sure to enable ones appropriate for your course, disable ones you do not need and always click “Save.”

Question: I have chosen External tool submission, but I cannot see Office as a choice, where is it?

The external submission selection box pops up and you have scrolled down, but seem to get no further than the “F’s” in the selection options. Well, as I learned from a summer camp attendee, you have to expand the pop up box to see the internal scroll bar (see photo). You will then be able to scroll down all the way to Zoom!

Question: What is the difference between a .docx and .doc file? How do I get my .doc to .docx?

A .docx file, or .xlsx or .pptx is newer version of Office document files. They tend to be smaller in size and more efficient for sharing. They also make it more seamless when creating a cloud assignment for your students to edit in the browser without the need to download. For any file you have uploaded to One Drive, you can see the extension. If you see the .doc, open it and you will notice instead of opening to edit, it will show this menu bar option instead:

Once you click on “Edit Document” it will initiate the change from .doc to .docx.

Note, that after you convert, you will see two versions of the document in your One Drive. I do suggest deleting the original .doc version to help avoid confusion. Now that you have your “x” file version, you can choose it as your Office 365 cloud assignment for your students. 

Question: When I use my test student to check the Office cloud assignment, I don’t see anything. Did my file not work?

Actually, your file likely did work, but your test student does not have an Office 365 account to view the document. While I love having everyone check their course through the test student’s “eyes” it will not work with external tool assignments. Your test student won’t have access to any of the external accounts. 

Question: Can I use a rubric in speedgrader for Office cloud assignments?

Yes(ish)…we have a workaround for that. Please check out a previous BNP post on the external tool workaround.  

Question: Can I add PDFs from One Drive as cloud assignments?

No, unfortunately, you can only include Office documents (Word, Excel, or PowerPoint). To have your students complete a PDF, Cayley Byrne found this really awesome workaround. “ Annotating PDFs in Canvas ” by Kelsey Ogg. 

Here are more resources from Canvas to support making Office cloud assignments:

How do I create  a cloud assignment 

For students: submitting an Office cloud assignment 

• Category: Canvas , Office 365
• Tag: Canvas , cloud , office , Office 365

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This is GREAT. Thanks Stephanie

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University Center for Teaching and Learning

How to create assignments for your canvas course.

• Quick Start
• Instructor Help
• Student Help

How to Create Assignments

Using assignments in Canvas provides a streamlined process for assigning homework and creating quizzes for students.  Canvas considers an ‘assignment’ to be anything that is graded, whether that be a quiz or homework assignment, and whether it’s delivered entirely online, paper-and-pencil, or is a participatory assignment with no actual deliverable.

This Quick Start guide will cover the creation of assignments where the student submits a file electronically, on paper, using an external tool such as Turnitin or Panopto , or where no submission is expected (e.g. class participation). See How to Create Tests and Quizzes for Your Canvas Course and Create and Manage Discussions for more information about using those tools as assignments.

1. In the Course Navigation menu, click the Assignments link.

2. Click “ +Assignment ” at the top right.

3. Write the assignment title and directions for students.

4. Assign the number of points available for the assignment.

5. Choose an “ Assignment Group” . Assignment groups are, in essence, a category of assignment. For more information about using Assignment Groups, see the Canvas guides regarding Assignments.

6. There are four submission types :

• No Submission: an activity where nothing will be collected from students (e.g. a participation grade)
• For the full details about the online assignment subtypes, (text entry, annotation, file upload, etc.), please see the official documentation .
• We have a recorded mini-webinar on annotation assignments, including assignment ideas, available on the Training Webinars page.
• On Paper: assignments/quizzes/activities that were written on paper and collected by the instructor
• External Tool: assignments submitted through a 3rd party tool that is integrated with Canvas, such as a textbook publisher’s website or Turnitin

7. Submission Attempts: You may allow unlimited submission attempts for Online assignments, or restrict attempts to one or more. When a student submits to an assignment they have already submitted to, the previous submission is retained as well, and the instructor may view both.

8. Group Assignments and Peer Reviews:  Assignments can be created as either a group assignment or peer review assignment.

9. Assign options- You can assign an assignment to your entire class, a specific student, and/or a section of your class. You can also set the due date and the availability dates (when your students can submit their assignment). Each section can have different due dates and availability dates.

10. If you are finished creating the assignment, click on “ Save & Publish “. If you are not finished creating the assignment, click on “ Save ” and you may come back and work on it more later without students having access to it.

Instructor Help for Assignments

Creating assignments.

• How do I create an assignment?
• How do I add a moderated assignment to be graded by multiple reviewers?
• How do I create an online assignment?
• How do I add or edit details in an assignment?
• How do I add or edit points for an assignment?
• What assignment types can I create in a course?
• How do I limit submission attempts for an assignment?
• How do I add an assignment that includes anonymous grading?
• How do I enable anonymous instructor annotations in student submissions?
• How do I import SCORM files as an assignment?
• How do I publish or unpublish an assignment as an instructor?

