Be The Hero (Update - Being Deprecated July 15, 2023)

[erin_keefe]

WHAT IS CHANGING

The Learning Services Team has offered the Be The Hero, Quick Start Admin Guide, in CanvasNet and for import from the Canvas Commons. Some clients may have also received a course import file and added this resource directly to their instance.The resource will be deprecated as of July 15, 2023. Please read on for alternative resources.

WHY

The Instructure Community team has developed free materials for beginning Canvas Admins. In the past, these materials were found throughout the Community guides. Recently, these materials have been reorganized into Getting Started Lessons. The benefit is that these lessons and guides are kept up to date with each release by an entire team dedicated to maintaining the community content.

OUTREACH

Current participants in the CanvasNet course will also receive this announcement and an update to the course in the Canvas Commons will include the messaging on the homepage and in the version update notes.  

ALTERNATIVE RESOURCE

Below is a walkthrough on the free community material recommended for new Canvas Admins, click on the image to begin. Or, you can go directly to these lessons here.

 

Previous Content Preserved Below in Italics - Now Outdated

Knowing where to begin as a brand new Canvas Admin can be a huge task. You probably need to move quickly, and learn a lot all at once. We've created a new free resource - Be The Hero -  for you to help you get acclimated to how Canvas works and how it can work for you!

About The Course

Be The Hero has five modules of content that will take those who will be Canvas Admins through everything they need to know about using Canvas at their institutions - no matter what level. The course uses a combination of the Canvas Video Guides and Canvas Guides to teach the content. Each concept also includes information about the corresponding Canvas Training webinar. Participants in the course will have the opportunity to check their understanding with self-check quizzes at the end of each module. 

The course is available in the Canvas Commons at this link: Be The Hero, (pro tip - make sure you're logged in to Canvas!) and is offered under a Attribution-Non-Commerical-ShareAlike licence. That means you’re free to share the course, as well adapt it to meet the needs of your institution.

If you’ve never used a resource in the Canvas Commons before, all you need is an empty course in your Canvas instance in which to copy the Growing with Canvas course. Once Be The Hero is in your instance, you’re free to edit and use the course as you wish. Check out this guide - How do I use Commons? - if you need more help.

UPDATE 10/30/2018: If you don't have the Commons, or if you are having an issue with downloading the course from the Commons, visit this link (BeTheHeroOct3018.zip - Google Drive ) instead to download a copy of the course. Simply then have a blank course in your instance of Canvas to import the course to, and you'll be good to go!

Potential Uses

• Share this course with your colleagues
• Apply the principles in Growing with Canvas to your own courses
• Elevate your knowledge about Canvas

[jbuchholz]

Erin,

There isn't a link connected for the "Be The Hero" text. I tried searching the Commons for the course and I wasn't able to find it. I will try to dig a little deeper and see if I can find it.

Jesse

[erin_keefe]

Hey  @jbuchholz ‌ - we are in the process of getting it in the Commons 🙂 It will be there shortly and I'll direct link it here!

[erin_keefe]

It's posted now! Direct link is here: Canvas Commons 

[jbuchholz]

Awesome!! Thank you!

Jesse

[diana_enriquez]

Hi Erin,

I get an error while trying to sign in with my canvas account. I'm already logged on my canvas instance.

This is the error:

"errors": [
{
"param": "server-error",
"msg": "There was an error"
}

Thank you.

[Shar]

I too have been getting the same error since Friday. I thought it was my login and tried again today with the same result in a fresh browser. I'm relieved to find out I'm not the only one with the same error.

Cheers - Shar

[erin_keefe]

 @diana_enriquez ‌ and ishar-uw‌ - when are you getting that error? When trying to click on the link to the course in the Commons?

[pklove]

I see the same error by:

• click the above link
• click the Login button
• choose where you would like to log in

And you are re--directed back to https://lor.instructure.com/api/saml/assert which has the above error.

[pklove]

If you then click the browser's Back button its all okay - sometimes.  Sometimes it just goes back to the error message.

[rmthomas]

I was able to download it into a shell. But, I made sure I was logged in first and then when I clicked on Erin's link above, it took me right into where I could download it into a course.

[Shar]

Hi  @erin_keefe ,

As Peter Love says, I get the error when I click to login after pressing the download button on the Commons page. I choose my login site (just like I do when coming into the community) and then I get the error. I am not pressing the login with Facebook link.

(Sorry for the large size picture.)

And I'm definitely logged into my Canvas instance.

Alas - Shar

[erin_keefe]

Ok - thanks for that info - it helps me to try to dig in and see what the issue might be. The single sign on that Commons uses to recognize users AND the single sign on that is then used in the Community can be a little tricky with the direct links to resources in the Commons. 

For anyone who is having an issue getting to the course in the Commons with the link I provided, I would suggest these steps:

1. Make sure you're logged in to Canvas.
2. Make sure when you click on the link to the Commons resource it opens in the same browser.
3. If it's being weird, right click on this link and copy it, then paste it into the same browser, new tab, where you're already logged in to Canvas: Canvas Commons 
4. If it's STILL being weird, you can go right to the Commons and search Admin Hero and it should come right up.

