Instructional Design & Technology

Create an annotated student assignment

If you have a document (such as a map, diagram, or any other type of worksheet) that you’d like your students to be able to annotate and turn in online, the ‘Student Annotation’ type submission in Canvas may be a great fit! This feature allows students to easily annotate or markup a document of the instructor’s choosing and turn it in directly via Canvas.

Follow the step-by-step guide below, or watch the quick video tutorial to review the process of creating a student annotation submission and to see what a finalized annotation assignment looks like from the students’ perspective.

Step-by-step

1. (From Assignments) Click ‘+Assignment’ to add a new assignment. OR (From Modules) Click the ‘+’ icon in the top-right of the module where you’d like the assignment to appear, select ‘Add assignment’, ‘Create assignment’ and then ‘Add item.’
2. Click on the title of the newly created assignment and select ‘Edit.’
3. Add any relevant instructions that you would like students to see before they begin annotating the document you share with them.
4. Change the ‘Submission type’ to ‘Online’ and then check the box for ‘Student annotation.’
5. Select the file you’d like them to annotate by either selecting a previously uploaded document, or select ‘Upload file’ to upload a new file.
6. Finish updating the other Canvas assignment settings (such as point value, due date, number of submission attempts, etc.)
7. Click ‘Save and publish.’

Video tutorial