General FAQs

1. Where do I login?
2. What will I see?
3. When I attempt to login, I'm getting the "Canvas doesn't have an account for user" error. What's going on?
4. After I login to Canvas, I get a blank screen. What should I do?
5. How do I get assistance with Canvas?
6. I'm trying to use the Canvas mobile app, but I don't know what Baylor's Canvas URL is.
7. How do I make a feature request or suggest an improvement?
8. How do I log out of Canvas?

General FAQs

1. Where do I login?

Visit https://canvas.baylor.edu, click the Canvas Login button, and login with Bear_ID (firstname_lastname) and password.

2. What will I see?

The first thing you will see after logging into Canvas is the Dashboard. By default, your Dashboard will show your courses, global announcements, and a sidebar with other items. Users may elect to display their recent activity and notifications on the Dashboard rather than their list of courses.

Related Guides:

How do I use the Dashboard?

3. When I attempt to login, I'm getting the "Canvas doesn't have an account for user" error. What's going on?
All courses and users for the current semester should be automatically loaded into Canvas. If you are a new student and have just registered for courses, you may have to wait for 24-hours while your account is updated. If you still receive a message that your account does not exist, please contact the Baylor ITS Help Desk at (254) 710-4357.

4. After I login to Canvas, I get a blank screen. What should I do?
The login screen you see when you access the Canvas login page is Baylor's signle-sign on (SSO) portal, not the login screen supported by Canvas. This authentication technology is called Shibboleth and allows anyone with a BearID (firstname_lastname) and password to access online resources not hosted by the university. Therefore, any issues related to SSO logins should be reported to the Help Desk at (254) 710-HELP.

5. How do I get assistance with Canvas?
Baylor subscribes to Instructure's Tier One 24x7 phone support. In addition to being able to chat directly with Canvas support representatives, faculty, staff, and students will be able to call a dedicated phone number, at the time most convenient to them, to get one-on-one assistance from Canvas. See our Help & Support page to learn more.

To get help with issues requiring the assistance of a Baylor Canvas support admin, please call the Help Desk at (254) 710-HELP or use Instructure's chat page to contact a Canvas support tech directly 24/7.

6. I'm trying to use the Canvas mobile app, but I don't know what Baylor's Canvas URL is.
When logging into the mobile app, you'll need to type "baylor.instructure.com" in the "Enter your canvas URL" field to login. Users will then be directed to Baylor's SSO (single-sign on) page. For more information about Instructure's mobile apps for Canvas visit our Mobile Apps page.

7. How do I make a feature request or suggest an improvement?
Participating in the Canvas Community system is the most effective way to influence how Instructure prioritizes and develops changes to its product. Please refer to our Suggesting Improvements page to learn how to track the progress of existing feature requests or to submit a new one.

8. How do I log out of Canvas?
Canvas relies on Baylor's single-sign on technology called "Shibboleth" to handle user authentication with Bear_ID (firstname_lastname) and password. Other systems that use Shibboleth include Box (http://baylor.box.com), Qualtrics (http://baylor.qualtrics.com), and CampusPress, formerly Edublogs (http://blogs.baylor.edu). When logging out of any system using Shibboleth, users will have to close their browsers completely--this is particularly important when using shared computers in lab environments. In computer labs, it's always a good idea to log out of the computer when you're done using it.

Windows users: To log out of Canvas, click the "X" button in the top right-hand corner of your browser to shut the browser down completely (simply closing a single tab won't do the trick).
Mac OSX users: Closing the browser itself won't log you out of Canvas; you must quit the browser application entirely. The "Quit" option is normally found under the application menu item in the toolbar when the browser is active. For example, if using Chrome on Mac OSX: Click Chrome > Quit Google Chrome in the menu bar.