There are different ways to communicate amongst your peers in Canvas. You can write and receive messages via the inbox and receive information from your teachers through announcements. All teachers communicate in different ways and some will not use their Canvas inbox. Therefore it is important to determine how you will be communicating at the start of the course.

The message you get via Canvas will also be sent as a copy to your email and you will also get it as a notification through the app. If you would like to deactivate or activate notifications you can do so via Notification Settings.

Inbox

In Canvas there is the possibility to communicate with all course participants, both teachers and students. This is done through the 'Inbox' option in the Canvas menu.

picture showing the inbox

If you have an unread message a notification symbol will appear in the canvas menu. When you click on the inbox the unread message will be marked with a brown circle, as pictured above .

(1) The first thing you will see is a summary of all your messages. By clicking on a message it will display its contents on the column on the right. From here you have a number of options for your messages according to the menu (3), see point below. You can mark one or more messages by clicking on the white box next to the date.

(2) Sort your messages by different groups or courses. You can sort by inbox, unread messages, sent messages and so on.

(3) The menu for your messages. For this to become activated you must first mark a message. You can then choose if you want to write a new message, delete a message and so on. You can also use the search function to find a contact.

Announcements

The teacher can communicate to the whole course via announcements. Announcements can be set to be able to allow comments, but most often it is a one way communication. The latest announcements are shown on the course homepage. Depending on how the course menu is structured and what functions are visible you can find earlier announcements under the tab 'Announcements', but this function may be hidden.

picture showing how to announcements

Communication whilst doing group work

The Groups function gives you the possibility to send messages via the inbox directly to the group. You can also create your own announcements in the group that can bee seen by all students and teachers listed as participants. Read more about functions for here. Other ways of communicating can be done via Zoom and Teams.

Having trouble understanding? Information missing from the guide? Send us a message at: servicedesk@lu.se