Canvas Collaborations

Canvas leverages collaborative technology to allow multiple users to work together on the same document at the same time. Collaborative documents are saved in real-time, meaning a change made by any of its users will be immediately visible to everyone. Both students and instructors can create collaborations and they are automatically shared with the course instructors.

How to Use Collaborations

You can access Collaborations from the Course Navigation menu. You can use Collaborations to:

Copy and paste notes that everyone can access.
Share bullet-point lists or agendas for upcoming synchronous class or group time or meetings.
Create a text-based whiteboard that everyone in the classroom can see and refer to later.
Assign student groups a collaborative assignment as a graded assignment (instructor feature).

Collaborations that leverage Google Docs requires that all participating learners have created and linked their Google account to their personal settings. Students will be prompted to link the Boise State Google account the first time they access this tool.

Note that if you are the owner of the Collaboration, you will have to turn on the Share settings in the Google Doc to allow the group members to edit the document.

Visit Google Docs Help to learn more about how to collaborate on files with your group members.

Examples

You can use Collaborations to:

Copy and paste notes that everyone can access.
Share bullet-point lists or agendas for upcoming synchronous class or group time or meetings.
Create a text-based whiteboard that everyone in the classroom can see and refer to later.
Assign student groups a collaborative assignment as a graded assignment (instructor feature).

Related Information

To learn more about Collaborations, see these additional articles.

Collaborations Guides, Instructure
Bringing Canvas Collaborations and Assignments Together (video), Instructure
Using Google Tools in Canvas