Managing Assignments

• How do I use the Assignments Index Page?
• Can a student resubmit Canvas assignments?
• How do I assign an assignment to everyone in a course?
• How do I assign an assignment to a course group?
• How do I assign an assignment to a course section?
• How do I assign an assignment to an individual student?
• How do I view differentiated assignments with different due dates in a course?
• How do I bulk update due dates and availability dates as an instructor?
• How do I delete an assignment?
• How do I duplicate an assignment?
• How do I move or reorder an assignment?
• How do I use Direct Share to copy an assignment to another course?
• How do I use Direct Share to send an assignment to another instructor?

Creating and Managing Peer Review Assignments

• How do I create a peer review assignment?
• How do I use peer review assignments in a course?
• How do I automatically assign peer reviews for an assignment?
• How do I manually assign peer reviews for an assignment?
• How do I view student peer review comments as an instructor?

Creating External Tool Assignments

• How do I add an assignment using an external app?
• How do I create a cloud assignment with a Microsoft Office 365 file?

Using Assignment Groups

• How do I add an assignment group in a course?
• How do I create an assignment shell in an assignment group?
• How do I create rules for an assignment group?
• How do I move or reorder an assignment group?
• How do I weight the final course grade based on assignment groups?

Grading Considerations

• How do I add a grading scheme to an assignment?
• How do I download all student submissions for an assignment?
• How do I upload all student submissions for an assignment?
• How do I exclude an assignment from the course’s final grades?
• How do I give extra credit in a course?

Student Help for Assignments

• How do I view Assignments as a student?
• How do I filter assignments by type as a student?
• How do I submit an online assignment?
• How do I submit a text entry assignment?
• How do I enter a URL as an assignment submission?
• How do I submit a media file as an assignment submission?
• How do I upload a file as an assignment submission in Canvas?
• How do I upload a file from Microsoft Office 365 as an assignment submission?
• How do I know when my assignment has been submitted?
• How do I manage celebration animations in Canvas as a student?
• How do I submit a cloud assignment with Microsoft Office 365?
• How do I download assignment submissions from all my courses?
• How do I annotate a file as an assignment submission in Canvas?
• How do I use DocViewer in Canvas assignments as a student?
• How do I submit a PDF assignment with annotations in the Student app on my Android device?
• How do I add annotations to a submission in the Student app on my iOS device?

Groups and Peer

• How do I submit an assignment on behalf of a group?
• How do I know if I have a peer review assignment to complete?
• How do I submit a peer review to an assignment?
• Where can I find my peers’ feedback for peer reviewed assignments?
• How do I view the rubric for my assignment?
• How do I view the rubric for my external tool assignment?
• How do I view rubric results for my assignment?
• How do I know when my instructor has graded my assignment?
• How do I view assignment comments from my instructor?
• How do I view annotation feedback comments from my instructor directly in my assignment submission?
• How do I view my Roll Call Attendance report as a student?
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Use Assignments with Canvas

Google Assignments and Canvas expanded Google Docs Editors and Google Drive to be compatible with Canvas for file submissions. With Assignments, you can distribute and grade student work, analyze student submissions for plagiarism detection, and use Google Docs and Drive with Canvas. 

Features and benefits of Assignments

When admins enable Google Assignments in Canvas settings, you can use its features and benefits.

• Grade in Google’s grading interface or in SpeedGrader™.
• File attachments to an assignment so each student gets their own copy to edit and submit.
• Detect missed citation checks and possible plagiarism with the originality reports feature.
• Students can submit Drive files to Canvas assignments, which instructors can grade in SpeedGrader™.
• Embed Drive files with the Canvas rich text editor.
• Add Drive files to Canvas Modules.

Assignments also provides improvements from Google Apps LTI:

• Officially supported by Google and covered by the Google Workspace for Education Terms of Service.
• Provides an option for admins to require students to use their school-issued Google accounts.
• Uses Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) 1.3 for stronger security.
• Create a new Canvas assignment.

Students can submit Drive files that you can grade with SpeedGrader™.

For teachers

Allow students to submit drive files with canvas assignments.

• After you create a new Canvas assignment, next to "Submission Type", select Online .
• Under "Online Entry Options", select File Uploads.

Important: You must select File Uploads or the submission will fail.

For students

Turn in assignments.

• Ensure you're signed into your school account. 
• Next to "File Upload", click  Google Drive.
• To open a Google Drive window, click Select file.
• Select the Drive file.

• Sign in to Canvas.
• Open the course.

