Character 1 The Crisis Mode Hero

Meet Dr. Ellis, who teaches an upper-level course with a jam-packed week ahead. While cleaning up her course, she accidentally deletes the midterm assignment. Panic sets in. On top of that, she made some edits to her Week 6 overview page, and now the formatting is completely broken. Meanwhile, students are emailing her saying they can’t find the new discussion post.

She finally starts catching up on grading—only to get a message from a student insisting their quiz score dropped overnight. With everything going on, Dr. Ellis isn’t sure if she made a mistake or what's going on.

Mission

Survive the week without losing her midterm or her mind.

Secret Weapons

Undelete

Undelete

Canvas stores recently deleted items—like assignments, quizzes, discussions, and pages—on a hidden recovery page. You can restore these items even after they've been removed from the course shell.

In Dr. Ellis’s case, it saves her from rebuilding the midterm from scratch after an accidental deletion.

How to Use It

Go to the homepage of your Canvas course.
In the URL at the top of your browser, add /undelete to the end.
- Example: https://utahtech.instructure.com/courses/12345/undelete
Hit Enter.
You’ll see a list of recently deleted items.
Click “Restore” next to the item you want to recover.

Pro Tip

This works best for recent deletions, so use it as soon as you notice something’s missing.
Bookmark or memorize /undelete—it’s your emergency exit when things go sideways.

Page Rollbacks

Page Rollbacks

Every time you save a Canvas page, Canvas keeps a version history. Page Rollbacks let you view and restore earlier versions of that content without retyping or manually reformatting anything.

For Dr. Ellis, this means she can undo the formatting mess on her Week 6 Overview page with just a few clicks.

How to Use It

Open the Page you want to restore.
Click the three-dot menu (⋮) in the top right corner.
Select "View Page History."
You’ll see a list of saved versions with timestamps and editor names.
Click on a version to preview it.
If it’s the one you want, click “Restore This Version.”

Canvas Guide: How do I view the history of a page in a course?

Pro Tip

Use this when multiple people edit the same course or when trying out layout changes.
It’s also a great safety net when copying/pasting content from Word or websites that might mess up formatting.

Student View

Student View

Student View allows you to experience your course exactly as a student would. You can see what’s visible, what’s hidden, and even test quizzes, submit assignments, and view grades as the “Test Student.”

Dr. Ellis uses Student View to quickly confirm that the discussion post her students are asking about is, in fact, still unpublished.

How to Use it

From any Canvas course page, click "Student View" in the top left corner of your screen.
Your screen turns pink to indicate you’re now viewing the course as a student.
Navigate around the course:
- Check which items are visible
- Submit a test assignment
- Take a quiz or view grades
To exit, click “Leave Student View” in the bottom right corner.

Canvas Guide: How do I view a course as a test student using Student View?

Pro Tip

Use Student View before publishing your course or releasing a new module.
Check for:
- Unpublished items
- Incorrect availability settings
- Broken links or file access issues

View Gradebook History

View Gradebook History

Gradebook History provides a log of every grade change in your course. It shows:

The assignment,
The student,
The previous and new score,
The grader, and
The timestamp of the change.

It's a reliable way to track edits, especially during regrades, student appeals, or grading with TAs.

When a student questions their quiz score, Dr. Ellis uses Gradebook History to confirm exactly when and how it was changed—no guesswork required.

How to Use It

Go to your course’s Gradebook.
Click the gear icon in the top right to open Gradebook Settings.
Select “Gradebook History.”
Filter by:
- Student name
- Assignment name
- Grader
- Date range
Review or export the history as needed.

Canvas Guide: How do I view the history of all grading changes?

Pro Tip

Useful during midterms or finals when grading volume spikes.
Ideal for courses with TAs, shared grading, or even your own memory fails after a long grading session.

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