Get Oriented in Your Canvas Workspace

Welcome to Canvas. After logging in, you will see several menus, buttons, and tools that help you access courses, manage your account, communicate, and stay organized.

Before opening an individual course, take a few minutes to become familiar with your Canvas workspace. Understanding what you are looking at—and which tools apply across all your courses—will make it easier to navigate Canvas with confidence.

What You See When You Log In

Your Dashboard is the main landing page you see after logging in to Canvas. It provides quick access to your courses and may also display announcements, course invitations, upcoming activities, and items that need your attention.

Along the left side of the screen, you will see the Global Navigation menu. These tools belong to your Canvas account and remain available no matter which course you are viewing.

The Global Navigation menu gives you access to the tools you'll use most often as an instructor, including:

Account — Manage your profile, settings, personal files, accessibility options, and notification preferences.
Dashboard — View and open courses displayed as course cards.
Courses — Access your complete course list and manage which courses appear on the Dashboard.
Calendar — View dates, events, and scheduled activities across courses.
Inbox — Send and receive messages within Canvas.
Help — Access Canvas Support, guides, and learning resources.

Your First Step: Explore the Global Navigation Menu

Begin by selecting each item in the Global Navigation menu to become familiar with where it leads. You don't need to memorize every feature today. Simply understanding where your Dashboard, Courses, Calendar, Account settings, and Help resources are located will make it much easier to work in Canvas.

Why start here? These tools are available across all of your courses. Becoming comfortable with them first will make it easier to manage your Canvas experience before you begin working inside an individual course.

Continue One Step at a Time

The remaining pages in this module will guide you through the account-level tools available before you begin working inside an individual course.

Continue through this module to learn how to navigate Canvas, personalize your account, organize your Dashboard and courses, manage notifications, and use the Canvas Calendar.

The next module will take you inside an individual Canvas course and introduce the course-level tools used to build and organize your course space.

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