Identifying Correct Recipient in Canvas Inbox Due to Duplicate Course Name

Question

When our instructors try to send a message via the Inbox and search for a course name, Canvas only shows the full name of the course — without any additional identifying information such as course ID number or course section.

This causes confusion when an instructor has multiple courses with the same course title, but different course section. Both courses have exactly the same display name. This makes it impossible to know which course section is being selected.

Is there a way to edit the course name that is displayed to include the course section number?

(I found a similar question in the forum regarding individual name, but it does not help with this particular issue involving the courses.)

Chris · Accepted Answer

Hi @RachelHunley48848184,

Displaying the sis_id in the inbox isn't an option as far as I know, without doing some kind of global Canvas theme modification via javascript (which I dabble in occasionally, but I'd only recommend to Canvas admins who are also intermediate/advanced coders).

What I am suggesting is modifying your course titles in Canvas, as those are what's really shown to non-admin users all over the place (including the inbox, dashboard, and many other locations).  We generate out own CSV files form our sis and feed then to Canvas, so it's relatively easy for our IT team to modify those things if needed.  We did go through a couple different formats before settling on what we have now.  There are so many different ways to feed data from an sis to Canvas that I can't really say with any certainty what a modification like that would need form your end.  It could be easy, it could be impossible, or anywhere in between.  I'd definitely recommend reaching out to whatever team manages the sis-Canvas integration at your school to ask about this.

I hope this extra info helps a bit more.

-Chris

Chris_Hofer · Accepted Answer

I would agree with the comments from @Chris about somehow displaying the course number as part of the title of the course.  At the past college I worked at (it's been a few years now since I worked there), my recollection is that we appended the 5-digit CRN (Course Reference Number) to the end of the course name.  So, if we had a Computer Literacy course with a course number of 103-159-12345, the actual course name in Canvas was something like Computer Lit-Microsoft Office (12345).  That was just how we did it, and it seemed to work for our needs and for our instructors, but each school does things differently.  At the College I work at now, we include the full semester name, course name, and course number in the title.

Another option I thought of for your instructors would take a little bit more work on the instructor's end, but it might work as a temporary solution.  Have you considered using course nicknames?  Nicknames are names that instructors could give their courses that only the instructor would be able to see.  I think that the nickname would display in the Inbox, but I am not 100% sure.  Check out the "Create Nickname" section of this Guide:

How do I view my courses in the Card View Dashboard? - Instructure Community

I hope this will help in some way.  Good luck!