The Dashboard is the first thing you will see when you log into Canvas. The Dashboard helps you see what is happening in all your courses and allows you to figure out what to do next.

The Canvas Dashboard

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The Dashboard [1] defaults to the course view, which displays courses that have been starred as a favorite and are ordered alphabetically. The Dashboard also includes a sidebar [2], which helps show upcoming events in your courses.

The Dashboard consists of three main elements:

Global Navigation on the left hand navigation,
the Sidebar with various types of feeds, and
the Card View, which displays courses in the main body of the page.

The Dashboard is designed to answer the questions, "What is going on in all of my courses?" and "What do I need to do next?"

Card View

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The Dashboard course view includes a course card for each of your favorite courses. Each card can include up to four tabs [1], which represent the four main Canvas features for student course activity: Announcements, Assignments, Discussions, and Files. These tabs mimic visibility and order in Course Navigation, so for instance, if an instructor hides the Announcements link, the Announcements tab will not display on the course activity.

If the tabs are visible, Discussions and Announcements indicate the number of new activity items in the course [2].

Change Course Color

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You can also change the color of your course, which is synced with the color shown for the course in the Calendar. To change the color, click the card Settings icon [1], then select a new color. The check mark indicates the selected color [2]. Click the Apply button [3].

If you change the color for a course in the Calendar, the Dashboard will also update with the new calendar color.

Add Course Nickname

If one of your courses includes a long or confusing name, you can create a nickname for your course. Learn more about course nicknames.

Global Navigation

The Global Navigation directs users to menus or pages that display:

The user's account details,
the dashboard to see courses,
all of a user's courses,
all of a user's groups,
the Calendar,
and the inbox.

These six menus and pages will display different items depending on whether you are a student or an instructor.

The Sidebar contains three helpful feeds:

The To Do feed lists the next five assignments you need to turn in (if you are a student) or need to grade (if you are an instructor). Assignments will still show up in this list even if they are past due. Click the links to go directly to the Assignments page.
The Coming Up feed lists the next five assignments or events coming due in the next week.
The Recent Feedback feed lets students know when their instructor has left a comment or a grade for one of their submissions. The same feed will let instructors know when students have left comments about work they have evaluated. This feed helps students and instructors keep the conversation alive around Assignments.

Global Stream

The Global Stream contains a stream of recent activity from all of your courses. There are announcements, discussions, assignmentnotifications, and conversations. This activity stream helps students and teachers to stay on top of what is going on in the course and allows them to easily ask questions and post to discussion forums. You can view the details of each section by hovering in the section area and clicking the Show More button.

Return to User Dashboard

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You can return to your User Dashboard at any time by clicking the Dashboard link in Global Navigation.