• Sign in to your Google Account.
• Click Allow .
• Select the Google Drive file.
• Click Submit.

Open all   |   Close all

From October 2023, Instructure will no longer support the Google Apps LTI. This means:

• No new installs will be allowed.
• No further development will be made on it.
• No customer support will be available.

Google and Instructure makes sure that Google Assignments LTI 1.3 has the Google Apps LTI functions, and includes:

• Improved security
• Flexibility
• Integrations 

Current Google Apps LTI users won’t lose access but should transition over to Google Assignments LTI 1.3.

To use the latest Assignments features, you can install and migrate to Google Assignments LTI 1.3.

No. Currently, you can’t embed a form or select one as a file type for quizzes. To use Forms for quizzes, create a form and share the link with your students. Learn how to create a Google Form.

• Any submitted work for the Google Apps LTI Cloud assignment that you want to migrate will reset. 
• If you want to keep your previous submissions, make a copy of the Canvas assignment .
• Find the Canvas assignment you want to migrate to Google Assignments LTI 1.3.

• Click Find .
• If you can’t find this option, request your Canvas administrator to turn on Google Assignments LTI 1.3 .
• Link your Google Workspace for Education account.
• Click Continue .
• Attach the Drive worksheet files.
• Choose your grading tool, then make sure the due date and points are updated.
• Click Create .

Related topics

• Set up Assignments in Canvas
• Set up Assignments in Schoology or another LMS
• Set up Assignments in Blackboard
• Set up Assignments in D2L/Brightspace
• Set up Assignments in Moodle
• Set up Assignments in Sakai

Google, Google Workspace, and related marks and logos are trademarks of Google LLC. All other company and product names are trademarks of the companies with which they are associated.

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E-Campus Faculty and Staff

How-to: create assignment templates or worksheets in canvas with google drive cloud assignments.

By:  Gracia Ostendorf     

Imagine this scenario...

Professor Johnson teaches a Nursing course that has several assignments in which students answer questions on a worksheet. As a Miami instructor, Professor Johnson has access to a Google Drive account with her Miami email address. She prefers to create her worksheets in Google Drive, using Google Docs, to ensure that she always uses the most updated version handy and always has access to them no matter what computer she’s working on.

But it’s a tedious process to download each worksheet from her Drive, save it to her computer, and then upload it into each Canvas Assignment for her course. And if she does this, she has to redo the whole process every time she makes a change to a worksheet.

Seems like there should be a smoother process, right? There is - with an integration between Canvas and Google Drive called “Google Drive Cloud Assignments.”

Sharing templates or worksheets with Google Drive Cloud Assignments

Instructors can share an existing file (such as a Google Doc) from their Google Drive as an Assignment in Canvas. When the file is shared, a copy of the file is saved in each student’s Google Drive when they open the Assignment in Canvas. Students can work on their copy of the file within Canvas, or directly within their Google Drive. This is a great option for course assignments that involve a template or worksheet for students to complete.

To create a Cloud Assignment in Canvas using a Google Drive file:

• Navigate to " Assignments" using the left-hand navigation menu.

• Click the “+ Assignment” button, and add your new Assignment’s name, description, point value, and group.

• Under the “Submission Type” drop-down, select "External Tool." Click the “Find” button that appears under External Tool Options.

• Select “Google Drive Cloud Assignment” from the list.

• Locate and select the file you want to share as the Assignment from your Google Drive in the window that appears, then click “Submit.”

• Back on the Configure External Tool window, click the “Select” button. Then “Save” your Assignment or “Save & Publish” if you’re ready for students to see it.

Important information for students on using Google Drive Cloud Assignments:

Students will access the Assignment just as they would any other Assignment in your course - either through the " Assignments"  link in the left-hand navigation menu, or within a Module of your course if you have added the Assignment in one of your Modules. They will see the Google Doc (or Sheet, or Slides) embedded on the Assignment page, with a button to Submit the Assignment when they’re ready:

Need instructions to share with your students to explain how they can access and work with Google Drive Cloud Assignments in Canvas? Try this step by step guide:

• How do I submit a cloud assignment with Google Drive?

You may also be interested in:

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If at any point you would like support or guidance while you are teaching a distance learning course, please connect with us!  We are here to help.

Getting Started with Canvas Assignments

• Last modification date Updated On June 8, 2023
• Categories: Assignments , Canvas , Uncategorized
• Categories: assessment , Getting Started , Grading

Canvas  Assignments  are a way for instructors to provide students opportunities to practice using the knowledge and skills they have gained or to assess student performance related to such knowledge and skills. (Creating an Assignment is the  only  way to create a new column in the Gradebook.)

