Additional Instructional Tools

The following alternative solutions are not all administered by the Poorvu Center’s Educational & Engagement Technology team that manages Canvas @ Yale. Adopting one or more of these tools may require you to work with other units at the University.

In the event you want or need to work outside of Canvas, please consider the following tools / solutions.

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Multipurpose Solutions

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is a cloud-based team communication and collaboration app that is part of the Office 365 suite of applications. The core capabilities in Microsoft Teams include persistent messaging, video meetings, file sharing (including real time co-authoring of files) and collaborative work spaces that can be integrated other Office 365 services and extensions that integrate with third-party applications.

  • Create different channels to communicate and collaborate
  • Share files and create a library for just your team / users on OneDrive
  • Integrates with your Outlook calendar

For more information, go to the Yale ITS site on Getting Started with Microsoft Teams.

Yale Connect (CampusGroups)

Yale Connect serves as an online community hub, allowing users the ability to update a group or organization’s membership and leadership, save an organization’s important documents, post events on one centralized event calendar, and manage event registration.

  • Used for student organizations and groups.
  • Allows for posting / sharing content, creating events, and messaging.

For more information, email yaleconnect.support@yale.edu.

Ed Discussion

Ed Discussion is a powerful threaded discussion tool that allows instructors and students to share and interact asynchronously. Additionally, Ed Discussion can serve as a space to share files in discussion threads with and between students / users. 

  • Create a Course and manually add users
  • Share files with users
  • Connect to Clarity and other LLMs to create a dedicated chat agent based on uploaded knowledge
  • Host threaded discussions
  • Run code snippets

Ed Discussions is normally linked / integrated with Canvas @ Yale, but can be accessed separately using your Yale Email directly when going to edstem.org and clicking the sign in button. 

PLEASE NOTE: You must already have an Ed Discussion account created to login directly to the tool, which you can only do if you have launched the Ed Discussion tool from a Canvas course site previously. 

Learn more about Ed Discussion from our tool’s page or email canvas@yale.edu if you have any questions. 

Assessments: Collecting, Feedback, Grading

Gradescope

Gradescope is a tool designed to streamline and standardize the collection, grading, and feedback process for paper-based, digital, and code assignments to improve the grading workflow by instructors and teaching fellows.

  • Easily collect hand written assignments for online grading
  • Grade assignments quickly while providing consistent detailed feedback
  • Standardize grading across individuals and graders

You can access and use Gradescope independently from Canvas by:

  1. Navigate to https://www.gradescope.com/ and click “Login”
  2. In the login modal that opens, select the “School Credentials” button
  3. Find and select “Yale NetID” option (the last selection in the list)
  4. Complete login using your Yale NetID and password

Learn more about Gradescope from our tool’s page or email canvas@yale.edu if you have any questions

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File Sharing

Microsoft OneDrive & SharePoint

Yale’s enterprise cloud storage solution.  

  • Cloud storage to share folders and files directly with groups / individual users.
  • Set granular permissions on each file and folder.
  • Create different sharing permissions for different groups of users.

Learn more about tools for file sharing and collaboration from ITS.

Interfolio

Used for faculty search or review, promotions and tenure cases. These use cases will not be allowed in Canvas due to their sensitive nature. All search / review and promotion / tenure cases must use Interfolio or another Yale approved system specifically designed for these tasks.  

For more information, please visit the Interfolio - Introduction and Tips site.

Communication

Email / Student Roster Email List

If faculty need a way to download and access a list of their student emails so they can message students directly, you can acquire a list of student emails registered in your course by following these instructions:

  1. Log into Faculty Grading Submission (FGS) (https://fgs.app.yale.edu).
  2. In the Course List screen, click on your course to get to the Grade Entry screen.
  3. In the Grade Entry screen, click the link at the top right-hand side of the screen that says ‘Print Class Roster’.
  4. In the Class Roster, click the button labelled ‘EXPORT AS EXCEL’.  The roster will download to your Downloads folder.
  5. Open the Excel file.  The email addresses for the students in your class will be in column H (emailAlias).

Zoom (Web Conferencing) 

A web / video conferencing tool, which allows organizers to meet with others synchronously online.

  • Screen sharing
  • Polling
  • Sharing an editable whiteboard
  • Breakout groups
  • File sharing
  • Text chat
  • Non-verbal feedback / emoji display (i.e. raise and lower hand)
  • Blurred backgrounds

To learn more about using Zoom, please check out our Zoom support page or email medialibrary@yale.edu. 

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Scheduling Tools

Zoom Scheduler

Yale recently enabled the Zoom Scheduler tool, which allows users to create a personal scheduling tool that users can use to find times to meet. 

To learn more, check out Zoom’s documentation for Getting Started with Zoom Scheduler.