Introduction

The Student View functionality in Canvas is an immensely useful tool to utilize as practice and learn to use Canvas, and it remains useful even after you have achieved mastery of using Canvas. The tool lets you preview and interact with your course as a student would.

Using Student View

Entering Student View

Entering Student View is easy: Click the button from either the Home page or the Settings page of your course. While the Home page and Settings page Student View buttons are located in different places (as shown below), they function the same way.

Note: Once you have used Student View, a new student may appear in your course gradebook named Test Student. Anything you submit or post while in Student View will be attributed to that Test Student account.

The Home page Student View button is located in the top right corner of your screen and looks like a small pair of glasses:

screenshot highlighting the Student View button on a Canvas course Homepage with a red rectangle and red arrow. The Student View button looks like a pair of glasses in a gray outlined rectangle.

The Settings page Student View button is located in the right sidebar menu with the same glasses icon and the words "Student View" next to it:

screenshot highlighting the Student View button on a Canvas course Settings page with a red rectangle and red arrow. The Student View button looks like a pair of glasses in a gray outlined rectangle with the words "Student View" underlined.

While in Student View...

Once you're in Student View, your Canvas screen will be outlined in magenta, and have a bar across the bottom of your page. Your account icon (if you have one) will be hidden and replaced with a magenta circle.

While the Global Navigation items (such as Calendar and Inbox) still appear on the left appears in Student View, you should not use it (and most of it will not work). You should remain in your course.

Notice that any hidden items in your Course Navigation menu (normally indicated to the teacher with a gray visibility icon ) cannot be seen now, since a student would not be able to see them.

Tip: There are two reasons an item may be hidden from the course navigation menu. First, it may be hidden as a choice (whether by default, or by choice of the instructor). You can change this from your course Settings, on the Navigation tab. Or, it may be hidden simply because it is has no published items in it. If your announcements or modules page is absent from Student View, check that you have created any announcements or modules and that at least one item is published (with the green check mark) for students to see.

You can navigate and interact with your course as a student would. You can view modules and pages, participate in discussions, and even submit assignments or quizzes.

Leaving Student View

To leave Student View, click the Leave Student View button in the far bottom right corner, inside the magenta bar. This will return Canvas to normal.

Resetting Student View

If you would like to clear everything the Test Student has contributed to the course (if, for instance, you want to test submitting assignments or quizzes again after changes), you can reset the Test Student. To do that: enter Student View. While in Student View, click the Reset Student button in the bottom right corner (next to Leave Student View). Wait a few moments for the Test Student to be cleared.

Example Use Case

Student View is a great way to practice a start-to-end flow of grading papers in Canvas. Please don't be put off by the large number of steps, as most are simple single clicks. Here's how it would work:

Create an assignment.
- Try submission type: online, file uploads.
- Make sure the assignment is published so students can see it.
- If you have changed your course settings to hide the Assignments page from students, make sure to place the assignment in a module or page available to students.
Go to your course Home (or Settings).
Enter Student View (as above).
(In Student View) Navigate to the assignment.
(Still in Student View) Submit the assignment by attaching a Word file.
- This will let you see how the assignment looks to students and help you to understand what they need to do to submit the assignment.
Leave Student View (as above).
Grade the assignment.
- Click on Assignments, click on that assignment, then SpeedGrader from the right hand context menu.
- Alternatively go to the Grades page to find the student/assignment cell and click through to SpeedGrader from there if you prefer.
Submit your grade, including comments and markup if you'd like, to practice grading papers in Canvas.
Leave SpeedGrader, returning to your course (the top left button ).
Enter Student View (as above).
(In Student View) Click on Grades.
- Notice there is a numbered badge to indicate to the student
- From here, you can see how students see their grades, and click on an assignment to see feedback and commentary.
Leave Student View (as above) when done.

You can use this same process to try out quizzes, make sure modules are displaying and functioning how you would like, verify submission or availability dates, try grade posting policies, test out grading schemes (such as percent weights) in your gradebook on the Test Student, and more!

Limitations

The Student View tool is part of Canvas and utilized your Canvas account, and only works for Canvas features. If you are using any external tools or integrations (such as TurnItIn, Top Hat, GradeScope, Panopto, Box, or others), the Student View tool has limited utility.

You'll still be able to use it to see if the link to the external tool is there for a student to be able to access, but you will not be able to preview using that tool itself as a student using Student View. (The reason for this is that these external tools still see that you are the one logged in and it uses the currently active account. Unfortunately, there is no way to change this behavior.)

There are still options available to you if you would like to see and test external tools from a student perspective. Some of these are:

Many of the external tools have their own help documentation with screenshots or videos to see what they look like from a student perspective (though this limits practice).
Schedule an appointment with a consultant to test it out. (Click the Help button at the bottom of the left hand navigation bar and choose Request a Consultation.
For most tools, you could add a colleague to your course as a student and work with that colleague to see how it looks for them as they use it. (Note, this one does not work for Top Hat.)

We hope that, despite the small limitation, you find Student View to be a useful to help you become proficient with Canvas.