Keep me posted - I hope it helps. 

-Erin

[erin_keefe]

Thanks,  @rmthomas ‌! These are great reminders for how to make it work. Glad it worked for you!

[diana_enriquez]

Hi Erin,

Finally I could download the .zip and successfully imported on my Canvas instance. I cleaned my browser cache data and started again with your directions.

Thank you very much! 😃

Cheers, 

Diana.

[Shar]

Hi Erin,

Well, I ended up opening a private window in Firefox, logging into my Canvas, and then going to commons and searching for Admin Hero: Your Step 4 instructions.

I've got the course downloaded now. Thank-you for providing lots of work-arounds.

Cheers - Shar

[jillmallek]

I wanted to download it, but it's not letting me in. I'm getting the same error referenced above. It comes after I click login (I'm logged in here, but not logged in when I go to the Commons). So I can't move forward. Anyone have advice? I thought I'd try even registering a different email, but the only option I have is to sync my Facebook, which I don't want to do.

[erin_keefe]

Hi jillmallek‌ - just go right into Commons and search Hero Admin. Don't try messing with the links here. The single sign on is being buggy.

[jillmallek]

I tried that too. It gives me the error when I try to log in. I have followed all the suggestions here, but I don't know what I'm doing wrong. It won't let me get past logging in.

[Shar]

Hi jillmallek‌,

Try an incognito or private browsing session, log in to your institution and then hit the commons button. That's what ended up working for me, the private browsing has a clear cache and seems to work well to hold on to the signed-in credentials.

Good luck - Shar

[laurakgibbs]

pinging  @Renee_Carney  just as a Commons heads-up: maybe this kind of problem is on the coming-soon list of Commons improvements! 

[erin_keefe]

Hey Jill! Send me an email (ekeefe at instructure.com) and I'll send you the file export. 

[jillmallek]

I tried that before too. It won't log me in with incognito either. I feel like I'm missing something but not sure what.

[jillmallek]

Thanks!

[erin_keefe]

Thanks laurakgibbs‌! 

I also just assume that everyone has the Commons on their Canvas instances...and that's not an assumption I should make. 🙂

[MattHanes]

Hey  @erin_keefe !

Any chance we could get an editable version of the badges if we want to make some modifications? Pretty please with sugar on top? 

[erin_keefe]

Hey  @MattHanes ‌ - 

I'll see the person who designed them for me tomorrow - let's see what I can do! 

[MattHanes]

Thanks, that would be so great!

[diana_enriquez]

Hi! Probably this post won't be here but I need some help. 
As we know Canvabadges won't be available anymore until october 8th because they will be moved to Badgr. 
Does Canvas or the partner sent any official announcement to notice that canvabadges won't be available any more?

Thank you.

I hope some could help me.

[erin_keefe]

Hi  @diana_enriquez ‌,

Canvas has been aware for almost a year that Canvabadges would no longer be operational, and has been actively contacting those institutions who were using Canvabadges to discuss their options, and even to assist them with migrating badges from Canvabadges to another platform. 

[MattHanes]

Hey @erin_keefe ,

A‌ny luck with getting those editable badge files?

[erin_keefe]

 @MattHanes ‌ - thanks for the nudge. Still working on it. 

[xcotto]

Thanks for sharing this course!!!  @erin_keefe ‌ :smileycool:

[MattHanes]

Hey  @erin_keefe ,

We just hired a new admin and I assigned him this course. It's so very useful!

I ran the Link Validator (just a habit I've gotten into when importing courses) and I noticed that a couple of the screenshots are missing/deleted. Also the image of those red tabs in front of each header do not appear on the page like they do in the Growing With Canvas course. I looked at the HTML in module 1.2 and the image was trying to pull from a course in the trainingk12.instructure.com instead of my instance of Canvas. I'm not sure how many pages it effected other than 1.2 but I just wrote a quick script in python to find and replace the link with the correct link to that picture. I just wanted to let you know in case you want to fix it for the next person that downloads the content. Thanks to all of you that put together this great resource!

[erin_keefe]

IMPORTANT NOTE: ALL FUTURE UPDATES ABOUT THIS RESOURCE WILL BE LOCATED HERE: Be The Hero Updates. PLEASE FOLLOW THAT BLOG SPACE!

[schachernp]

First off, Thanks for the resource!  I followed the directions and made a shell to import the Be the Hero course into.  Now I'm listed as the teacher of the course.  Can I work thru the course as the teacher or should I add myself as a student?  Just thought I would check.  Thanks again for such a great resource!

[lidyacabrales]

I feel so bad classes started in August and we are not in Sept 26 and it just dawn on me that Canvas is a community? I thought the search page with my dashboard is Canvas,.

[lidyacabrales]

Sorry I did not finish I need help and I ended accidently so I thought. I understand way professors kept telling me to go to canvas. I cannot believe its another place.

[MiltonMorocho]

awsome

[MiltonMorocho]

Excellent