This article will provide a brief review of the necessary steps to use the Outcomes-Canvas Integration. Using the integration will require some set up in Canvas and Campus Labs.
1. Curriculum Mapping
Anthology recommends that Anthology Outcomes site admins first take some time to align their program level outcomes to their course level outcomes. It will be much easier to use the integration when the courses that are contributing to program level assessments have already been identified. This step is done outside of Outcomes and Canvas.
2. Configure Canvas Outcomes
The Anthology Outcomes integration with Canvas leverages data from the Outcomes feature of Canvas. This ensures that data pulled into Anthology for the purposes of demonstrating institutional learning performance includes results that are the result of intentional assessment efforts by faculty members.
For more information on setting up and using the Canvas Outcomes feature, see this article. Canvas also has helpful Support resources, including an admin guide and guide for instructors to use their Outcomes feature.
Please note that Anthology does not have access to your institution's instance of Canvas and cannot implement this feature on your behalf.
3. Collect Results in Canvas
In Anthology Outcomes, you are able to pull in course-level outcomes from Canvas that have collected results with points. Results can be collected by appending outcomes to Canvas rubrics or associating outcomes with Canvas question banks for tests and quizzes. Any method of assessment Canvas supports can be used for results to be made available in Anthology Outcomes.
4. Complete Technical Set Up In Anthology Outcomes
Some technical set-up in Anthology Outcomes is required to use the integration, including the creation of a developer key in Canvas.
5. Prepare to Aggregate Course-Level Canvas Data in Anthology Outcomes
At the end of a data collection period (typically the end of a semester or academic year), deans, department chairs, program assessment coordinators, and other institutional assessment professionals will log into Anthology Outcomes to report on their courses' Canvas results.
In order to utilize the integration, those individuals will need to have one of the following course-level roles in Canvas for the courses they oversee:
- Student
- Teacher
- TA
- Designer
- Observer
In addition, they will need add/edit/delete permissions to Canvas Outcomes for those courses.
In Anthology Outcomes, they will need access to the organizational unit in Outcomes where assessment data will be imported with at least a creator-level permission.
Please note, Anthology will not be able to change or check your Canvas settings. These actions will have to be completed by someone with the proper access on your campus. We suggest you reach out to your campus’s LMS administrator for more information. You can also read more about the different permissions in Outcomes and Canvas.
6. Train End Users and Using the Integration
After the technical implementation is properly completed, you are now ready to use the integration. When users log in to Anthology Outcomes for the first time after the integration is established, they will receive an in-app tutorial on how to use the integration. This will only occur for the first log in. To assist after this initial log in, we have also created a step-by-step guide that will work end users through the process of using the integration.
7. Initial usage
When a user selects the LMS Import option for an outcome for the first time, they will have to verify their Canvas credentials. They will be asked to either affirm and verify your Canvas credentials, or asked to enter their Canvas credentials. Please note, each user will only be asked to do this on the first instance of importing data. They will not have to repeat the action every time they choose to import data from Canvas to Anthology Outcomes.