Collaborations

Overview

The Collaborations tool in Canvas helps instructors and students work together with online collaborative document authoring tools like Google Docs or EtherPad. Any Canvas user can create a collaboration and invite other users to join in.

Effective use of the Collaborations tool requires that learners have an account set up with Google Docs or EtherPad. Massasoit students have a GoogleDocs accounts (accessible through the portal), but some may need instruction on how to get started. And though GoogleDocs is fairly easy to learn on your own, some learners may benefit from instructions on how to navigate and use the tool.

Finally, the concept of cloud-based tools and document storage may be foreign to some, and some learners may appreciate a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of each.

There are several advantages to using Canvas's Collaborations tool to manage these:

Collaborators can be added from a drop-down menu when you create the collaboration - no need to collect email addresses or usernames.
Canvas centralizes and integrates the different collaborative projects, and can retrieve these for assignment submissions, etc.
Projects can be tracked or managed within the Canvas system for grading and archival purposes.