Teaching and Learning Resource Center

Communicating with Students

There are two primary tools to communicate with students in CarmenCanvas: 

Announcements

Announcements allow instructors to communicate with students about course news and updates. Using announcements as your default for all-class communications is a good practice because of the high visibility in Carmen. The Conversations (Inbox) is best for communicating with individual students.

Here are some things you may want to know about Announcements:

Messaging Students in Canvas

Conversations (Inbox) is a messaging system within Canvas allowing users to send messages to each other. Assuming students have not changed their default notifications settings, this is the closest equivalent in Canvas to sending email from within your course.

Access the Inbox from any course using the global navigation menu. 

Caution

 All email notifications are sent from notifications@instructure.com. Remind students to check their Spam (or Junk) folders, as emails may not filter as expected. 

See Carmen Notification Preferences for information on setting up notifications and safelisting Canvas emails.

Sending Messages in Canvas

You can message all students in the course using the Inbox. In order to message students, your course must be published. If your Canvas course is not published when you attempt to message students, you will not be able to select students in the 'To' field.

UX Tip

To message students before your course is published, set your course dates to reflect when you want students to have access. Then publish the course. Setting course term dates allows you to limit student access to the course while retaining your ability to send messages and modify grades.

BCC Student Messages

Select the "Send individual messages" option. Canvas will send messages individually and recipients will not see another person's information in the 'To' field.