Canvas Summary Part III

One advantage of Office 365 documents is the live collaboration spaces that can be created among students and teachers. This is great for paired projects, small groups, or if you need to keep a close eye on the progress of a student’s assignment.

If you’ve done something like this solely in Office 365, this process will be more streamlined, easier to access, and easier to submit.

lightbulb iconTIP: As mentioned in previous posts, students and teachers will need to make sure their Office 365 (OneDrive) accounts are connected to their Canvas courses. Also the below actions will actually be performed by the students, or one of the students in the collaborative pair or small group.  See the remaining steps below:

  1. Once in your course, click on the Collaboration item in the Course Navigation Menu.Canvas O365 021
  2. On the new page, click on the Start a New Collaboration button.
  3. It will take you to a new page.  As seen below, they will need to complete the Type and Document Name fields. A description is an option, but will display in the list of collaborations later.Canvas O365 022
  4. Below the fields, they will need to select the students and/or teacher to collaborate with.  Once they have all the individuals needed for the collaborative file, they will need to click on the Save button.Canvas O365 023
  5. As soon as they click on Save, the remaining members of the shared document will receive notifications through their Office 365 email.  The shared members can also go to their Collaboration section in their Canvas course and will now see the Collaboration file link.Canvas O365 024

Additional Notes to Consider with Collaborations

  • Collaborations will be listed in alphabetical order according to the created file name.
  • Students can edit the collaboration if they need to add/remove members of the file.
  • Students are also able to delete the Collaboration.  If the host collaborator deletes it, then it will be removed from shared members’ Collaboration section as well.
  • If the host collaborator removes a shared member, the shared member will still have access to the file.
  • Only teachers can remove shared members.
  • If shared members are to be documented on what were their contributions, then they need to open it from the email, or download the document by choosing to Edit in (program), not in Browser.
  • If working in the desktop program, then the members need to be sure to manually save their work.