In Canvas there are four basic  Submission Types  for assignments. The submission types include:

• No Submission : For assignments for which you are not collecting any content from the students.
• Text Entry : For students to enter text directly into a text box on Canvas.
• Website URL : For students to enter a URL (usually to a blog, video, podcast, etc.).
• Media Recordings : For students to upload or record media for submission.
• File Uploads : For students to upload files for submission ( Restrict Upload File Types  will allow you to limit which types of files may be submitted).
• On Paper : For assignments students will submit in person.
• External Tool : For assignments which students will submit through a third-party tool (such as Turnitin, Panopto Video Quiz, and PlayPosit).

Managing an Assignment

Managing assignment groups.

When getting started with Assignments, learn to

• Create an assignment shell with the Canvas guide  How do I create an assignment? 

If you select  Peer Reviews Appear Anonymously , annotation tools in  SpeedGrader  will become unavailable.

If you change the  Assign To  area from  Everyone  to select students after submissions have already begun, and do not have a second set of Assign To dates, submissions from unassigned students will disappear.

• Published assignments are visible as existing outside of availability dates, but students cannot see the details.
• If looking to update the due and/or availability dates on multiple assignments, see   How do I bulk update due dates and availability dates as an instructor?
• If choosing the option to make an assignment a  Group Assignment : If only assigning to specific groups, make sure to click the  X  on the  Everyone Else  choice under  Assign to .

Media Recording  Assignments are not recommended due to technical reasons. Instead, have students submit media by embedding it in a  Text Entry  assignment through Panopto .

Clearly express expectations and criteria for grading by using a  Rubric .

Be cautious limiting submission attempts, as students often make mistakes loading documents and need multiple attempts to ensure you have the correct submission.

• Delete an assignment with the Canvas guide  How do I delete an assignment?
• This duplication process will not work for Quizzes.
• Attach a rubric to an assignment for grading or to communicate expectations to students with the Canvas guide  How do I add a rubric to an assignment?

Accessibility Tips

• Use descriptive text for links, instead of long URLs or ‘click here’. 
• Make instructions brief and to-the-point. Avoid long paragraphs and sentences.
• Consider allowing multiple submission types to accommodate technical limitations students may face.

Assignment Groups  are a way to categorize different graded items in Canvas. For example, you may have journals, blogs, and essays which your students create in your course. Assignment Groups allow you to label and group different types of assignments separately in order to better organize and for ease when applying weighting (see  How do I weight the final course grade based on assignment groups? ). When getting started with Assignment Groups, learn to

• Add and delete assignment groups with the Canvas guide  How do I add an assignment group in a course?
• Move or reorder an assignment group with the Canvas guide  How do I move or reorder an assignment group?
• Make rules governing grading expectations within assignment groups with the Canvas guide  How do I create rules for an assignment group?

Additional Resources

• CTI Resource: What is the Assignments Index Page?
• How do I bulk update due dates and availability dates as an instructor?
• How do I weight the final course grade based on assignment groups?
• Canvas Student Guide

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Turn on automatic forwarding in New and Classic Outlook for Windows ( also Outlook on the web )

Important:  Steps may be different between  new  and classic Outlook for Windows. To determine which version of Outlook you're using, look for  File  on the ribbon. If there's no  File  option, follow the steps under the New Outlook tab. If the  File  option appears, select the tab for Classic Outlook .

At the top of the page, select Settings   .

Select Mail > Forwarding . 

Toggle the  Enable forwarding  switch, enter the forwarding email address, and click  Save .

Note:  If you want a copy of the original message to remain in your mailbox, select Keep a copy of forwarded messages .

You can automatically forward or redirect your email messages by setting up an Inbox rule. This is useful if you want to read and respond to messages from another email account or when you want someone else to receive and respond to your email in your absence.

On the ribbon, select the Home tab, then in the Move section, select Rules > Manage Rules & Alerts . 

On the Email Rules tab, ensure that Apply changes to this folder is set to the email address you want to start from.

Select New Rule .

Under Start from a blank rule , select Apply rule on messages I receive . Select Next . 

Select Next —without selecting any conditions or editing the rule description. Then confirm that this new rule should be applied to every message you receive.

Under Step 1: Select action(s) , select redirect it to people or public group and stop processing more rules . 

Under Step 2: Edit the rule description , select the people or public group link. 

In the Rule Address dialog, under Address Book , select the contact list that contains the address you want to forward to, then enter and confirm the email address that you want to forward all your mail to so that the address is in the To box at the bottom. Select OK . 

Select Finish , then select Apply , then select OK .

When you first check that messages are being forwarded successfully, look in the Junk or Spam folder to see if the forwarded messages have been put there. 

Reply to or forward an email message

Manage email messages by using rules

Select Enable forwarding , enter the forwarding email address, and select Save .

Create, reply to, or forward email messages in Outlook on the web

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