Communication and Course Notifications

How do I change my Canvas notifications?

Canvas includes a set of default notification preferences you can receive for your courses. These preferences only apply to you; they are not used to control how course updates are sent to other users. You can change the default settings by setting your own notification preferences. These notification settings apply to all of your courses across Canvas unless you set notification preferences for individual courses.

Does the Canvas Inbox have formatting options?

Unfortunately, no. When formatting is essential, we recommended instructors use the Canvas Announcements tool located within their course. Students will receive an email notification in their Georgetown inbox when an announcement is sent, and will be able to view it in the course’s announcement section.

Note: A course must be published in order Canvas inbox messages and announcements to be sent to students. If the course in unpublished these notifications will not be sent to student’s Georgetown email inbox. Also, depending on each student’s notification setting in Canvas inbox messages and announcements may not instantly arrive in a student’s Georgetown email inbox.

How do I send emails to students using the Canvas Inbox?

Before an instructor can send emails through the Canvas Inbox tool, which sends students an email notification to their Georgetown email inbox, make sure your course is published. Canvas will however allow instructors to send emails to TAs and other instructors when a course is unpublished– just not students. Check out the Canvas support page on how to use the Canvas Inbox tool.

Note: Depending on each student’s notification setting in Canvas inbox messages may not instantly arrive in a student’s Georgetown email inbox.

As an alternative to publishing your Canvas course in order to email your students, you may consider using MyAccess to send emails to students. To do this, log into MyAccess, select the Faculty Services tab, select Summary Class List, and then select the current term and desired class. This will display a summary of the students in your course. Click on the email icon in the row of the student you would like to email and a new message will be created in your default email program.

Don’t see what you are looking for?

Check out the Get Help and Training & Support pages for more resources.