Canvas @ Yale

Why are the courses I registered for not showing up in Canvas?

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Official academic course sites are created in Canvas automatically and enrollments in the sites are managed by the official enrollment data in the registration system (Banner).

Official enrollments (Instructors / Students / Auditors / Visitors) are all managed by the registration system and can only be modified by a school / departmental registrar.

Changes made to enrollments in the registration system (Banner) will be synchronized to Canvas every 2 hours. Expected at least a 2 hour delay before changes are reflected in Canvas.

Courses for the Current Semester

Solution: Check back in 2 hours

Changes made by a registrar, or your registration worksheets are not immediately processed into Canvas. Canvas is updated with new / changed registration data every 2 hours.

If you have still not been given access to the Canvas course after 2 hours, check the other potential solutions on this page.

Contact [email protected] for further assistance. Make sure that you include your name, NetID, and the courses that you are registered for that are not appearing on your dashboard page.

Solution: Check to see if the instructor has published the course

Course sites that are unpublished by your instructors will not appear on your Dashboard page. Visit our help article on Finding My Canvas @ Yale Current / Past Courses to see how you can check a course's publish status for those courses you are enrolled in.

If you see that the course is listed but not published, you can reach out to your instructor to ask if they plan to use Canvas for their course.

Solution: Check to see what Dashboard View you are using

The Canvas Dashboard page has three different views you can choose from. The most common view is Card View which displays your courses as "cards" that you can click on.  

The other 2 views (List View and Recent Activity) do not show your courses on the Dashboard. You can change between views by clicking on the 3-dot menu [1] on the Dashboard page and selecting an alternate view [2].

If you choose one of these views, you will need to click the Courses button [A] in your global navigation menu and click on your the Canvas Courses in the pop-out drawer [B].

No matter what view you use on your Dashboard or where you are within Canvas, the Courses button is always available in the left-side global navigation bar.

Solution: Check to see if you are using course "Favorites"

The "Favorites" function overrides the normal display of courses on your Dashboard in favor of just displaying the courses you have marked as favorites. Favorite courses need to be updated manually to display the new / updated courses you may be looking to access from one semester to another.

Visit our help article on Setting Your Favorite Courses to Display in the Canvas Dashboard to see how you can view and update which courses appear on your Dashboard page.

Solution: Verify that you have registered for the course

Students must add a course to one of their Yale Course Search worksheets** in order to be enrolled in the course's Canvas site. Review our Understanding How the Registration Worksheet & Canvas Worksheet Interact with a Canvas Course article for more details.

For courses that require instructor permission, you will need to work with the instructor and the departmental registrar to register for the course.

** Some departments/schools (like School of Management and Law School) may use other methods for registering for courses. Reach out to the departmental / school registrar or support team for assistance. 

What if I need access right now. What should I do?

Contact the instructor or departmental / school registrar and ask them to manually add you to your course site with the "Guest Student" role until your enrollment has been resolved in the registration system.

The Canvas @ Yale support teams in ITS and the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning do not add users to courses. Only the course instructor and registrars can add a user to a course.

Courses for the Past Semester

If you are looking for a course that was taught during a term in the past, please check out our help article on Finding My Canvas @ Yale Current / Past Courses

For more help with course registration, please contact [email protected]. For assistance with Canvas, please email [email protected].

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