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Canvas - Link Course Summary to Your Home Page [UW-Madison]

UW-Madison has two custom Canvas navigation items: Course Syllabus (HelioCampus AC) and Course Summary.

  • The Course Syllabus (HelioCampus AC) tool makes it easier to find, create, and use course syllabi in Canvas, and to transfer consistent course information between Canvas and other campus systems. It is only available in for-credit courses.
  • The Course Summary tool replaced the native Canvas Syllabus navigation tab. The tool retains much of the functionality of the native Syllabus, but was labelled to better align with its capabilities and to distinguish it from the course syllabus.

As necessary, instructors can remove one or both of these navigation tabs from their courses. See “How do I manage Course Navigation links?

This document explains how instructors can show their course summary tool on their Canvas homepage.

How to Create a New Home Page and Link to Course Summary

At UW-Madison, syllabi are created and viewed on HelioCampus AC. One way to show the contents of your syllabus on your Canvas homepage is by creating a new homepage and linking to your Course Summary.

  1. Create a new Canvas page.
  2. Add introductory content to the page and provide a link to the Course Summary. Note that the Course Summary will not appear in the right toolbar for internal links, so you will need to add it as a hyperlink.
  3. Set your new Canvas page as your Front Page.
  4. Go to Settings and set your course home page to Pages Front Page.

Syllabus Error Message

Prior to UW-Madison hosting syllabi on HelioCampus AC, there was a syllabus tool enabled in Canvas. Students may see an error message if:

  • The Syllabus was set as the course home page.
  • The course contains direct links to the Syllabus (i.e. users have access to the URL).

In these scenarios, you will see a warning banner stating "This tool is deprecated. Please use the Course Summary tool." .