The Ed Discussion link off of the course navigation menu in your course will always take you to the main landing page of your Ed Discussion course. If an instructor wants to provide a direct pathway to a specific category or subcategory for students, they can find and share the specific URL by following the instructions below.
Before you share direct links to Ed Discussion categories and subcategories, you will need to make sure that all of your students have clicked on the Ed Discussion button in your Canvas course at least once OR you have manually synced your Ed Discussion Roster and Canvas Roster.
Users who are not listed in your Ed Discussion site roster will get an error when they click on your direct links to a category or subcategory.
Table of Contents
This article will address the following information:
Finding Direct Links to Categories and Subcategories
Ed Discussions is organized by Categories and Subcategories. If you want to get a direct link to all content with a Category or all content within a specific Subcategory, you will need to extrapolate a custom URL:
- Link to Category:
- Ed Discussion URL + ?category=CategoryName
- Link to Subcategory:
- Ed Discussion URL + ?category=CategoryName&subcategory=SubcategoryName
Linking Directly to a Category (includes all subcategory content)
When linking to any category, insert the category name into the space after the "?category=" string.
Example: Link to the Assignments Category in the Ed Discussion site.
- Go to your Canvas course and open Ed Discussion from the course navigation.
- Grab the URL from the address bar of your Ed Discussion site, which should look similar to:
https://edstem.org/us/courses/1234/discussion/ - To link directly to the Category called Assignments, add "?category=Assignments" to the end of the URL:
https://edstem.org/us/courses/1234/discussion/?category=Assignments - Reference our instructions on Inserting URL Links to Other External Sites for step-by-step guidance on sharing the URL in any Canvas Announcement, Assignment, Page, Module, etc.
Linking Directly to a Subcategory
When linking to any subcategory, specify the category name first after the "?category=" string, then append on "&subcategory=" and insert the subcategory name.
Example: Link to the A1 Subcategory (which is part of the Assignments Category).
- Go to your Canvas course and open Ed Discussions from the course navigation.
- Grab the URL from the address bar of your Ed Discussions site, which should look similar to:
https://edstem.org/us/courses/1234/discussion/ - Add the direct link to the Category called Assignments by adding "?category=Assignments" to the end of the URL:
https://edstem.org/us/courses/1234/discussion/?category=Assignments - Now add an additional segment for the Subcategory called A1 by adding "&subcategory=A1" to the end of the URL:
https://edstem.org/us/courses/1234/discussion/?category=Assignments&subcategory=A1 - Reference our instructions on Inserting URL Links to Other External Sites for step-by-step guidance on sharing the URL in any Canvas Announcement, Assignment, Page, Module, etc.
For more help with Ed Discussion, please email vendor support at [email protected] or [email protected].