Canvas: Create an Assignment

Assignments drive most of our course design in Canvas because assignments allow us to give dates to activities in the course. We predominantly use 3 types of assignments

How Do I Create a Discussion Assignment?
Discussion assignments are online conversation assignments that have a due date so that canvas will notify students in their calendar and to-do list that they need to participate in the discussion. Typically, discussion assignments involve some prompts related to course materials and then students are asked to engage each other asynchronously in dialog. The prompts for the discussion can include links to readings, embedded audio and video, links to other resources, images, etc. Instructors need not respond to or even read every single post, but should be active participants in the discussion.

How Do I Create an Online Submission Assignment?
Online submission assignments allow students to submit work for just the instructor to see and assess. Students will typically submit a PDF or DOC file and the instructional team will be able to comment on this document and give it a grade right in the Canvas grader without needing to download anything and the feedback will be delivered directly to the student. We recommend enabling Turnitin Checking (our integrated plagiarism checking tool) for online submission assignments to encourage student learning about proper use of sources.

How Do I Create a Placeholder Assignment?
We use the Not-Graded assignment type in Canvas to remind students of important due dates. For example, often discussion assignments will have more than one due date, an initial date for beginning interactions and then a follow-up date for extended engagement. A placeholder assignment in Canvas can make sure the second due date gets onto the course schedule and the student to-do lists and can link back to the original discussion container.