Canvas Integration (Legacy)

Use our new integration: SELMA Canvas Integration

How to get Canvas

Canvas can be subscribed to as a service, contact us via support@selma.co.nz for more information. The canvas integration with SELMA is free if you are subscribed to canvas through SEBDATA. If you have subscribed to canvas through another provider, you will have to subscribe to the SELMA canvas integration.

Setting up the Canvas integration

The SELMA support team will setup the canvas integration in the first place. However, in the SELMA integrations menu (Settings -> Integrations -> Canvas (Legacy)) as some configuration can be done by the SELMA administrator:

The relevant parameters for an administrator to decide on will be “Canvas Auto Notify” which, if enabled, will make canvas email the users when their account was created in canvas and when they are enrolled into a course. It is the equivalent to the tick box “Email the user about this account creation” in canvas below when creating a student:

If the “Canvas Email2 Auto Generate” is enabled, the account in canvas for a person will be created using the Email 2 (secondary email) field in SELMA and it will auto generate the email if it does not exist.

The “Canvas Email2 Domain” is the domain it will use to generate the second email address.

All other parameters should be configured by the SELMA support team or by staff that have the understanding of the API connection between SELMA and canvas.

Setup Intake

An intake in SELMA is a cohort of students studying the same programme in the same campus at the same time. In Canvas, an intake can be seen as a group where students study together (Course Section).

Master Data

Whenever an integration run between SELMA and CANVAS takes place, the list of modules and courses in CANVAS is imported and updated in SELMA.

Linking a SELMA Intake to a Canvas Course

On the intake tab, via the Canvas Course field, the intake can be directly linked to a course in CANVAS. This means that if a student achieves the selected CANVAS course, the enrolment is completed entirely in SELMA.

In the below example, the “New Zealand Certificate in Cookery Culinary Arts (Level 4)” is achieved if a student successfully finished the course “NZQA Level 4” in CANVAS:

If a student completes a course in CANVAS, it can either complete the whole enrolment in SELMA or only an individual component. See how these are linked on the next page.

Linking Canvas Modules or Courses to SELMA Intake Components

Every component in an intake can be linked to a course OR module in CANVAS. If the linked course or module is completed in canvas, the student will get an achieved grade against the component in SELMA. Once the achieved grade is in SELMA, it can be either approved by an administrator/registrar or the component is marked as completed by the completion workflow (if setup in Programme).

To link the CANVAS course or module to a component in SELMA, open the intake component and select the course or module from the drop-down list. In the below example, the first component in SELMA will be graded as achieved in SELMA if the student has successfully completed the Canvas module “Survey 1 – Enrolment Evaluation Feedback”.

Have a good think about the structure and relationship of CANVAS courses and module with programmes and components in SELMA. At least one CANVAS course needs to be linked in SELMA, modules alone will not trigger a synced (enrolment) in CANVAS.

Trigger Events

Now that the intake is setup with links to CANVAS, an enrolment into the Intake in SELMA will trigger the enrolment in CANVAS if:

• The intake has at least one module or course linked to it either on the intake tab or in the individual intake components
• The intake start date is not more than 14 days in the future
• The intake is of status “Open” or “Full”
• The student’s enrolment is of status “Provisional” or “Confirmed”
• The student has a valid email address

Sequence of Integration Events

Once a student gets enrolled into an intake that is setup as described in the previous chapter, the integration will run a series of scripts to sync the systems:

• Create a student if the student does not already exist
• Creates staff members linked to the intake as teachers in CANVAS if they are not in existance
• Enrol the student into the CANVAS course if not already enrolled
• Link the student to the CANVAS course section if not already linked
• Import module and course completions back to SELMA once achieved in CANVAS

Student

The student record is the contact record of the learner or the “People” in Canvas.

Trigger Events

The student (user) is created in Canvas when the student is enrolled in SELMA if the user does not already exist.

System Links

Below is a user in both SELMA and Canvas. The ID number is the unique link:

For LMS

Synchronization

First name, surname, email and login information are synchronised between the systems.

Users

Intake Staff (Users), like the students above, are created in CANVAS “people” and assigned as a teacher to the course if they are not already in existence.

Both students and intake staff will create people accounts in CANVAS and once these accounts are activated, they will be charged for.

Creating a student or staff in CANVAS via the integration may or may not send an invitation email. This depends on your setup. Please discuss this with your SEBDATA implementation consultant.

Enrolments

In the below example, Evelyn was added to the intake and subsequently enrolled in CANVAS into the correct course and section:

Course Sections

An intake in SELMA will create a course section in CANVAS, this will simplify the identification of cohorts in CANVAS:

If an intake name was entered in the intake, the intake name will be the section name. If no intake name is entered, the intake code will be the section name.

Marks / Grades

Once assessments and courses are completed in Canvas, they will be marked in SELMA with the appropriate grade. SELMA imports all grades and marks of matching component enrolments into the students enrolment accordingly. It is important that for modules, a Requirements rule is setup:

Below example shows Evelyn having completed Module 1 (she has met the Requirements as defined above):

Once the sync runs, the result is imported into SELMA as a “Teacher Mark”:

SELMA will import marks only. Final approval of a mark is still subject to a SELMA administrator signing it off. Multiple workflows can be setup to complete the parent courses or the whole programme automatically in SELMA after individual grades come through from Canvas.

Load Frequencies

Data is loaded typically overnight. This means when an enrolment is created in SELMA it can take up to 24h for that student and enrolment to appear in Canvas. A manually run of the integration can be triggered in the below menu using the “Initiate Sync” button:

This menu will also provide a log of all integrations running and if they completed or not.

Delete a Canvas Learner

If you delete a user from the CANVAS instance, the user will only be soft deleted which means it will continue to exist in the CANVAS database. In case a user is deleted and a SIS ID is still existing, SELMA cannot recreate that user at a later stage. It is therefore important that a user’s SIS is removed first before the user is deleted:

First, delete the SIS ID:

Then remove the user:

Please contact support (support@selma.co.nz) if you have any questions about the SELMA / CANVAS integration.