Canvas Frequently Asked Questions

We will be collecting the most commonly asked questions regarding Marian University's Canvas site, pages, courses, and users. If you have a question that you would like to submit about Canvas, contact Blake using the information on the right.

Can I combine two of my courses into one Canvas course?

Yes, you can. In Canvas this is known as cross-listing and it means that multiple sections of students that share the same content share the same Canvas course. You can use the same pages and content for both courses (rather than uploading everything multiple times) but also use the same (or different) assignments, discussions, announcements. You can also identify different timelines for when these become available or when they are due. For more information on cross-listing see our page here.

Can I add a user to my Canvas course?

Yes, you can. See our information here regarding adding, modifying, or removing a user's enrollment in a course.

When I create a quiz, Canvas asks if I want it to be a Classic Quiz or New Quiz. What are these and how are they different.

Canvas created a new type of quiz and they are in a slow rollout of the New Quizzes feature. Eventually, the plan is to remove the Classic Quizzes option as a possibility. Currently, the removal of Classic Quizzes has been postponed to July 2022 at the earliest. It should be noted that any Classic Quizzes can be imported into New Quizzes without much of a problem. However, Question Banks currently cannot be transferred.

One key way that both Classic Quizzes and New Quizzes are alike is that they can both be used with Respondus Lockdown Browser. The methods for getting into the quiz is a little different though. Classic Quiz users will need to open Lockdown Browser first and then log into Canvas. New Quiz users will need to open it in the browser of their choice, login to Canvas, and go to and open the Quiz before the Lockdown Browser will start.

As for how they are different, you can check Canvas' chart showing the similarities and differences here, but the main difference is that New Quizzes offers some new question types: Categorization, Stimulus/Package, Ordering, and Hotspot.

Instructors should also know that there are some features still missing from New Quizzes that they may be used to from Classic Quizzes. Currently, there is no Student Item Analysis report available. This means that Instructors will have to download a spreadsheet report of the entire test to do an analysis. New Quizzes also does not work with Canvas' SpeedGrader. This is an especially important limitation for instructors that have non-automatic grading questions in their quizzes.