Guest faculty and students who have been granted access to Yale University's instance of Canvas to participate in Yale courses were issued local Canvas guest accounts, which access Canvas @ Yale in a different way to their Yale community participant counterparts. Non-Yale users do have slightly different options for managing their Canvas account in the Canvas @ Yale system.
Canvas @ Yale is depreciating their use of local Canvas guest accounts and switching over to a Canvas User sponsored identity, which will provide non-Yale members who need access to Canvas @ Yale with a Yale-issued NetID. To learn more, please visit our Canvas @ Yale Local Guest Account Deactivation and Regaining Account Access support article.
Table of Contents
This article will address the following information:
Requesting a Canvas User Sponsored Identity Account
Local Canvas guest accounts are no longer being created and only Canvas User sponsored identities are available for guest users to gain access to Canvas @ Yale.
If you are a non-Yale member that needs access to Canvas @ Yale, your account will need to be requested by an instructor, staff member, or Canvas admin.
For more information about how Canvas @ Yale accounts are requested, visit our Requesting Canvas User Sponsored Identities for Guests to Access Canvas @ Yale article.
Accessing Canvas @ Yale as a Local Canvas Guest Account User
- Once you have a local guest account, navigate to the "Login" page (canvas.yale.edu/login) from in the top utility menu and click the "Guest Login" button.
- Your "Login" is the email address used by the Yale instructor or Canvas Admin who submitted your original guest account creation.
- Input your "Password."
- Click the "Log In" button.
Local Canvas Guest Account Passwords
There are 2 ways you can receive your initial local Canvas guest account password for Canvas @ Yale:
- A generic password was set on your behalf - you should have received an email from your instructor or Yale Canvas administrator informing you of your password.
- An automated email - you should have received an email from Instructure / Canvas requesting that you complete the account registration process for your guest account and to set your own password.
Resetting a Local Canvas Guest Account Password
Local Canvas guest account users are responsible for managing their passwords using these instructions. The Educational Technology team and ITS Help Desk do not reset or change passwords on behalf of any Canvas user.
- Go to the login screen at http://canvas.yale.edu/login and click the "Guest Login" button.
- On the login page, click the "Forgot Password?" link.
- On the next screen enter your login ID.
- In most cases, your login ID will be your email address.
- An email will be sent to your designated email address asking you to set a new password.
- If resetting your password does not work, your local Canvas guest account may have been deactivated as part of the depreciation of local Canvas guest accounts in our Canvas @ Yale instance.
- Please reference our Canvas @ Yale Local Guest Account Deactivation and Regaining Account Access support article for more information on the timeline of when local Canvas guest accounts are deactivated and steps for recovering access through a Canvas User sponsored identity.
Changing a Local Canvas Guest Account Password
These instructions are for local Canvas guest account users in the Yale @ Canvas instance.
Yale community members with Yale email addresses and NetIDs will need to change their NetID password, which will change their password for all applications that utilize their single sign-on authentication.
To change the password on a local Canvas guest account, follow the instructions on the Canvas How do I change my login password? support article.
Finding Your Canvas Courses
An instructor or a Canvas admin will need to enroll you in a course to give you access. If you believe that you should have access to a course, but do not see it in your list of courses, please contact your instructor or a Canvas administrator.
- You can access your course from the "Dashboard" by clicking on a course tile.
- If you do you not see your course on the Dashboard, click the "Courses" icon in the left-side global navigation bar.
- you may need to click the "All Courses" link to view the full list.
Accepting a Course Invite
Once added to a course, you will receive an email invitation to the email address associated with your guest account.
- Be sure that you click the “Accept” button in that email, or log into Canvas and click the “Accept” button on the Dashboard page in the top banner.
- Once you accept the invitation, you will be officially added to the course, and you will be able to locate the course on your Dashboard.
- You will only need to accept the invitation once.
Local Canvas Guest Account FAQ
Instructors may run into an error when trying to manually add a local Canvas guest account user to a course if the email address is not confirmed. In this situation, the instructor can either add the user using the guest user's login ID (alternatively called NetID for guest accounts), which will be the same as the guest user's email address, or the guest user you can confirm their email address.
Instructors should be using the instructions on Adding a Local Canvas Guest Account User to their course.
In most cases, email addresses for guest accounts do not get automatically confirmed. If your email address requires confirmation, but you did not receive a confirmation email, you can have it resent:
- Log into Canvas @ Yale and click on your profile icon at the top-left of the global navigation and select "Settings."
- On the right-hand side, you will see your email address. If there is an exclamation point icon next to your email address, this indicates an issue with the email address.
- Click on the email address itself to resend the confirmation.
- Follow the instructions in the email to complete the confirmation.
For more help, please contact [email protected].